The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. We had free reign over what to do with said cheesecake recipe, as in adding toppings, flavors, etc. so I made a real Margarita Cheesecake, much, much, much, better than the no-bake version I made a month or two ago.
I must say, this cheesecake is the creamiest and the smoothest – texture wise, but my margarita version has quite a bite!
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake (Margarita Flavored):
crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
1 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt
cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lime juice
zest of 1 lime
1 tbsp tequila (I prefer 1800)
1 tbsp gran marnier
Margarita Curd Topping:
1/3 cup margarita (however you like to make them – alcohol included!)
2 large eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1/2-inch cubes and chilled
1 tbsp heavy cream
pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside. (If using a springform, set the bottom of the pan into and pull it up around the sides leaving the top open to fill with the filling. This keeps the water out and your crust from getting soggy!)
3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, lime juice, lime zest, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy. (I actually ended up adding approximately another tablespoon or two of the alcohol and it didn’t mess with the recipe too much, if anything I think it helped keep it smooth and silky instead of that crumbly-ish sandy-ish texture.)
4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill.
6. While the cheesecake is cooling, make the margarita curd. Heat the margarita in a small non-reactive saucepan over med heat until steaming (but NOT boiling!!!!). Whisk the eggs and yolk in a bowl, then slowly whiskin the sugar.
7. Whisking constantly, slowly pour in the hot margarita mix into the eggs (this is tricky, but you can do it!). Return the mixture back into the pan head over medium, stirring constantly (SERIOUSLY!) until the mixture is thick enough to cling to the spoon, about 3 mins.
8. Remove the pan and slowly stir the butter in one piece at a time, not adding more butter until each individual piece has melted/disappeared. Really, you have to do this, it sucks, I know. Then stir in the cream and salt, and pour through a fine mesh strainer. If the curd is still warm, cover with saran wrap (so it doesn’t get a skin) and cool in the refrigerator.
9. De-pan the cheese cake, top with the curd and enjoy!
(PS I apologize to the daring bakers for posting this two days late! I’m still trying to figure out where everything is in the forum!)
Iiiit’s peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time! The second of April is peanut butter and jelly day!
(This video may be offensive to some people, jsyk.)
Peanut butter and jelly is my standby lunchtime staple. I don’t even really like peanut butter. I just eat it because its easy to make, and peanut butter and jelly don’t go bad if you don’t eat it the same day you make it. Sometimes the bread can get a little soggy if you use a really wet jelly, but that’s about it.
I could give you some spiffy peanut butter and jelly cookies, or bread, or cake, but I think I’m going to leave it simple and pure to the original this time.
I work for a small non-profit and a local design company does all of the design work for all of our printed material for free. Since they do all of that for us for free, I thought I’d bake them a cake.
This was the first time I used my decorating tips and semi-professional techniques. I think it turned out pretty well. The cake is lemon with lemon curd filling (really tasty). Then covered with insanely sweet buttercream. I actually haven’t tasted the cake itself, I made it for someone else so it is currently sitting in a cake box on the counter. I have tasted all the leftover crumbs and trimmings though!
I know, its insane! The brightness, the colors, the craziness!!!
But I kind of like it even though its crazy. I’d have to say its pretty good considering it is the first time I have ever decorated a cake with decorating tips. Up to this point all I had done was slap some frosting on stuff and spike it with a knife or trace designs into it with a spoon or something.
Woot! Maybe I’ll should try something simpler next time.
So some places say its National Carrot Day, other places have it marked as National Carrot Cake Day. Either way this orange (or yellow or white) root vegetable scores in my book!
To commemorate I give you a recipe for super-delicious carrot cake!
Ingredients:
12.5 oz unbleached all purpose flour (2 1/2 cups)
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pound carrots, grated
9 oz sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups oil
Frosting
16 oz cream cheese, softened
4 tablespoons butter, softened (none of that margarine here!)
1 vanilla bean
2 tablespoons plain yogurt (plain! not vanilla!)
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons mexican vanilla (from mexico people, not the stuff you get at the grocery store)
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9 × 13 pan with cooking spray and parchment paper. (Believe me, you’ll want the parchment paper.)
2. Whisk together the dry stuff (except the sugars).
3. Mix (beat) together the sugar and eggs until thoroughly mixed.
4. If you’re using a mixer (which you should) slowly add the oil to the egg/sugar mixture in a steady stream. Mix until thoroughly combined.
5. Stop the mixer and stir in the grated carrots by hand.
6. Stir in the dry stuff a little at a time until thoroughly mixed.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared 9 × 13 pan, and bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating once while baking. (The temperature should be at 190 degrees F.)
8. Once its done baking allow it to cool in the pan on a rack for at least 2 hours before frosting.
9. Make the frosting: Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the beans adding them to the cream cheese. Add the yogurt and mexican vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Slowly incorporate the powdered sugar and blend.
10. Once the cake is cooled, flip carefully and peel off the parchment paper. Frost and serve.
February 2, is National Baked Alaska Day. For the rest of this year, 2009, I will be featuring random foods of the day! There are so many different nationalfooddays in America, there is no way I’m going to be able to capture them all, but if there’s one you want me to feature, let me know !
I know I’m already a day late for February 2nd’s national food day, please forgive me. I made some Baked Alaska, then completely forgot its hard to post something while you’re reformatting your computer.
For those of you who don’t know, Baked Alaska is a dessert consisting of cake, topped with ice cream, then covered with meringue, and the entire thing baked in a really hot oven, or the meringue browned under a broiler or blow torch.
I’ve done a little research on where this crazy dish came from, and historical accounts are from all over the place. The basic idea of baking ice cream originates from a variety of places like China and France, with some attributing it to Delmonico’s Restaurant in commemoration of the purchase of Alaska from Russia.
Wherever it came from, its hard to believe that the ice cream doesn’t melt!
To test this theory of non-melting ice cream I had to try it myself. The idea itself is simple, but I didn’t want to bake a cake. Instead I just used a brownie, which is cake-like right? And I made it individual personal pan size.
First you top your cake-like substance with hard cold ice cream (soft serve will not work here!), I used cookies and cream ice cream.
Then stick it back in the freezer to get it really cold.
While its freezing whip up a few egg whites (I used 2) with some cream of tartar (just a pinch) and some vanilla extract, until you have soft peaks.
(You may want to get your broiler roaring, or find your blow torch at this point.)
Slowly add a little under 1/4 of a cup of sugar, one table spoon at a time, beating until you have stiff peaks. (Eh, this is stiff enough!)
Put all that eggy goo in a piping bag (or you can just spoon it on if you don’t have one) and pipe the meringue decoratively around the frozen ice cream and cake-like substance.
Stick that bad boy under the heat and watch carefully so it doesn’t burn (or almost burn like mine did).
So to test this theory of non-meilting ice cream surviving some hot hot heat, I had to try it.
It worked! The ice cream is no more melted then it would be if it was just sitting in a bowl waiting for me to eat it. The meringue was tasty sweet and fluffy and cooked like the meringue on the top of a pie would be (I’d hope so, because I stole the meringe recipe from a lemon meringue pie!).
The only thing I would do differently is not use a brownie. Brownies become very very hard when exposed to freezing temperatures. Also if I ever made a small Baked Alaska like this one again, I’d probably only use one egg for the meringue, two was much more than enough!
I’ll admit, this is one of those recipes that people think took you hours to make because it is so tasty, but in fact there are only 6 ingredients (two of which I didn’t really use), and the whole thing probably took me about 15 minutes (minus refrigeration time).
The recipe is from Gordon Ramsay’s book, Fast Food. Seriously, this is some fast food!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (125 ml) light brown sugar
3 tbsp (45 ml) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups (550 ml) whipping cream, chilled
4 large ripe bananas, (chilled in the freezer 1-2 hours)
squeeze of lemon juice
semisweet chocolate for grating
First add the sugar, butter and 2/3 of a cup of cream in a pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted.
Continue to cook, letting it bubble for a minute or two stirring frequently (you don’t want it to burn!). Remove the sauce from the heat and allow it to cool completely.
Next get out your blender and add the remaining cream, bananas you have cut into smaller pieces,
and a squeeze of lemon juice, into it.
Blend away until its smooth, creamy and thick. Really. That’s all you have to do. No really, thats it!
Next Gordon has you make them all fancy into separate dishes, but since I was taking mine to a party this is what I did. Spoon about 1/3 of the caramel sauce into a 9 × 9 glass baking dish (or well whatever you want to serve this thing in). Next add the banana mousse. Then spoon another 1/3 over the top of the bananas. Stir until swirled. Add the last 1/3 and swirl into the banana mousse again.
Finally shave some chocolate over the top, or do like I did and just sprinkle some chocolate powder you use for baking over the top. Its really not too bitter considering how sweet the rest of the dish is.
Refrigerate for a few hours and serve!
That’s it, really!
Told you it was fast!
No Images Version:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (125 ml) light brown sugar
3 tbsp (45 ml) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups (550 ml) whipping cream, chilled
4 large ripe bananas, (chilled in the freezer 1-2 hours)
squeeze of lemon juice
semisweet chocolate for grating
First add the sugar, butter and 2/3 of a cup of cream in a pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted. Continue to cook, letting it bubble for a minute or two stirring frequently (you don’t want it to burn!). Remove the sauce from the heat and allow it to cool completely.
Next get out your blender and add the remaining cream, bananas you have cut into smaller pieces, and a squeeze of lemon juice, into it. Blend away until its smooth, creamy and thick. Really. That’s all you have to do. No really, thats it!
Next Gordon has you make them all fancy into separate dishes, but since I was taking mine to a party this is what I did. Spoon about 1/3 of the caramel sauce into a 9 × 9 glass baking dish (or well whatever you want to serve this thing in). Next add the banana mousse. Then spoon another 1/3 over the top of the bananas. Stir until swirled. Add the last 1/3 and swirl into the banana mousse again.
Finally shave some chocolate over the top, or do like I did and just sprinkle some chocolate powder you use for baking over the top. Its really not too bitter considering how sweet the rest of the dish is.
Fall is in the air. Its crisp and cool outside and the trees have just a touch of fall in them. So close to my favorite time of year, yet summer isn’t over. To combine the two I have added a fall classic, apple cider, to a summer classic, ice cream!
It has the sweet creamyness of ice cream, combined with the spicy tartness of apple cider, as well as a spiced caramel apple swirl throughout.
The recipe is rather simple, but you do need an ice cream maker for this recipe. I recently got one on super clearance for $7! This recipe is actually the first ice cream I have ever made that wasn’t from the girl scout coffee can contraption I used as a kid!
I can’t bring myself to eat as many raw eggs as many ice cream recipes call for so I actually cooked the mixture into a custard before cooling, churning and freezing. The texture is much like the texture that many Breyer’s All Natural Ice creams have.
I used granny smith apples in my recipe, but if you find these too tart for your liking feel free to use whatever you want!
Skip to just the recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups cream
2 cups whole milk
2 cups apple cider
3/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean or 1 tbsp vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
Caramel swirl:
3 Tbsp butter
2 granny smith apples, cut into 1/4 inch (1 cm) pieces
1 1/2 cups brown sugar.
First combine the cream, milk, apple cider and sugar in a large stockpot.
Stir in the sugar.
Split and scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the mixture. Heat until steaming, but NOT boiling. Do not let this boil!
Whisk the egg yolks until uniform in color then temper. When the eggs are thouroughly warmed, add them to the cream mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, until thickened without letting the mixture boil. When the mixture is thickened, but not to the point of a custard remove from the heat. (Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of this part, its really boring anyways, just stir, stir, stir, – here’s a picture of my doggie instead)
Strain through a fine mesh sieve to get any cooked egg bits out (we all have them, I’m not a perfect custard maker!)
Following the manufacturers instructions on your ice cream maker, make ice cream from this cooled mixture.
While the ice cream is churning away, make the caramel apple swirl.
Begin by melting the butter in a pot. When melted add the apple pieces and cook until soft.
Add the brown sugar and cook until the sugar is dissolved and slightly darkened. Be careful not to burn the sugar or allow it to heat so much it turns brittle when cooled. Allow to cool completely.
When the ice cream is done churning,
move it to a container to freeze and harden (or leave it in the churning container if the instruction manual says thats okay).
Quickly stir in the cooled caramel apple mixture until just combined. Be careful not to overmix! You want streaks of caramel apple goodness.
Place in the freezer and freeze until hardened.
Eat.
Ingredients:
2 cups cream
2 cups whole milk
2 cups apple cider
3/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean or 1 tbsp vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
Caramel swirl:
3 Tbsp butter
2 granny smith apples, cut into 1/4 inch (1 cm) pieces
1 1/2 cups brown sugar.
First combine the cream, milk, apple cider and sugar in a large stockpot. Stir in the sugar. Split and scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the mixture. Heat until steaming, but NOT boiling. Do not let this boil!
Whisk the egg yolks until uniform in color then temper. When the eggs are thouroughly warmed, add them to the cream mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, until thickened without letting the mixture boil. When the mixture is thickened, but not to the point of a custard, allow to cool completely.
Following the manufacturers instructions on your ice cream maker, make ice cream from this cooled mixture.
While the ice cream is churning away, make the caramel apple swirl.
Begin by melting the butter in a pot. When melted add the apple pieces and cook until soft. Add the brown sugar and cook until the sugar is dissolved and slightly darkened. Be careful not to burn the sugar or allow it to heat so much it turns brittle when cooled. Allow to cool completely.
When the ice cream is done churning, move it to a container to freeze and harden (or leave it in the churning container if the instruction manual says that’s okay). Quickly stir in the cooled caramel apple mixture until just combined. Be careful not to overmix! You want streaks of caramel apple goodness.
It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, it’s just that I haven’t been posting. In the past few weeks I have made a few things, I tried a new pancake recipe, made some Ginger-Carrot-Pecan Cupcakes, made some Chai, bought some dilled green beans, a purple bell pepper (yes purple!), and just this morning made some whole wheat cinnamon pecan pancakes.
I’ll start with the most perfect looking pancake I have ever made:
I know its not “model perfection” but it does look pretty tasty. I’ve deemed it the best looking pancake because, well it is. Its almost perfectly round, with uniform solid color throughout. There aren’t any wierd little bubble holes, or pouring mistake lines in it. It looks just right.
I’m weird about food like that sometimes, leave me alone.
One weekend while a southern friend was visiting we went to the flea market which also includes food vendors. One of them was selling purple bell peppers. Yes PURPLE.
They were pretty weird. The taste was a mild pepper taste, kind of bland, but they sure did look nice!
If you’re wondering if the color is carried inside of the pepper, it is not :(, its white inside:
The purple color fades as you cook it as well. Rather disappointing.
Then there was my chai disaster:
Lets just say trying to use a coffee filter to filter out the spices didn’t work so well. I’ll let you know when I figure the recipe out, I’m trying to make chocolate chai. For now I’m going to stick with my tazo.
As for the green beans, the cupcakes and the new pancake recipe, you’ll just have to wait.
This dessert is awesome. If you love chocolate covered strawberries, this is for you. Its a multiple layer dessert consisting of crepes, strawberry cheesecake, strawberries and chocolate ganache.
It looks complicated, and the instructions are long, but if you can make pancakes, slice vegetables, run a mixer for cookie batter, and heat cream on the stove, you can make this dish.
You don’t even need to make everything the same day, everything except the ganache can be made up to a day before and stored in sealed containers in the fridge.
“YOUWANT ME TO MAKECREPES?!?!?” Yes. I do. Don’t think of them as crepes. Think of them as really thin pancakes, that take a heck of a lot less time to make. The most important things to remember are to let the batter set before you try and flip them. (otherwise it will make a mess.), and don’t worry if you mess up. Make sure you use a round nonstick pan, the same size you want your crepes (I used a 6 inch nonstick I got at a discount store for about $5, it really doesn’t need to be that fancy).
Crepes:
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
4 1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 c milk
3 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons melted butter.
Cheesecake Filling:
8 oz strawberry or raspberry flavored cream cheese (room temperature)
8 oz plain cream cheese (room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup half and half (or cream)
1/4 cup juice from the strawberries
2 Tablespoons strawberry jam, preserves, or jelly
Chocolate Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Whipped Cream:
1 cup Heavy Cream
2-3 Tablespoons sugar
Slice thinly and place into a seal-able container.
As you are filling the container, occasionally sprinkle the strawberries with a Tablespoon or so of sugar.
When all the strawberries are sliced (reserving a few for decoration if you’re into that sort of thing) put the lid on the container and shake to mix everything up. Refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours, preferably overnight, until the strawberries release juices and they look really juicy.
Get out the cream cheeses if you are making the crepes the same day as you are assembling the lasagna. You will not be needing them this step, but its good to let them warm up while you are cooking.
Begin by adding all the ingredients in a blender
and blend for 1 minute on high (with the lid on).
Scrape down the sides with a spatula and blend for another 15-20 seconds.
Allow the batter to sit in the fridge for 1 hour, or overnight.
To make the crepes:
Pour 3-4 Tablespoons (a little less than 1/4 cup) of batter into a preheated (to medium) lightly greased nonstick pan. Move the pan in a circular motion tilting so that the batter moves round and around the pan, slowly cooking, to ensure an even thickness.
When the batter no longer moves and the top has just lost its shine, and there are tiny bubbles (sort of like pancakes!), about 30-45 seconds. Carefully slide your spatula around the crepe in the pan to loosen and flip!
Cook for another 10-15 seconds and remove from the pan to a plate.
Set them aside to cool while you make the cheesecake filling, or store wrapped in plastic wrap, or in a sealable container in the refrigerator.
Step 3: Make the Cheesecake Filling.
Carefully strain the strawberries, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid.
Combine the cream cheeses in a mixing bowl and blend until smooth.
Add the sugar and mix until combined.
Then add 2 Tablespoons of jam.
Then 1/4 cup of juice from the strawberries previously prepared.
Follow with the half and half or cream.
Mix until everything is thoroughly combined and the mixture is smooth and easily spreadable. If it seems a little thick, slowly add the half and half or cream one Tablespoon at a time until it is the consistency of thick pudding.
Refrigerate if you are not assembling the lasagna right away.
The ganache is the easiest part of the whole recipe. You want to make this right before assembling the lasagna
Heat 1/2 a cup of cream until it is steaming on the stove top in a small pot (or in the microwave if that’s your sort of thing). Add the chocolate chips and stir slightly.
Allow the mixture to sit for 3-4 minutes, then whisk until the chocolate is thoroughly combined.
You don’t need to put the chocolate on the heat! The heat from the warmed cream is enough to melt the chocolate into a tasty goo. Really!
Spread the cheesecake mixture thinly over the crepes, making sure they are completely covered (about 1/4 inch thick).
Spread a layer of strawberries on top of the cheesecake.
Carefully pour a thin layer of chocolate over the strawberries, using the back of a spoon to spread it carefully.
Repeat the steps filling the dish, or until you run out of ingredients.
Refrigerate 4-5 hours or overnight.
If you want to top the dish with whipped cream, combine the 1 cup of heavy (or whipping) cream and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar, stirring until dissolved. Whisk/beat with a mixer on high until stiff peaks form. This whipped cream is only slightly sweetened. Believe me, it makes a good contrast to the lasagna!
Spread the whipped cream on top of the lasagna.
Serve.
Text Only Directions:
Step 1: Prepare the Strawberries
Step 2: Make the Crepes
Step 3: Prepare the Cheesecake Filling
Step 4: Make the Ganache
Step 5: Assembly and Refrigeration
Crepes:
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
Strawberry Filling:
2 lbs strawberries
sugar
Cheesecake Filling:
8 oz strawberry or raspberry flavored cream cheese (room temperature)
8 oz plain cream cheese (room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup half and half (or cream)
1/4 cup juice from the strawberries
2 Tablespoons strawberry jam, preserves, or jelly
Chocolate Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Whipped Cream:
1 cup Heavy Cream
2-3 Tablespoons sugar
Step 1: Prepare the Strawberries
Step 2: Make the Crepes
Step 3: Prepare the Cheesecake Filling
Step 4: Make the Ganache
Step 5: Assembly and Refrigeration
Step 1: Prepare the Strawberries
Wash and trim the strawberries.
Slice thinly and place into a seal-able container. As you are filling the container, occasionally sprinkle the strawberries with a Tablespoon or so of sugar.
When all the strawberries are sliced (reserving a few for decoration if you’re into that sort of thing) put the lid on the container and shake to mix everything up. Refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours, preferably overnight, until the strawberries release juices and they look really juicy.
Step 2: Make the Crepes
Get out the cream cheeses if you are making the crepes the same day as you are assembling the lasagna. You will not be needing them this step, but its good to let them warm up while you are cooking.
Begin by adding all the ingredients in a blender and blend for 1 minute on high.Scrape down the sides with a spatula and blend for another 15-20 seconds.
Allow the batter to sit in the fridge for 1 hour, or overnight.
To make the crepes:
Pour 3-4 Tablespoons (a little less than 1/4 cup) of batter into a preheated (to medium) lightly greased nonstick pan. Move the pan in a circular motion tilting so that the batter moves round and around the pan, slowly cooking, to ensure an even thickness. When the batter no longer moves and the top has just lost its shine, and there are tiny bubbles (sort of like pancakes!), about 30-45 seconds. Carefully slide your spatula around the crepe in the pan to loosen and flip!
Cook for another 10-15 seconds and remove from the pan to a plate.
Set them aside to cool while you make the cheesecake filling, or store wrapped in plastic wrap, or in a sealable container in the refrigerator.
Step 3: Make the Cheesecake Filling.
Carefully strain the strawberries, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid.
Combine the cream cheeses in a mixing bowl and blend until smooth. Add the sugar and mix until combined. Add 2 Tablespoons of jam.
Then 1/4 cup of juice from the strawberries previously prepared.
Follow with the half and half or cream.
Mix until everything is thoroughly combined and the mixture is smooth and easily spreadable. If it seems a little thick, slowly add the half and half or cream one Tablespoon at a time until it is the consistency of thick pudding.
Refrigerate if you are not assembling the lasagna right away.
Step 4: Make the Ganache
Heat 1/2 a cup of cream until it is steaming on the stove top in a small pot (or in the microwave if that’s your sort of thing). Add the chocolate chips and stir slightly.
Allow the mixture to sit for 3-4 minutes, then whisk until the chocolate is thoroughly combined.
Step 5: Assembly and Refrigeration.
Begin by lining your dish with crepes.
Spread the cheesecake mixture thinly over the crepes, making sure they are completely covered (about 1/4 inch thick).
Spread a layer of strawberries on top of the cheesecake.
Carefully pour a thin layer of chocolate over the strawberries, using the back of a spoon to spread it carefully.
Repeat the steps filling the dish, or until you run out of ingredients.
Refrigerate 4-5 hours or overnight.
If you want to top the dish with whipped cream, combine the 1 cup of heavy (or whipping) cream and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar, stirring until dissolved. Whisk/beat with a mixer on high until stiff peaks form. This whipped cream is only slightly sweetened. Believe me, it makes a good contrast to the lasagna!
You’ve heard of cherry coke, there’s even vanilla coke, there are weird diet cokes, and random odd flavors that come out every now and then. This concoction you have to make on your own though.
Last year at an Italian festival nearby, there was a stand advertising, vanilla coke, cherry coke, and chocolate coke. I’m a coke addict so I had to see what was going on, and the lady at the stand showed me how to make it, and now I will share it with you!
Ok, its not that big of secret. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the ingredients are simple:
Pour in the coke.
Add some chocolate syrup and stir. (It has to be syrup, chocolate milk powder mix DOESNOTWORK. Believe me, I tried.)
I recommend adding ice, after mixing in the syrup, otherwise you get little chocolate globules floating throughout the drink.
Also don’t worry when it fizzes up when you add the syrup, its just what it does.
I made this salad a few weeks ago to take to a friends 4th of July barbeque (I’m really late, I know). I love basil, it is so tasty. I’ve got three plants growing in my back yard and I have more than I know what to do with!
I’ve always wanted to make my own pesto, and now I finally have enough fresh basil to do so! The recipe consists of a creamy buttermilk based dressing with garlic and pesto, mixed with noodles, fresh veggies and real mozzarella cheese chunks. Its really easy and really tasty.
I came up with this recipe by taking bits and pieces from all over the internet, and mixing in some of my own tastes! It has quite a few steps, but that’s only because I made my own pesto, but its relatively simple.
Ingredients
Dressing:
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoons rice vinegar
Pesto:
(or use 1 cup pre-made jarred pesto)
(this part is from simply recipes)
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or chopped walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Salad:
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup green beans
1 cup chopped zucchini (about one squash)
(if you prefer different veggies, use whatever you want!)
1/2 cup shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
1 big ball of fresh mozzarella, cubed (or a bunch of the little balls, shredded if that’s all you’ve got!)
16 oz your choices of pasta (I used fusilli, but was seriously contemplating some bowtie)
Boil the pasta according to the box directions, drain, and allow to cool.
Mix together the buttermilk, sour cream, mayonnaise and garlic, set aside to let those flavors meld.
Prepare the pesto.
Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Set aside.
If you don’t like crispy veggies, lightly steam the zucchini and green beans. Don’t let them turn to mush though, it’ll just make the salad a mess
Toss together the pasta, and other salad ingredients, reserving a handful of Parmesan, mozzarella and tomatoes to top the salad.
Just before serving mix together everything but the reserved ingredients. Top the salad with the reserved ingredients and a few whole basil leaves to make everything look pretty.
Yeah. I hate calling certain recipes perfect, because usually you then find one that is actually better. That and its up to the actual eater to determine whether something is perfect or not. I will share why I find these cookies to be so good though.
First, they are caramel-ey crispy. The bottoms are toasted just enough they get that delicious slightly browned crisp to them. Just above that though is a gooey chewy center, that has just the right amount of chew for an oatmeal cookie. Lastly, the little bursts of chocolate spread throughout are just the right amount.
Oh by the way you could use raisins instead of chocolate chips in this recipe. I just really don’t like raisins. Raisins and bananas, yes, two very popular fruits, that I just don’t dig.
Ingredients:
The Creamed:
Unsalted butter, softened 285g (10 oz)(1.25 cups)(2.5 sticks)
Brown sugar 170g (6 oz)(3/4 cup)
Sugar 99g (3.5oz)(1/2 cup) The Eggs:
Eggs 50g (1.75 oz)(1 large)
Vanilla Extract 9g (1/6 oz)(1 teaspoon) The Dry Goods:
Wheat Flour 205g (7.25 oz)(1 1/2 cups)
Baking Powder 5g (<1/4 oz)(1 teaspoon)
Ground Cinnamon 4g (<1/4oz)(1 teaspoon) The Extras:
Rolled Oats 234g(8 1/3 oz)(3 cups)
Chocolate Chips 2 cups (or one standard sized bag 12oz I think)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Whisk all the dry goods together in a bowl.
Beat together the eggs with the vanilla extract.
Mix the butter in a mixer alone until a smooth and consistent texture (aka if there are any cold butter lumps, work them out). Slowly add the sugar and beat until the mixture has lightened and increased slightly in volume.
Add the eggs slowly, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
Work in the dry goods slowly in three separate stages. When the dry goods are mixed in, stir in the rolled oats and chocolate chips with a spoon.
Spoon or portion, or using a 1 oz disher, drop the dough onto an ungreased or parchment lined cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Bake 15-17 minutes (mine were 16) rotating halfway through.
Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet (or they’ll break when you try to remove them!) then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Enjoy.
Ingredients:
The Creamed:
Unsalted butter, softened 285g (10 oz)(1.25 cups)(2.5 sticks)
Brown sugar 170g (6 oz)(3/4 cup)
Sugar 99g (3.5oz)(1/2 cup) The Eggs:
Eggs 50g (1.75 oz)(1 large)
Vanilla Extract 9g (1/6 oz)(1 teaspoon) The Dry Goods:
Wheat Flour 205g (7.25 oz)(1 1/2 cups)
Baking Powder 5g (<1/4 oz)(1 teaspoon)
Ground Cinnamon 4g (<1/4oz)(1 teaspoon) The Extras:
Rolled Oats 234g(8 1/3 oz)(3 cups)
Chocolate Chips 2 cups (or one standard sized bag 12oz I think)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Whisk all the dry goods together in a bowl.
(these dry goods are before whisking)
Beat together the eggs with the vanilla extract.
Mix the butter in a mixer alone until a smooth and consistent texture (aka if there are any cold butter lumps, work them out).
Slowly add the sugar and beat until the mixture has lightened and increased slightly in volume.
Add the eggs slowly, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
Work in the dry goods slowly in three separate stages.
When the dry goods are mixed in, stir in the rolled oats and chocolate chips with a spoon.
Spoon or portion, or using a 1 oz disher, drop the dough onto an ungreased or parchment lined cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Bake 15-17 minutes (mine were 16) rotating halfway through.
Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet (or they’ll break when you try to remove them!) then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Enjoy.
The recipe has been modified from Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for More Food.
I love Juila Child, she is the awesome. It’s also cherry season, which means you have to do something with all those cherries! I thought I’d whip out the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking and see what Julia had to say, which was the clafouti.
According to the book, clafouti is a fruit flan, which is an egg custard filled with tasty cherry bits.
I have to admit, my clafouti could have been better. The bottom didn’t set correctly before I added the cherries, and the custard was kind of pasty and just lacking. It wasn’t as bad as the cupcake disaster though, so feel free to improve on what I’ve made!
Cherry Clafouti
(from Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
Ingredients:
3 cups pitted black cherries
butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
————-
Batter ingredients:
1 1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour
Directions:
Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.
Lightly butter an 7-8 cup baking dish or pie plate about 1 1/2 inches deep.
Place all the ingredients below the line into a blender in the order listed, and blend at high speed for one minute.
Pour a 1/4 inch layer of batter into the baking dish.
The original recipe calls for a fireproof dish, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking for a few of these for the past year or so and have only found two, one at the flea market, another at a thrift store, neither of which are big enough for this recipe.
Because the recipe wanted me to put the dish over an open flame/burner, I instead put it in the preheated oven until the batter had set, which took 5-10 minutes depending on the dish, the batter and the way your oven heats.
After the batter has set, spread the pitted cherries over the batter, and sprinkle with 1/3 cup of granulated sugar. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries.
Place in the middle of the preheated oven and bake approximately an hour. It is done when it has puffed and browned, and a knife inserted in the center of the dish comes out clean. It will sink as it cools.
Sprinkle powdered sugar over the dish just before serving.
Serve warm.
Cherry Clafouti
(from Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
Ingredients:
3 cups pitted black cherries
butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
————-
1 1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour
Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.
Lightly butter an 7-8 cup baking dish or pie plate about 1 1/2 inches deep.
Place all the ingredients below the line into a blender in the order listed, and blend at high speed for one minute.
Pour a 1/4 inch layer of batter into the baking dish.
The original recipe calls for a fireproof dish, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking for a few of these for the past year or so and have only found two, one at the flea market, another at a thrift store, neither of which are big enough for this recipe.
Because the recipe wanted me to put the dish over an open flame/burner, I instead put it in the preheated oven until the batter had set, which took 5-10 minutes depending on the dish, the batter and the way your oven heats.
After the batter has set, spread the pitted cherries over the batter, and sprinkle with 1/3 cup of granulated sugar. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries.
Place in the middle of the preheated oven and bake approximately an hour. It is done when it has puffed and browned, and a knife inserted in the center of the dish comes out clean. It will sink as it cools.
Sprinkle powdered sugar over the dish just before serving.
I keep making all this stuff that I don’t really like. For example, bananas. Yes, I don’t like bananas, you can hate me now. I know I make quite a few things with bananas in them, like banana bread. What can I say, I cook for my friends, who really like bananas.
Oh and my monkey cookie jar does too.
These cookies are more like tiny cakes than a traditional crispy cookie. They’re moist, soft and slightly chewy, with just enough banana flavor (or at least I’m told).
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (300g)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (2g)
1/4 teaspoon salt (2g)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (130g)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar (22g)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (2g)
1/2 cup butter (113g)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (2ml)
1/4 teaspoon banana extract (2ml)
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (optional) (40g)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Beat together the 3/4 cup (130g) of brown sugar and butter, vanilla and banana extract. Mix until light.
Add the eggs and mix until fluffy.
Mix in the mashed bananas.
Slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar, egg, butter, banana mix.
Fold in the nuts (I didn’t have any nuts, so no nuts this time)
Drop by the teaspoon onto a prepared baking sheet. Try to keep them as round as possible, the thin parts just burn.
Sprinkle the cookies with a mixture of the 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and cinnamon. (I forgot this step, oops.)
Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly browned on the edges. The tops of these will not brown.
Let them firm up on the baking sheet for a moment before transferring them to racks to cool.
Eat.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (300g)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (2g)
1/4 teaspoon salt (2g)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (130g)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar (22g)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (2g)
1/2 cup butter (113g)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (2ml)
1/4 teaspoon banana extract (2ml)
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (optional) (40g)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons brown sugar with cinnamon, set aside.
Beat together the remaining 3/4 cup brown sugar, butter, vanilla and banana extract until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, and then add the mashed bananas.
Slowly stir in the flour mixture.
Fold in the chopped nuts, if using.
Drop by the teaspoonful onto the baking sheet. Sprinkle with the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture.
Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly browned around the edges.
Let the cookies cool a moment on the baking sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
These nutrition facts were calculated using the recipe analyzer from Calorie Count at about.com, they are approximations, as in scientists have not evaluated this specific cookie for nutritional value, so use them as guidelines. Thanks!
No really, these cupcakes are really bad. They started out as a good idea. Dark chocolate cupcakes filled with tasty peanut butter goodness, like a reese’s cup, but cake like. I couldn’t even finish taking pictures of this horrible horrible cupcakes.
I’ll share some pictures with you but I don’t have the heart to post the recipe.
It started all good. A basic chocolate cake recipe.
Mix the ingredients by the muffin method, and stir.
Mmmm tasty chocolate batter.
Pop them in a 350 oven for about 20 minutes.
This is where it began to all go wrong. So wrong!
I did a checkup about half way through baking (just turning on the light not opening the door). They looked fine. Rising, beginning to get that little dome.
Alas, when I took them out, they had sunk in the middle –
I said oh well! I wasn’t about to waste a whole batch of cupcakes because they sunk. I was gonna poke a hole in them and fill them anyways. This way, I figure the little dip is just there to fill!
And I made the tasty peanut butter frosting. The frosting consisted of butter, peanut butter, confectioners sugar, and milk. Oh yeah, tasty. (This still tasted good. Recipe at the end.)
It should have been a sign when my first makeshift piping bag blew up in my hand. But I kept truckin.
Then I filled the cupcakes with tastiness.
But then I tried them. The frosting was good. The cupcakes though….the cupcakes….
They were heavy, thick, too moist, too sticky, too gross.
I ended throwing them all out.
It made me sad :(.
But then I ate some more frosting (which still tasted good), and took a picture of the puppy chewing on the steelers.
I’ve never had carbonara before tonight. I’d look at it on menus in restaurants or in recipe books and be like ew gross, bacon and pasta? Nasty man, nasty.
Ends up its really tasty. Not the healthiest thing, but damn tasty.
I came up with this recipe by going through a few cookbooks and websites and combining everything I think will be tasty together. That and I fine tuned it to what I had in my kitchen.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3-4 slices of bacon, diced
2 eggs
1/2 cup shredded parmesean
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 a box of fettuccine
water to cook the fettuccine
1 cup chopped broccoli
1/4 – 1/2 cup of boiling noodle water
Boil the noodles following the directions on the package. Approximately 5 minutes before the noodles are done, add the chopped broccoli.
Crush and finely chop the garlic. Add oil to a pan and lightly cook the garlic. Do not let it burn! It’ll be nasty if you do. Remove all the garlic you can (you don’t want it to burn while you’re cooking the bacon).
Add the bacon and cook until crispy. Drain reserving 1-2 tablespoons of bacon grease.
Whisk the eggs, cheese, herbs and pepper together. Slowly add the boiling noodle water, whisking as you do so that the eggs do not curdle. Add the bacon.
When the noodles are done cooking, drain and place in a large bowl. Pour over the warm egg mixture and toss immediately.
Reheat the pan with the bacon grease (if not still warm) and add the noodles and cook slightly until the egg mixture is thickened and everything is heated through.
Alton talks about six different kinds of baking in that book, the method used for the banana bread is the “muffin method”. This method you combine the wet items in a bowl, the dry in a separate bowl, then add the wet to the dry.
One of the things Alton does differently is he measures his ingredients by weight not volume, like professional bakers do. I’ve made the bread both ways, by using cups and tablespoons, as well as getting my awesome new scale out and measuring the ingredients by weight, both ways make a similar loaf.
This banana bread is simple and basic. It doesn’t have any frilly flavors like lemon, or poppy seed, and it doesn’t have any other fruits in it. Its just plain ole banana bread, a tasty staple.
I of course made a few minor changes. The first time I made it I didn’t have any oat flour, so I just replaced that with all-purpose flour. Lately I’ve been baking with whole wheat flour, so I’ve replaced the all-purpose flour with that. The whole wheat makes it thicker, and it eats like a meal. The original recipe also calls for nuts, but nuts are expensive, and many people I know can’t eat them for a variety of reasons, so I usually leave them out.
Ingredients:
Wet Works 1
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Overripe bananas
340 g
3 – 4
Sugar
210 g
1 cup
Dry Goods
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Whole Wheat Flour (or all-purpose)
220 g
1 2/3 cup
Oat Flour
35 g
1/3 cup
Baking Soda
6 g
1 tsp
Salt
6 g
1 tsp
Wet Works 2
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Unsalted Butter
113 g
8 tbs
1 stick
melted and cooled
Eggs
100 g
2 large
Almond Extract
6 g
1 tsp
Optional:
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Nuts (walnuts,pecans, or almonds)
1 cup
chopped
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F
Grease a loaf pan and line with wax paper.
Peel the bananas.
Mash them. The weight is a little more than what the recipe calls for. This made and OK banana bread, not great. The added banana makes the loaf a little wet when it comes out of the oven, just remember, less bananas means drier bread, more means wetter.
Add 210 grams (or 1 cup) of sugar.
In another bowl melt the butter (this is the butter unmelted).
Two eggs is pretty close to the 100 grams!
Add those to the butter.
Then add the butter/egg mixture (wet works 2) and the almond or vanilla extract to the banana mixture (wet works 1).
Next measure out the “Dry Goods”.
You’ll need 35 grams (1/3 cup) oat flour.
Then 220 grams (1 2/3 cups) of whole wheat or all-purpose flour.
Then 6 grams (1 tsp) each of baking soda and salt.
Add the combined “Wet Works” to the “Dry Goods” and stir until combined.
If you are using the nuts, add them now (I’m not so there aren’t any pictures).
Pour the batter into the pan.
Bake 50 minutes to an hour, or until a thermometer placed into the middle of the loaf registers 210 degrees F (100 degrees C).
Allow to cool on the stovetop for 15 minutes, then remove the loaf and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
Store the bread tightly wrapped for upto a week.
Summary:
Ingredients:
Wet Works 1
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Overripe bananas
340 g
3 – 4
Sugar
210 g
1 cup
Dry Goods
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Whole Wheat Flour (or all-purpose)
220 g
1 2/3 cup
Oat Flour
35 g
1/3 cup
Baking Soda
6 g
1 tsp
Salt
6 g
1 tsp
Wet Works 2
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Unsalted Butter
113 g
8 tbs
1 stick
melted and cooled
Eggs
100 g
2 large
Almond Extract
6 g
1 tsp
Optional:
Ingredient
Weight
Volume
Count
Prep
Nuts (walnuts,pecans, or almonds)
1 cup
chopped
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F
Grease a loaf pan and line with wax paper.
Peel the bananas and mash them. The weight is a little more than what the recipe calls for. This made and OK banana bread, not great. The added banana makes the loaf a little wet when it comes out of the oven, just remember, less bananas means drier bread, more means wetter.
Add 210 grams (or 1 cup) of sugar.
In another bowl melt the butter (this is the butter unmelted) and allow it to cool. Add the two eggs and almond or vanilla extract.
Then add the butter/egg mixture (wet works 2) to the banana mixture (wet works 1).
Next measure out the “Dry Goods”.
You’ll need 35 grams (1/3 cup) oat flour, 220 grams (1 2/3 cups) of whole wheat or all-purpose flour and 6 grams (1 tsp) each of baking soda and salt.
Add the combined “Wet Works” to the “Dry Goods” and stir until combined. If you are using the nuts, stir them in now.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake 50 minutes to an hour, or until a thermometer placed into the middle of the loaf registers 210 degrees F (100 degrees C). If you stick a toothpick in the loaf it may come out gooey. Don’t worry this will set-up as it cools, if you wait for it to come out clean, the outside of the loaf will burn. The bread is fine as long as the inside reaches 210 degrees F.
Allow to cool on the stovetop for 15 minutes, then remove the loaf and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
Its one of my favorite vegetable dishes, and really easy to make. Almost as easy as opening a can, but better.
When its tomato season again I plan on making this with fresh tomatos. As part of the natural food diet I’m on, I’m trying to eat more locally and seasonally (not saying I am able to do this all the time, but I’m trying).
Ingredients:
1-2 small zucchini (or more if you have many)
1 can of plain tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes (plain)
olive oil
basil
oregano
garlic
Clean and slice the zucchini into chunks. Slice the zucchini longways, then again if needed, then into small slices. Half or quarter circle chunks are a good size depending on the diameter of the zucchini.
Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a pan and add the zucchini. Saute until tender.
Next add the tomato sauce and diced tomatoes.
The tomatoes I used already had garlic, oregano, and basil in them. Normally I use plain diced tomatoes, and they usually aren’t organic. This is just what my parents had in their pantry, so its what I used.
At this point, add some garlic powder, oregano and basil to flavor.
Stir and cook until the tomato flavor is saturated throughout the dish.
This recipe is easily customizable to your tastes. If you like crunchier vegetables, only sauté the zucchini for a moment or two.
If you don’t like the tomato chunks, leave out the diced tomatoes and only use the sauce. You can also add chopped garlic and onion before adding the zucchini to the sauce, or add whatever seasonings you want.
The other night my roommate had a hankering for tuna casserole. I couldn’t bring myself to make a cream of whatever soup monstrosity, especially since we’re trying to eat less processed food.
I surfed the internet, and consulted casserole recipe books and came up with this tasty, mild flavored, creamy, cheesy, and sort of healthy recipe.
Ingredients:
12-16 oz of dried pasta (penne, farfarelle, macaroni, whatever you have)
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 tbsp flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried sage
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup peas
1 cup green beans
(or 3 cups total of mixed vegetables chopped into small pieces)
2 6-oz cans of tuna, drained
2 cups cheddar cheese
1 cup breadcrumbs
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.
Cook the carrots slightly to soften them. Also cook the peas and/or the green beans if needed. They will cook a little bit, but if they are frozen or fresh, warm them up a little. (This is a good recipe for leftover vegetables.)
Melt the butter in the olive oil on low.
Cook the chopped onion in the butter/olive oil mix until soft and translucent.
Add the flour to the cooked onions and stir quickly. Stir the mixture until the flour has been coated and forms a paste on the onions.
Add 1/2 a cup of the chicken broth and stir thoroughly. It should be thick with no lumps but the onions. Slowly add the rest of the chicken broth, and the cup of cream, about 1/2 a cup at a time, stirring after each addition until combined.
When all the liquid has been added slowly add 1 cup of cheese, about 1/4 of a cup at a time. Stir the mixture until all of the cheese is melted before adding more.
Add a few spices like parsely and sage if you want to.
In a really big bowl, place the cooked pasta, vegetables, and tuna.
Pour the cream sauce over the whole thing and mix well.
Pour everything into an oven safe casserole dish. Mix together the remaining 1 cup of cheese and breadcrumbs, and sprinkle evelnly over the entire dish.
Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 10-15 minutes until the cheese is melted and everything is bubbly and hot.
I’m told that when I was a baby/toddler my grandfather used to give me whole onions to just munch on like you would an apple. I’m not as fond of onions now as I was then.
Whenever I order something like a hamburger or sandwich, I very strictly specify no onions. I can’t stand the things, most of the time they’re little crunchy chunks of strong taste that usually just mess up whatever I’m eating. If they aren’t crunchy then they’re long and stringy.
The first time I made cucumber salad I left the onions out because I thought they were gross. The resulting salad was even worse though.
One thing that does include onions that I love, and don’t even mind eating the onions in, is french onion soup. I’ll admit, the only reason I ate it in the first place was the the melted cheese on top. Then I found out french onion soup, doesn’t taste like onions.
Up until this point I had been dining on soup from restaurants. The canned stuff was just disgusting and my mom’s was just lacking.
I’m still working on perfecting on my personal recipe every time I make it, but this is what I have so far:
Ingredients:
1 large spanish onion (I prefer this to a yellow or sweet onion)
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp flour
4 cups beef broth (or vegetable)
pepper
1/2 tsp ground sage
For toasty cheese topping:
1 slice of toasted bread cubed or sliced (your preference)
1-2 slices of swiss cheese, or shredded, (or mozzarella, or gruyere)
Peel and slice the onion very thinly. If you don’t want long stringy pieces of onion cut the slice in half.
Melt the butter in the olive oil on low heat in a large soup pot, making sure it doesn’t burn. Add the onions and stir to coat.
Cook the onions on low heat until translucent and soft.
Add the salt and sugar, stir.
Bring the heat up to medium, medium-high heat, and cook until a deep golden brown throughout. Stir frequently making sure that they cook, but not burn. At this point they’ve broken down, and only partially still look like onions.
When they are cooked, turn the heat down again to low and stir in 3 tablespoons of flour. Stir with the onions until the onions are coated and the mixture is paste-like. If the flour is not sticking, add another tablespoon of butter. Cook another minute or two so that the flour browns.
Add about 1 cup of the beef broth and mix well. It should be a thick consistency without any lumps but the onions.
Add the rest of the beef broth and stir to combine.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, and sage.
Allow to simmer for approximately 1 hour.
Serve as is, with cheese topping:
Toast some bread in a toaster, or brush with olive oil and brown under a broiler.
Pour the soup into am oven/broiler proof dish, top with the toasted bread and sprinkle with cheese (or place a slice of cheese over the entire dish).
Broil or bake at 400 degrees F until the cheese is melty and tasty.
My dad actually bought a nice piece of meat all on his own! Ok, so the only reason he got it was because he was on sale. It’s still a nice roast.
http://www.wannagreenbean.com/textpattern/index.php?event=article&step=edit&ID=45
Txp › Wanna Green Bean › Delicious Herbed Standing Rib Roast
Honestly I have never heard of a standing rib roast before, let alone cook one. So I searched the internet and found a recipe to start from. It involved trimming the fat, coating it with tasty garlic and herbs, putting the fat back on, and roasting it to tasty goodness.
If you can get past the cost of the meat, it is a really meal to try sometime.
Ingredients:
1 head of garlic (yes the whole thing)
olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh Thyme
1 standing rib roast of beef (about 4-5 pounds)
1 1/2 cups red wine, plus 1 more cup if making au jus, optional
1/2 cup beef stock, plus 2 more cups if making au jus, optional
Before I start cooking I usually like to gather all the ingredients, so if I don’t have something, I can find a suitable substitute, or run out and buy the ingredient.
With the recipe I had found used red wine in both roasting, and in the au jus (tasty meat juice for dipping). I looked to see what my parents had for red wine and all I could find was this:
I don’t know if you can make that out or not, but its a 1987 vintage. This isn’t quite the type of wine that gets better with age either. They say, if it doesn’t taste good, don’t cook with it, and this stuff was close to turning into vinegar, so I had to run out to get some.
I’m not a big fan of red wine. I just don’t like it that much, to drink at least, food with wine in it is fine. I know almost nothing about wine either, just that I like Barefoot’s white zinfandel so I thought one of their red wines couldn’t be too bad, so I picked up their cabernet sauvignon.
Roasting Garlic
When I roasted my garlic I had just gotten done baking something so the oven was already at 350 degrees F.
Slice the top of the garlic off exposing the cloves inside. Tear off a piece of foil and set the garlic in the center of it. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the garlic head, and sprinkle with pepper.
Fold up the edges of the foil and twist at the top to make a foil wrapped garlic head package.
Set the garlic in the oven and let it cook at 350 degrees F for twenty minutes.
At this point, this is where I ran to the store to get a new bottle of wine, so I turned the oven off, without opening it, I left the garlic in the oven for about another 45 minutes to an hour, until I got home. When it is done roasting, the cloves should be a golden translucent color and your abode should smell tasty.
Back to the roast
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
When the garlic has cooled, remove the cloves from their skin. Place them in a bowl and mash with a fork until almost smooth. Add a little bit of salt and pepper.
Next prepare the fresh herbs. Remove the little leaves from both the rosemary and thyme stems. Chop the herbs slightly, you should have a tablespoon or two of each.
Add the herbs to the garlic and mix well.
As for the meat carefully trim the layer of fat off the top of the roast in one piece.
Spread the herb/garlic mixture across the top of the roast where you just removed the fat.
Place the fat you saved back over the roast ontop of the tasty herbness. In the instructions I was following, it said to tie the roast back up with some kitchen string.
I didn’t do this, but I think you should.
While cooking, the fat on the roast curled up, moved, and went all over, making a mess of the oven. Don’t be lazy like me, and tie the thing up, lol.
Mix together 1 1/2 cups of the wine with 1/2 cup of beef stock. Place the roast into a roasting pan and add the wine/stock mix to the bottom of the pan.
Roast for 20 minutes.
Without opening the oven, reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and continue to roast until the roast is as cooked as you like it, about 18-22 minutes per pound for rare, and 22 minutes for medium.
Let the roast stand for five minutes before carving.
You can serve it with de-fatted pan juices, or make some au jus to go along with it (they’re almost the same thing).
Au Jus
Place the roasting pan on the stove (or do your best to scrape out the tasty bits out of the pan) over medium-high heat. Add 1 cup of red wine, and scrape the browned bits on the bottom of the pan with a spoon. Add 2 cups of beef stock and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Strain the sauce and de-fat if needed. Serve.
So, potato soup is boring and white looking, with maybe little bits and pieces in it. But the taste is much more exciting.
I started with a basic Potato Leek Soup from Simply Recipes and modified it a little to fit my taste, ending up with a tasty smooth simple potato soup.
Ingredients:
3 large leeks
2 Tbsp butter
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth (or veggie broth)
4 medium to large sized potatoes
Salt & Pepper
Start with three leeks:
Trim the leafy bits and the hairy bits from them:
(Dude! They took my hair off!)
Slice them lengthwise:
(Wow, man! Look at your insides!)
Then chop them all to pieces, and rinse them well in a colander:
(Well this sucks.)
Melt the butter in a really big soup pot:
Add the leeks and cook on low for 10 minutes. DO NOTLETTHEMBURN OR BROWN! They’ll taste gross if you do.
While those are cooking, peel and chop the potatoes into about 1/2 inch pieces (or smaller if you want them to cook faster):
(Dude, you’re nekkid. Yeah man so are you!)
Add them to the leeks and add the water and broth:
Cook for 20 Minutes. The soup is almost done when the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork, and the mix looks kinda goupy:
Now comes the tricky part.
If you have a stick blender you can stick in the pot to blend up some of the potatoes, this is the easiest way.
If you don’t very very carefully, pour out half of the soup. Put that into a blender and blend until smooth. CAREFULLY! This stuff is hot hot hot!
Add the blended mixture back into the other half still in the pot and stir to combine.
Carefully do a taste test without burning your tongue. Add salt and pepper as needed until you like how it tastes. There are other things you can add to it like hot sauce, marjoram, or other spices, but I like things like this to be simple.
In the past week I have made two different types of baklava. One traditional style with sheets of phyllo and nuts, another with phyllo, nuts, and a custard.
The traditional name for custard baklava is Baklava Muhalabiyya in Arab cuisine, and Galaktoboureko in Greek cuisine. There is a difference between the two, the greek custard contains eggs, where the Arab custard does not.
Seeing the custard baklava got my brain wheels a turning. What would happen if I combined the traditional nut baklava with the tasty new custard baklava that I found?
The results are mixed. The custard in the baklava I created is only okay for a day or two, whereas nut baklava usually gets better with age. Add to that fact the forgetting of the dish on food day at work, and not having the will to actually eat an entire pan of the stuff, leads to kind of runny sugar syrupy, custard lumpy, but the nuts and the top phyllo still tasty as can be.
So that recipe is a half fail at the moment.
Because that was slightly a fail, and I still had plenty of phyllo left over, I mad a smaller pan of traditional nut Baklava, but only with pecans instead of walnuts or pistachios. Its my Baklava, I’m using pecans if I want to.
It is best if you make the syrup first. It needs to be cool when you pour it over the just out of the oven baklava. If it is still warm when poured, instead of cooking and bubbling when it hits the hot dish, it will just soak into the phyllo and make it soggy.
Ingredients:
1 c sugar
1 c honey
1 1/2 c water
2 tbsp lemon juice
Combine all of the above ingredients in a heavy saucepan.
Bring mixture to a boil, stirring so the sugar dissolves.
Boil for about 5 minutes, without stirring until it forms a thick clear syrup.
Set aside to let it cool completely, not moving it or moving it as little as possible.
6 cups of whole milk
1 c semolina flour
3 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 c white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
6 eggs
1/2 c white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
In a medium bowl whisk together the semolina, cornstarch, 1 cup of sugar and salt so there are no clumps.
When the milk comes to a boil, gradually add the semolina mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.
Cook stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and returns to a full boil.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Beat the eggs until the yolks are broken and slightly mixed.
Add 1/2 c up of sugar,
and whip until thick and pale about 10 minutes. (10 minutes here people, I’m not kidding.)
(Before – dark yellow, After – light yellow)
Stir in vanilla.
Fold the whipped eggs into the hot semolina mixture, cover lightly with plastic wrap (to keep from getting that nasty milk film on the top of it), and set aside to cool.
Nut Filling:
1 lb walnuts finely chopped or coarsely ground, or pistachio (I used pecans, because I like pecans, but walnuts or pistachios are traditional)
1/4 c sugar
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
There are many different blends for Baklava fillings, search the internet and experiment to find one that you like. According to a taste tester, this one has an apple pie flavor because of the cinnamon and cloves.
Finely chop the nuts, by hand, by blender, or food processor. Use whichever method you have available and are comfortable with. I don’t have a cutting board yet, so I put my blender to use. (Living in different houses and using what they already have leads to having a blender, but not a cutting board.)
Mix together the chopped nuts, sugar, cinnamon and cloves.
You will need:
Approximately 1/2-1 cup clarified butter (see below)
A pastry brush
One package of phyllo dough
Clarified Butter
To make clarified butter for this recipe melt two sticks of butter in a microwave safe bowl, do not stir while the butter is melting. Otherwise you will have to wait for the butter to separate.
When the butter is done melting there should be three layers, a fluffy white layer on top, a translucent yellow layer in the middle, and thick white fatty looking layer on the bottom.
Skim the foamy layer off the top, using a spoon and a paper towel.
When the majority of the foamy white stuff has been skimmed off the top, carefully pour the translucent yellow liquid into another bowl, making sure none of the white goop on the bottom goes with it.
This translucent yellow liquid is the clarified butter.
It helps to read up on Baklava and working with phyllo dough before starting, this is a very handy guide written by an at home Baklava baker.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Set up your working station:
Setting up the work station is important. Phyllo dough dries out very quickly so you have to work just as fast. The basics of what you will need are phyllo dough, clarified butter, pastry brush, a damp towel, plastic wrap and a water spritzer. Have both or either filling close at hand as well.
Note that most of the images below are from my nut only Baklava, using a 9 × 9 inch glass baking dish. The images with the 9 × 13 inch baking dish are from my custard/nut combination. I had my roommate take the pictures this time too, so you get to see both hands! (And no, those are not my pajamas, really…)
Roll out your phyllo dough onto the waxy sheet that comes with it, or onto some wax paper. Cover with the damp towel and plastic wrap.
Brush down the dish you are making this in with the butter.
Lay in the first layer.
If your phyllo sheets are larger than your dish (like below) lay one side into the dish with part of it hanging over the edge. Spread butter onto the portion on the bottom of the dish with the pastry brush. Fold over the extra edge then brush that with butter as well.
Go lightly with the butter, you don’t want to drown the sheets of dough.
Continue building layers like this brushing each one lightly with butter before adding the next until there are 8-10 layers of dough in the dish.
If your dough is longer than your dish, but not twice as wide, alternate sides that the dough folds over on. That way there is the same number of layers on each side, and your desert isn’t lopsided.
If you notice your damp towel is getting a little too dry, and your phyllo is becoming brittle, spritz the towel with water lightly. If you soak the towel it will get the phyllo wet and it will stick together.
Pour in your filling, and even it out (for both the custard and the nuts). I wanted more than one layer of nuts, so I reserved about half of them for later.
Lay another layer of dough on the filling and brush with butter. Be careful if you are using the nut filling, it is easy to tear the dough at this point, especially if you are using a sticky brush, since it doesn’t stick to the nuts very well. The dough sticks very well to the custard though, and I didn’t have any problem with tearing at this layer.
If you do tear the dough (which is likely), just piece it back together the best you can and brush it gently with the butter. I have found it didn’t matter too much with tearing except the top layer, but that is only because I wanted a pretty top layer.
Add about 8-10 more layers, brushing with butter between each, as directed above.
If you are just using one layer of filling you can stop at this point. If you are using more than one continue, adding another layer of filling, then another 8-10 layers of dough, and so on, until you have as many layers as you would like, or until you run out of filling.
I don’t recommend having multiple layers of the custard. The dough in the middle is likely to become soggy and ick, it works best with one solid layer in the middle of flakey dough.
You can add as many layers of dough at a time you would like, its your Baklava. Most recipes I found recommended 8-10 and I found it worked well in mine.
When you get to the very top layer of dough, using a nice solid piece of phyllo press it onto the top of the dish. If like in my case, your phyllo is larger than your dish, lay what would be the extra in the dish and brush with butter first, or trim a sheet to the proper size. Lay over the larger piece to cover the entire dish with one solid piece of dough.
Using a VERY sharp knife carefully slice through the top layer of dough.
Do not cut through the bottom layer. If you only have one layer of filling (like with the custard) only cut through the top layer. If you have multiple layers slice through them, but not the bottom one. The cuts make the top bake golden and crispy and pretty, and leave space for the sugar syrup to flow through the entire dish. Cutting directions can be found on this site.
Spritz lightly with water
Bake 40-45 minutes if you have a custard filling, and 30-35 for a nut filling. I have seen recipes that have you bake the phyllo for up to an hour. Take the Baklava out of the oven when the top is golden brown and crispy looking. The custard does need to be in the oven for at least 40 minutes though so that the custard can cook long enough to set.
Immediately after removing it from the oven pour the sugar syrup over it making sure to pour some on all of it getting into the corners and along the edges.
Allow the dish to cool completely. COMPLETELY.
When cool, using a sharp knife, slice through the baklava, following the cuts already made, slicing all the way through to the bottom.
The custard Baklava is best eaten within the first day or two. After that it gets soggy and liquid-y.
On the other hand the nut baklava gets tastier with age. I’m not sure how long until it goes bad. It never lasts very long.
I’m just going to get to the point, they’re dim sum, they’re finger food, they’re oriental, and they’re sesame seed covered goodness.
The ingredients for these tasty balls are simple, but might be hard to find if you don’t have an Asian market near by. Then again, there’s always the internet. If you can’t find what you need in the Asian market, ask! Many times items are only labeled with their native language, the people working in the store will be more than happy to find you what you need.
I got my recipe from the book Classic Deem Sum by Henry Chan, Yukio Haydock, and Bob Haydock. The recipes are from Yank Sing Restaurant in San Francisco. The book was published in 1985 so it might be a little hard to find. I found mine at the library but there are a few on Amazon.
I modified their recipe a little bit. Red bean paste is easily found already prepared in Asian markets, so I used prepared red bean paste instead of making my own.
The recipe calls for wheat starch. Wheat starch is NOT wheat flour. Wheat starch is finer and resembles corn starch more than flour. I found mine at my local Asian market.
Make one batch of sweet rice dough at least two hours in advance.
Sweet Rice Dough:
Ingredients
2 cups sweet rice flour
3/4 c water
1/4 c lard, softened (I used crisco)
2/3 c wheat starch
1/4 c dark brown sugar, packed
2/3 c boiling water
Start with the rice flour
Mix in the water.
Mix by hand until the mixture forms a dough, set aside.
Add the lard (or crisco) to the wheat starch.
Mix together. I used a fork to do this, much like you would for a pie crust.
Add the brown sugar to 2/3 cup water and stir until dissolved.
Bring to a boil.
This next part is a little tricky and involves hot boiling sugar water, so there aren’t any pictures.
To the wheat starch and lard mixture, quickly pour the boiling sugar water mixture while stirring vigorously until combined. (See told you this was tricky.)
It should look like this when combined.
Add the wheat starch mixture to the rice flour and mix well by hand.
The instructions then say to turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead until thoroughly mixed, about 10 minutes. I realized my handy kitchenaid would work much better, and tossed it in there for a while until the dough formed a nice ball.
Flatten the dough to 1/2 and inch and wrap in plastic wrap.
Preheat 4/6 cups of oil (or heat your deep fryer) to 360 degrees F.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide in half. Rewrap one half and set aside. Knead the other portion a few times and roll into a 1 inch dough worm.
Cut dough into 20 sections and roll each into a ball. Cover and repeat with the other half of the dough.
The bean paste I had was a little watery so I drained it a bit. I took a spoonful at a time and set it in a couple paper towels (a tea towel would work well also). Fold over the towel and squeeze to remove some of the water. When you unfold the towel the paste should be noticeably drier.
Take one of the balls and form into a shallow cup.
Add a dab of the bean paste 1/4 to 1/2 a teaspoon to the center of the cup.
Bring the sides up to close the opening and roll in the palm to make an even ball.
Roll this ball into white sesame seeds to coat.
Fry the sesame seed balls in 360 degree F oil about 4-6 at a time. Remove each ball when it begins to float. Drain on a rack or paper towels, serve hot.
8 oz dried red beans
1/4 c black sesame seeds, toasted
1/2 c lard (or crisco)
1 1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1. Wash beans in cold water. Discard any that float.
2. Put beans into a 2-quart pan. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil, uncovered, over high heat.
3. When water boils, add 1/2 c more water and reduce heat to medium. Cook, covered, until beans are tender enough to be easily mashed between thumb and finger, about 2 hours. Replace water as necessary to keep beans covered. Cool in liquid to room temperature.
4. Place beans and liquid in bowl of food processor with metal blade. Puree.
5. Place towel in mixing bowl. Pour in beans. Gather four corners together and twist to squeeze out excess liquid. Discard liquid.
6. Toast black sesame seeds and pulverize in a food processor or blender. Set aside.
7. Heat lard in wok over medium heat until liquified. Add bean paste, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly until beans are the consistency of slightly dry mashed potatoes, about 25 minutes. Make sure the mixture doesn’t burn.
8. Stir in pulverized black sesame seeds at this point. The mixture should be very thick.
9. Place in a shallow bowl and cool to room temperature.
I am enamored with Alton Brown. I love his show, I’ve got a dorky childish crush on his tasty cooking abilities.
Along with Alton, I’m enamored with anything sugary and buttery and calorie laden. Which means when I saw Alton’s episode on buttercream icing I had to try it.
His buttercream consists of eggs, a sugar syrup, and a whole lotta butter. It didn’t sound too difficult, so I gave it a whirl.
It whirled all right but it didn’t fluff thats for sure. The butter kept breaking and separating even at the lowest setting, so all I had was at the end was a thick buttery sugary syrup. It tasted great, it just not quite right for frosting a cake with.
I’d go into more detail about what happened what went wrong and what happened in the kitchen during and afterwards, but those are painful memories of failed sugar. Please don’t make me bring them up.
Never fear! I will try this concoction again, after I burn off the calories from this cake I made to use the frosting on.
I ended up making a buttercream-esque frosting instead for the cake consisting of shortening, butter, and powdered sugar. It still tasted delightfully light, fluffy, sweet and buttery.
By the way, I cheat. I used a boxed white cake. Not only was it boxed, but funfetti as well. I did spiff it up a little with whipped egg whites to make it extra fluffy. (Alton said its okay to used boxed cake as long as you make your own frosting!!!!)
You will need:
1 boxed white cake mix (get one where you have the option of using whole eggs, or just the whites)
oil
water
eggs (follow the box for the amount needed)
seed free fruit spread (I used Raspberry Polaner’s Fruit Spread)
shortening
butter (softened)
powdered sugar
Start by greasing two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans.
Following the directions for making a cake using only egg whites, separate as many eggs as needed and place the egg whites into a chilled metal bowl.
Beat the egg whites with a cleaner than clean beater until stiff peaks form. If your beaters are dirty, the egg whites will not be able to fluff properly.
In a separate bowl mix together the cake mix, water, and oil (or whatever the box says to mix together). DO NOTADDTHEEGGSYET!
Beat the cake mix for a couple minutes until mixed.
When the batter is mixed, slowly fold in the whipped egg whites. Mix in about 1/3 of the egg whites at a time until they are all mixed in.
Pour half of the mixture into each of the cake pans.
Bake the cake as directed on the box (mine said 27-31 minutes at 350 degrees F).
The cakes are done when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, and the edges of the cake pull away from the pan.
Allow the cakes to cool completely (I’m serious here, LETTHEMCOOL).
If you really need to eat some slice a very thin slice off the top of the cake, no chunks!!!
(Here is where I began to get very upset at my failing buttercream, so there aren’t pictures for all the steps, nor did I actually measure anything out, sorry!)
Start making your fake buttercream icing.
I used about a 1 to 1 ratio of shortening to butter in this icing. I wanted the butter for flavor, but the shortening to help keep things smooooooooth. Use as much as you want, I used about a cup of each (I wasn’t measuring, just adding things randomly).
Mix these with a blender on medium to high speed. Until nice smooth and silky. I beat for 2-3 minutes, you may need to do it longer depending on the temperature and softness of your ingredients.
Now comes the powdered sugar. (No pictures sorry!)
Sift about 1 cup of powdered sugar to start with.
Stop the beaters for a second and add about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of sifted powdered sugar. Stir a little bit with a spatula to incoporate just slightly so the sugar doesn’t go everywhere when you turn the beaters back on.
Mix with beaters until the sugar is incorporated.
Do some quality control and taste your icing. Unless it still looks shiny and greasy, you don’t have enough sugar yet, it’ll taste gross and greasy.
Keep adding sifted powdered sugar, mixing and tasting until the frosting is the consistency and sweetness that you desire.
I’m not sure what happens if you add too much sugar. I never tried that….if you do, let me know what happens.
Now back to the cakes….
Slice the cakes in half carefully with a long serrated knife.
Spread the insides of each cake with the fruit spread and put them back together as level and centered as possible (so they’re like large sandwich cookie made of two layers of cake, and some fruit spread).
Set one jelly filled cake on your cake plate (or a really big upside down plate in my case).
Plop about 1 cup of frosting ontop of that and spread it out.
Set the second fruit spread filled cake ontop of that as centered as possible (a.k.a. not like mine).
Then plop down what is left of the frosting (minus that spoonful to eat later). I mean all of it here people! It really actually will make it easier to frost. I don’t know why but its easier to take frosting off than put more on (especially when your frostings got those cake crumb nasties mixed into it because you didn’t put enough on to start!).
Spread around until the whole thing is covered.
DELICIOUS.
Ok if you really wanted to you could get all fancy and smooth out the frosting, and maybe even make some more color it and add some flowers.
At this point though with all the issues I had with the original buttercream, I just wanted to eat the damn cake.
Oh, and here is the episode that inspired this madness:
Second half mostly on how to ice your cake once the frosting is made:
My friend and I have spent over half a year renovating a house to live in. Its an old house, over 100 years old. The plaster was falling down and everything was painted bright blue and ugly pink/brown/orange. It wasn’t even awesomely kitchy in tacky 1970 colors, it was just downright ugly.
I would post the pictures directly here but the Realtor is a friend of mine, and she seemed doubtful when my roommate said he’d take it. We plan on having her over once its done completely and hope she doesn’t have a heart attack at 23. So if you’re my house selling friend, don’t look yet! Everyone else click on through.
The plaster from all walls except for one closet was torn down (now that was fun), and this is what the kitchen looked like (and thats after cleaning it up a bit). The kitchen along with the rest of the house has improved greatly. The kitchen is so big I almost don’t know what to do with myself.
Except cook.
The only problem is that we hadn’t done any real grocery shopping since well, I don’t even remember. All we had were little bits and pieces that had made it through packing, storage, and then floating around the house for a while. I realized though, that we did have enough for a quick stir fry like meal.
Start by thawing about 1/2 to 1 pound of chicken (whatever kind of chicken you may have) or if you’re vegetarian – tofu, meat substitute or whatever you’ve got.
When you are done using the microwave for thawing (or if you don’t have to thaw the meat at all) cook some boxed rice according to the package’s microwave instruction (this is gourmet cooking we’re doing here).
If you have enough cookware, feel free to cook the rice on the stove. I couldn’t find my saucepan, but I could find a large microwave safe bowl, so that’s how I made it.
Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and lightly shake on some soy sauce.
Heat up a large skillet with a little bit of oil in it (or skip the oil if you don’t have any).
Cook the chicken until cooked through and tasty and golden (or not if you prefer that sort of thing).
Add the frozen vegetables. Yes add them frozen, we’re lazy here people. Use however many vegetables you want. I used a box of Asian teriyaki vegetables, and 1/3 a bag of green beans. Add about 1/4-1/2 a cup of water to help steam the veggies.
Normally this is where I would cover the food to let the steam help thaw out and cook the veggies, but I have no idea where the lid is. I was just happy to find this pan. So if you have a lid, stick it on. Stir occasionally to break up the veggies as they thaw.
When the veggies have separated, its time to add some sauce.
We had some bottled sweet and sour sauce and some soy sauce, so I poured some on. I contemplated using some oriental sesame chicken marinade we had on hand too, but there was already teriyaki sauce in some of the frozen vegetables.
There was still alot of water left in the pan so I decided to thicken it, But then I realized we didn’t have any cornstarch. So I used a few spoonfuls of flour instead, and it actually didn’t turn out too badly.
Spoon out some of the cooking water into a bowl and then whisk in the thickening agent with a fork. Make sure its as smooth as possible before adding it back to the food, otherwise there will be lumps.
Take the rice out of the microwave and laugh at the smiley face the seasonings made as it was cooking, and contemplate selling it on ebay along with mary on toast.
Cook the stir fry for a few more minutes until things thicken up a bit and you’re done!
I made this smoothie this morning to hide a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to taste. I’m suffering from my second spell of illness in the past month. It has not been fun. (It’s also why I haven’t been posting, who wants to eat something a sicko ate?)
My dad gave me some anti-viral elderberry extract to help me get better, and stay better. Its not that it tastes bad, its elderberry extract, its just stronger than strong. Usually when you think of extracts you think of little bottles of alcohol-y fruit flavored liquids you add to things you are cooking or baking. Not this stuff, this stuff is almost as thick as honey, and as dark as molasses. Usually I take a spoonful of the stuff and pour it right down the back of my throat. This morning my brother’s magic bullet sitting right next to the bottle of extract was calling to me.
I am not vegetarian, let alone vegan, but I know many people who are. I bought this really awesome cookbook for a really awesome friend who blogs on a really awesome pet blog, and I couldn’t help but go through it before sending it on its way. It was hard not photocopying the whole thing, but I restrained myself and pulled only a few recipes out.
The cookbook was Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, writting by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. If you haven’t seen this book, pick a copy up for yourself. These authors’ other books are awesome as well.
I was vegetarian back in the day (I won’t say how long ago, that just makes me feel old). I was young and had no idea what I was doing beyond not eating meat. It became a pain in the butt because I was young, dependent on my parents yet, and my dad was big on making roasts for dinner, so I eventually stopped.
Living on my own was the next time I came close to being vegetarian. I didn’t do it on purpose, it was just easier and cheaper to make meals without as much meat, or with no meat at all.
Since buying this book for my friend, I’ve become re-interested in vegetarian and vegan foods. They are healthier, cheaper, and you’re helping sweet furry cuddly animals. I could probably be vegetarian again one day, but it would be some serious work to be vegan. I love egg and dairy products too much, I don’t know if I could live without cheese (no matter how much I’ve found out its really not good for you).
I decided to make one batch of the special flavors of cupcakes from the cookbook, the orange pudding cupcakes, and a batch of plain golden cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The initial results weren’t as amazing as I expected. Right out of the oven they were a little dry, and more earthy than sweet tasting.
I decided to use my friends as food guinea pigs though, and fed them a few too see what they thought. All of my taste testers thought they were great and were really surprised when I told them that they were vegan. They didn’t agree with me at all about the flavors. Since there was such a consensus about how great they were I had to try another one.
They taste better the next day! They became moister and the sweet flavor associated with cupcakes were there. So if you make these and aren’t overly impressed as soon as they come out of the oven, frost them, and let them sit and develop their animal free cupcake-y goodness.
Orange Pudding Cupcakes
These are some tasty citrus cupcakes. I used orange buttercream frosting instead of the ganache used in the recipe in the book. These were light, and I didn’t want to overpower them with a big blob of chocolate on the top (even though chocolate orange is the awesome!). I also didn’t have any marmalade on hand, so I just omitted that part.
3/4 c soy milk
1/2 c fresh squeezed orange juice
3 tbsp tapioca flour, cornstarch or arrow root
1/4 c plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp of turmeric for color (optional)
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
Whisk together the soy milk, orange juice, tapioca flour, sugar, vanilla and tumeric (if using) in a small heavy bottomed saucepan. (I used a spoon because I’m once again house-sitting and am whiskless, and its a nonstick saucepan.) I used cornstarch because that is what I had on hand, but I think one of the other choices would work better, the cornstarch left the pudding starchy tasting (but still good).
Cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is warm and steaming, whisking occasionally.
When the mixture is warm, reduce the heat to low, and stir constantly for 5 minutes as the mixture thickens. When the pudding becomes too thick for a whisk switch to a fork (or like me stick with the spoon).
When the mixture is sufficiently thick and pudding-y, turn off the heat and fold in the orange zest, mixing for another minute.
Transfer the pudding to a bowl and let cool for 10 minutes until the mixture stops steaming. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, it will continue to thicken as it cools.
Next make the cupcakes:
1/3 c canola oil
3/4 c granulated sugar
3/4 c soy milk
1/2 c fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Measure out the flour in a small bowl.
In a large bowl combine the oil, sugar, soy milk, orange juice, and vanilla.
To that mixture add 1 tbsp of flour from the flour in the bowl and mix until combined. This will help emulsify the mixture.
As you can see in the picture before adding the flour, there are large blobs of oil dispersed throughout, after mixing in the flour, there are still drops of oil, but they are smaller and more evenly dispersed.
Sift together the remaining flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three batches, mixing well after each addition until smooth.
Fold in the orange zest and mix to distribute.
Fill each cupcake liner 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. (I love my silicone muffin tray by the way.)
Bake for 20-22 minutes at 350 degrees F. The tops should spring back when touched, and a toothpick come out clean when inserted into the center of a cupcake.
Remove from the muffin tin and cool completely on a baking rack before filling with the pudding, or frosting.
Orange Buttercream Frosting
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a small bowl combine the margarine and shortening until well combined.
Add the confectioners sugar in about 1/2 cup additions.
After each addition of sugar, add a splash of orange juice and beat well with mixers on medium speed.
Add the vanilla and beat for another 3-5 minutes until the frosting is smooth, creamy and fluffy. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. (I put mine in a plastic ziplock bag.)
Assemble
Fit a pastry bag with the widest tip possible, and fill the bag with pudding (use common sense when doing this). Or take a plastic ziplock bag and fill with pudding. Using scissors snip of a corner of the bag to create a poor mans pastry bag.
Using your finger, poke a hole in the top of each cupcake and kind of squish the cupcake around so there is room to pipe pudding into the centers. (High tech I know!)
Pipe the pudding into the cupcakes. Do this by sticking the bag as far as you can into the cupcake, and squeeze the pudding in while supporting the cupcake with your other hand. You want to fill them up as much as possible, don’t be afraid if a little comes out the top of the cupcakes.
When all of the cupcakes are filled use your finger to wipe off access pudding (or a knife if you’re sanitary like that or are feeding them to other people).
Pipe the orange buttercream frosting ontop of the cupcakes decoratively. Or just use a knife or spatula and slap some on there, they’ll taste good either way!
Set the cupcakes in the refrigerator to set the frosting. Eat. (They taste best the second day after the orange and sweetness has had time to soak through the entire cupcake.)
3/4 c soy milk
1/2 c fresh squeezed orange juice
3 tbsp tapioca flour, cornstarch or arrow root
1/4 c plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp of turmeric for color (optional)
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
The cupcakes:
1/3 c canola oil
3/4 c granulated sugar
3/4 c soy milk
1/2 c fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest.
Orange Buttercream Frosting:
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Make the pudding:
Whisk together the soy milk, orange juice, tapioca flour, sugar, vanilla and tumeric (if using) in a small heavy bottomed saucepan.
Cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is warm and steaming, whisking occasionally.
When the mixture is warm, reduce the heat to low, and stir constantly for 5 minutes as the mixture thickens. When the pudding becomes too thick for a whisk switch to a fork.
When the mixture is sufficiently thick and pudding-y, turn off the heat and fold in the orange zest, mixing for another minute.
Transfer the pudding to a bowl and let cool for 10 minutes until the mixture stops steaming. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, it will continue to thicken as it cools.
Next make the cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Measure out the flour in a small bowl.
In a large bowl combine the oil, sugar, soy milk, orange juice, and vanilla. To that mixture add 1 tbsp of flour from the flour in the bowl and mix until combined. This will help emulsify the mixture.
Sift together the remaining flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three batches, mixing well after each addition until smooth.
Fold in the orange zest and mix to distribute.
Fill each cupcake liner 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. (I love my silicone muffin tray by the way.) Bake for 20-22 minutes at 350 degrees F. The tops should spring back when touched, and a toothpick come out clean when inserted into the center of a cupcake.
Remove from the muffin tin and cool completely on a baking rack before filling with the pudding, or frosting.
Orange Buttercream Frosting
In a small bowl combine the margarine and shortening until well combined. Add the confectioners sugar in about 1/2 cup additions. After each addition of sugar, add a splash of orange juice and beat well with mixers on medium speed.
Add the vanilla and beat for another 3-5 minutes until the frosting is smooth, creamy and fluffy. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
Assemble
Fit a pastry bag with the widest tip possible, and fill the bag with pudding (use common sense when doing this). Or take a plastic ziplock bag and fill with pudding. Using scissors snip of a corner of the bag to create a poor mans pastry bag.
Using your finger, poke a hole in the top of each cupcake and kind of squish the cupcake around so there is room to pipe pudding into the centers.
Pipe the pudding into the cupcakes. Do this by sticking the bag as far as you can into the cupcake, and squeeze the pudding in while supporting the cupcake with your other hand. You want to fill them up as much as possible, don’t be afraid if a little comes out the top of the cupcakes.
When all of the cupcakes are filled use your finger to wipe off access pudding (or a knife if you’re sanitary like that or are feeding them to other people).
Pipe the orange buttercream frosting ontop of the cupcakes decoratively. Or just use a knife or spatula and slap some on there, they’ll taste good either way!
Set the cupcakes in the refrigerator to set the frosting. Eat. (They taste best the second day after the orange and sweetness has had time to soak through the entire cupcake.)
This cheesecake is only brought out during the holiday season. Mostly because it uses crushed candy canes and those are a little hard to find in the middle of July (starlight mints, the red and white ones, work but don’t tint the cheesecake as pink). Peppermint flavor screams winter and the holidays as well.
This recipe is so good, I’m just going to get to the point and let you try it for yourself.
(Please excuse the not-so-great photography this time, I’m dog sitting and the lighting in their kitchen isn’t so great for photos.)
Ingredients:
Oreo Cookies (or chocolate crumbs)
Butter or margarine, melted
1 envelope (or 1 tbsp) unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
16-oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup crushed peppermint candies
1 cup whipping cream
2 1.05 oz milk chocolate candy bars
1 9-inch round spring-form pan.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Crush the cookies. I used a blender/food processor to crush the cookies. Make sure the crumbs don’t become too fine, otherwise the crust will be too hard. The original recipe called for 1 cup, but thats never enough to cover the bottom of the pan.
Mix between 2 and 3 tablespoons of butter for each 1 cup of cookie crumbs you use.
Start with a little butter, only adding more butter if the crumbs aren’t sticking together well. Adding too much butter makes the crust really hard. Press the crumb/butter mixture into the bottom of a spring-form pan.
Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven (350 degrees F). Cool.
Crush the peppermints or candy canes. I used starlight mints this time because for some weird reason the grocery store didn’t have any (its two days before Christmas people!). I used about 25 mints (usually about 3 candy canes).
The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of crushed peppermints, I like using a little more about 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Adjust the amount to your taste, if you really like mint use more. If you don’t like mint, or are making this for someone else, use the original amount.
Soften gelatin in the 1/4 cup cold water. Stir over low heat until the gelatin is dissolved.
Combine the cream cheese and sugar together until well blended.
Add the melted and cooled gelatin.
Gradually add the milk, doing your best to keep the mixture as smooth as possible.
Fold in the crushed peppermints.
Chop the chocolate into small chunks. (I use about half a 5 oz hershey’s symphony bar, I like extra chocolate.)
Whip the cream.
Fold in the whipped cream and chocolate pieces.
Pour the mixture over the cooled crust.
Chill in the refrigerator until firm.
Slide a knife around the edge of the cheesecake to help release it from the pan. Slice and serve. (Pictures of that tomorrow.)
Oreo Cookies (or chocolate crumbs)
Butter or margarine, melted
1 envelope (or 1 tbsp) unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
16-oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup crushed peppermint candies
1 cup whipping cream
2 1.05 oz milk chocolate candy bars, chopped
1 9-inch round spring-form pan.
Directions
Crush cookies into crumbs. Create a mixture of 2-3 tablespoons of melted butter to 1 cup of crumbs, increasing amount if needed to cover the bottom of the springform pan. Press mixture into the bottom of the pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Cool.
Soften gelatin in cold water, then heat on low until dissolved. Combine cream cheese and sugar, mixing until well blended. Add in the dissolved gelatin. Gradually add in the milk mixing until smooth. Fold in crushed peppermint.
Whip the whipping cream. Fold in the whipped cream and chopped chocolate. Pour over the crust and refrigerate until firm.
Last night I went and hung out with Amy. She has been busy, busy, busy making chocolates for gifts for Christmas. She was already in the middle of finishing up the cherry cordials when I got there.
Cherry cordials are something you have to pay attention to while you’re making them, so I left her to her chocolatey ways. Instead I helped her mom dismember some retarded quilt squares that were put together backwards. We also decided the menu for dinner on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve Menu:
Honey Baked Ham
Green Beans
Summer Corn
Twice baked potatoes
Pizza wreath
Cranberry Mint Punch
Corn Bread
And dessert provided by me, Peppermint Cheesecake (and its no-bake!). I’ll be making this Sunday night so if you would like to make one too here is a list of things you will need:
Oreo Cookies (or chocolate cookie crumbs), butter, unflavored gelatin, 16 oz cream cheese, sugar, water, milk, peppermint candy, heavy cream, and milk chocolate candy bars, some beaters, and a springform pan.
about 12 oz of crushed peppermint candies (candy canes or starlight mints, or other hard peppermint candy)
a 9 × 13 pan lined with wax paper.
Melt 1 lb of the brown melting chocolate until smooth.
Spread into the bottom of the lined pan so it is a uniform thickness. Work quickly before the chocolate sets.
Place pan into the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened.
While the chocolate is cooling in the fridge, melt the white chocolate.
Take the pan of brown chocolate out of the fridge and spread the white chocolate ontop of the brown chocolate.
Sprinkle the crushed peppermint candies ontop of the white chocolate before it hardens, using your hands to press the crushed candy into the chocolate if needed.
Place in the refrigerator until cooled.
Remove from the refrigerator and peel away the wax paper. Break the large sheet of peppermint park into smaller manageable pieces.
Here is a simple recipe version of Amy’s Cordials, the amounts are not exact, you kind of just go along as you’re making them until you’re out of one ingredient or another, or have made as many as you want to (at least thats how we’ve done it).
Sorry I do not know what types of molds she had or what brand fondant she used. All of her supplies came from the Hartville Chocolate Factory though, so I’m sure if you call them they can give you the details! (I’ll also update this with a link to the information when I get it from amy later.) When you initially mix the fondant, it looks like a thick powdered sugar/water mixture. When it sets up with the cherries inside the chocolates though, it turns into a delicious cherry flavored liquid.
Ingredients:
Melting Chocolate
Fondant
Maraschino Cherries
Drain the maraschino cherries, reserving the juice. Slice the cherries into halfs or quarters (depending on the size of the cherries). Dry them the best you can with a tea towel or paper towels (be careful of towel fuzz!).
The fondant that Amy had was a 1 to 5 ratio of cherry juice to fondant, so for each 5 teaspoons of fondant powder, she added 1 teaspoon of cherry juice.
Melt the chocolate. Spoon a small amount of chocolate into each mold. Using a paintbrush brush the chocolate up the sides of each mold. Set in the freezer a minute or two to quickly set the chocolate. If the shell on the sides of the mold is too thin for your liking, add another layer of melted chocolate, and quickly freeze again.
Place a piece or two of cherry into each hardened cherry cordial mold. Top carefully with a small amount of fondant and allow the fondant to flow to the bottom of the cups.
When the fondant has settled, top with melted chocolate. Set in refrigerator to cool until solid.
I am a cookie making machine. This is the fourth type of cookie I have made in the past week (Chocolate Mint Snappers, Jelly Thumbprints, and some Peanutbutter cookies that are coming soon).
These are light, citrus-y, with just the right amount of crunch to them while still being delightfully chewy. The flavor is reminiscent of fresh squeezed orange juice that tickles your tongue. They’re just the thing to perk you up in the middle of a dreary, dark, cold winter.
Ingredients
Cookies:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
zest of 2 oranges
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Rolling Sugar:
1/4 cup sugar
red and yellow food coloring (or orange)
(or 1/4 c orange colored sugar)
Orange Glaze:
1/2 c powdered sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
Directions
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the egg and orange zest.
Combine the flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl, and add in parts to the wet mix. Mix until just combined.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth (but work quickly and don’t add too much four or the cookies will be tough).
Cut the dough in half and shape into 2 rolls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap in waxed paper and chill the dough logs in the refrigerator over night, or at least 4 hours, until very firm.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix together the powdered sugar and orange juice to make a glaze.
Add a couple drops of food coloring to the 1/4 c of sugar, and stir, stir, stir, stir. Stir until there are no blobules of food coloring left and the sugar is orange in color. (It works really!)
Retrieve the dough from the refrigerator. It should have flattened a little into an oval shape on its own. If it hasn’t, thats ok too. Carefully unwrap from the waxed paper and roll in the colored sugar. Don’t be afraid to pat the sugar into the dough.
Slice the dough 1/4 inch thick, and arrange on a cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the bottoms of the cookies are very lightly browned.
If at any point the dough is difficult to slice, stick it in the freezer for a minute to re-firm it.
Transfer the cookies to cooling racks while still hot, and brush with the orange icing you prepared earlier. (Slide some wax paper under the rack to catch drips.)
These cookies are a holiday staple in my family. I can’t think of a year that someone didn’t make at least one batch of these cookies.
The original recipe calls for apricot jam or preserves to fill the cookies, but any flavor can work. I have found in the past that jam or preserves are best, jelly is too runny and has too much sugar in it. Last time I used grape jelly the fruity dots caramelized or escaped the cookie and ran all over the baking sheet. My favorite is raspberry and strawberry preserves.
This recipe makes about 7 dozen cookies.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used the juice from half a lemon)
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest (I used the zest from one whole lemon)
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup apricot preserves (or strawberry, or raspberry, or peach, or …)
Directions
Start by zesting and juicing your lemon (if you’re using the real stuff).
Add the butter, sugar, and cream cheese to the mixing bowl. To soften the butter and cream cheese, I zap each for 30 seconds on high in the microwave (watch them so they don’t melt!).
Cream these three ingredients together until smooth and creamy (and tasty!)
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest.
Mix until smooth and liquid looking. There will be a few blobs of cream cheese left, but it should be mostly uniform looking.
Combine the flour and baking powder.
Stir into the cream cheese mixture about 1/3 at a time, until just combined.
You’ll have to switch over from the mixer to a spoon and man power towards the end of adding the flour.
Cover and stick in the refrigerator or freezer until firm (it depends on how much time you have to make these). Do not skip this! You’ll be covered in sticky dough if you do.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Roll level tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, and place them 2 inches apart on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray. The original directions say to use ungreased sheets, but my cookies stuck. Keep the dough in the fridge or freezer while the cookies are baking. This keeps the dough firm and easy to roll into balls.
Make an indentation in the center of each ball. I used a handy coffee scoop lightly greased to do this, but your fingers work well too.
They should look something like this:
Fill with 1/2 teaspoon of your chosen jelly or preserves.
The directions say to bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. The cookies become a little dry and too crumbly for my liking and I found that 10 minutes works just fine. The insides of the cookies are baked through, but are still soft and moist (the way a cookie should be).
Allow to cool for two minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Be careful if the jelly centers are runny, hot jam burns.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used the juice from half a lemon)
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest (I used the zest from one whole lemon)
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup apricot preserves (or strawberry, or raspberry, or peach, or …)
Directions
Zest and juice the lemon (if using real lemon juice). Combine the butter, sugar and cream cheese. Mix until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, than the lemon juice and zest.
In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients slowly, in parts. Mix well.
Put the dough in the refrigerator or freezer until chilled (about an hour in the refrigerator half hour in the freezer).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Shape level tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls. Place them on a lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Using your finger, thumb, or other implement make an indentation in the center to fill with jam/preserves.
Bake for 10-15 minutes, until set and very lightly browned.
Need something to “spruce” up your holiday table? (Yes, that was a horrible Christmas tree pun.) Like playing with your vegetables more than you like eating them? Is the everyday veggie platter getting you down?
Build it up into a Holiday tree instead!
The production of this was sort of trial and error for my mom and I. When we first started the cone was about a foot and a half high (46cm). Halfway through decorating it we realized that it was way too tall and had to take all the vegetables off, saw off about 6 inches, and stick everything back on. Even a cone shorter than 12 inches will impress your guests.
We also realized that the cone was very unstable (no…I didn’t fold the tinfoil underneath the cone..). We ended up hot gluing it to the plate after we sawed a few inches off. Sticking the cone on a piece of wood with a stake attached to it would probably work well also. (We were going to have my dad do some last minute Yankee workshop style wood-fu until we realized hot glue would work).
If Christmas trees aren’t your thing, then try using other shapes instead of a cone. Styrofoam comes in all shapes and sizes, make a holiday topiary with a ball and wooden stake for the trunk/stem of the plant. Or make a holiday bush.
To embark on this project you will need:
1 Styrofoam cone from the craft store about 12 inches (30 cm) tall
at least 2 bunches (4 stalks or crowns) of broccoli to cover one side of the cone
at least 1 box of sturdy toothpicks
random other vegetables like cauliflower, cherry/grape tomatos, carrots, radishes, maybe even some fruit would work
random cheeses for spiffy shapes, if desired
cookie cutters to cut out said spiffy shapes
a paring knife
tinfoil
a glass serving plate/bowl that the cone will fit into with 3inches clearance around the base (or a plastic one that won’t melt with hot glue)
some decorative stones (or if your guests are young, or stupid enough to eat said decorative stones, some small round vegetables like radishes) These aren’t completely needed, but help make it look pretty
and a hot glue gun
Step 1:
Plug in hot glue gun, or create a wooden stake to stick the cone on (see intro above).
Step 2:
Tear off a few sheets of tinfoil and wrap the angled sides of the cone up so the food isn’t directly on the cone. The tinfoil should stay on the cone by itself pretty easily, if not, use a piece or two of clear tape. DO NOT fold the foil under the flat base, it makes a wobbly tree. Either trim or leave loose and flatten away from the cone (a little tricky, but can be done).
Step 3:
Working quickly and accurately pump out a blob of hot glue onto the plate and stick the cone on it before it cools! Make sure the cone is centered too. If you are using a glass plate you should be able to scrape the hot glue off when you’re done eating your masterpiece (it came off our glass dish). If you’re using plastic, test it first, or use a plastic dish you don’t care about too much. Don’t use a cheap throw away serving tray though, the hot glue will melt right through that (which is bad).
Step 4:
Flatten the foil so that it looks like a pretty tree skirt around the cone. Prepare your tree making station with all of your vegetables, your cutting utensils and toothpicks. (Oh its a good idea to rinse all your veggies before assembling as well.)
Step 5 Assembly:
Begin with the broccoli (and cauliflower if you want to mix things up). Cut the florets off of the really big stem leaving smaller stems of about 1-1.5 inches long (3-4 cm). It usually worked best by sticking the toothpick into the broccoli, than sticking it into the cone. Broccoli has a really woody stem and only occasionally (usually with smaller florets with skinny stems) did the toothpick slide through. (I don’t know how this works with cauliflower, I contemplated getting some, but they were $4 a head, and the broccoli was buy one, get one free for $2).
Start with the florets with the thickest stems first. Take the floret and stick it artistically into the cone, starting at the bottom and working your way up. (We started closer to the top in this picture, I wasn’t sure we had enough broccoli for the whole cone, which we didn’t)
Leave some space between the florets. You actually do not use a toothpick in each and every floret. After you have a good base, the broccoli starts to hold itself up, and you can just set the florets that are too small for toothpicks into the empty space.
You can see how the florets are more spaced out closer to the bottom in this picture:
Also in the picture above there is some white goo near the top of the tree that could be mistaken for flash glare off of the tinfoil. Its actually cream cheese. I thought it would be a good idea and help the little broccolis stick better. It wasn’t really, and just made a mess when we had to take it apart to make it shorter. You can try the cream cheese glue, but it gets messy. (Just call it snow if your guests wonder what all the white goo all over your tree is…)
When the cone is adequately covered in broccoli begin the decoration. The cone doesn’t have to be tightly packed covered in broccoli. Heck, we actually only covered half of our cone. Mom was like “but where are we gonna put it! Its only half covered!” Thats what walls are for! It helps to leave some space for sticking toothpicks in for other veggies for decoration.
Step 6 Decoration:
It works best in this case, to stick the toothpick in the cone, then place the decorating item onto the toothpick (tomatoes and cheese are much squishier than broccoli).
On my tree we used small pieces of carrot we just randomly stuck between the broccoli florets without any toothpicks. They only fell out a couple times.
For the tomatoes we stuck the toothpick into the cone leaving about 1/4 inch (.5-1cm) sticking out to which we stuck tiny grape tomatoes (these really were the tiniest grape tomatoes I’d ever seen!) and cheese animals.
Go crazy with your decorating! I thought about peeling off long strands of carrot with a peeler and wrapping it around the tree like tinsel. This could also work really well with different colors of bell pepper. If you know how to peel vegetables into ornate flowers like radish roses, go for it!
Use tiny cookie cutters to cut different shapes out of cheese or broader vegetable slices.
I used a big cheddar cheese star on top of the tree, but you can use whatever you want to!
Step 7 Finishing up:
When your tree is decorated to your liking, you can fill the base with those decorative stones, or with veggie dip. We were actually going to use dip, but we didn’t want to clean up that much stuff, so we put marbles in the base to decorate and help stabilize the tree, just in case.
(This is still missing a few cheese animals.)
Next time I’m going to try to find a super-mini strand of Christmas lights and electrify my display :-D. It will take much work, and effort to find strands without lead warning on them these days, but it’ll be awesome! I would have tried it this year, but I think that would have been pushing my luck with my mom…
Coming up soon, all those recipes for cookies people keep asking for, as well as tasty savory party bites from the big shindig!
How many dozen cookies did you say you need? Seven? Thats how many cookies? 84? And why didn’t you mention this earlier, like Sunday, when I loafed around the house with nothing better to do than catch up on my movie watching?
Last night I spent three hours making 9 dozen chocolate mint snappers – for my Mom. She has a cookie trade today with 14 other people. Fourteen people multiplied by six cookies each = 7 dozen cookies. The last two dozen we’re keeping. The recipe makes 3 dozen cookies, so two batches wouldn’t be enough, so three it was.
These cookies are rolled into balls then coated with sugar before being baked. They flatten out as they cool into a flat crispy crunchy cookie.
Of course I’m the brainiac who thinks, why yes, I can make all three batches at one time!
After making three batches in one bowl at the same time, I don’t recommend it. I had added about 2 cups of the flour when I realized my brand new kitchenaid wasn’t going to make it through the last three cups.
I ended up sitting on the floor so I could get a tight enough grip on the bowl to mix all of the ingredients together (don’t worry, no floor related ickness or dirt entered the cookie making process, i just needed the stability of the floor).
Finally the dough was mixed, I then spent the next two hours forming balls, rolling them in sugar and baking them for fifteen minutes. Not the most enthralling way to spend an evening, but definitely tasty, and I helped my Mom.
Chocolate Mint Snappers
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
1 3/4 cups unsifted flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
sugar for coating
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt the chocolate chips over hot (not boiling) water. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl combine shortening, sugar and egg; beat until creamy.
Mix in corn syrup, peppermint extract and melted chocolate.
Gradually blend in flour.
Shape dough into balls using 1 level tablespoon dough for each.
Roll in sugar.
Place 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen cookies.
The other day an internet friend who recently took a trip to New York City posted a link to a recipe for some macaroni and cheese she had at S’Mac.
I love mozzarella, especially fresh mozzarella. Before when I’ve tried to make macaroni and cheese using it, it left the foodstuffs chewy and lacking in tasty cheese flavor, not to mention overly stringy. This recipe uses muenster cheese to help smooth it out as well as starting with a simple bechamel sauce.
This recipe also includes basil, my most favorite herb ever. You can never have too much basil.
This tasty dish even got the thumbs up from my dad.
The original recipe is here. I increased ingredients and modified the order of instructions a bit because of the amount of cheese I had to buy, and why not make extra? You can never have too much mac and cheese (or basil)!
Here’s the recipe with my modifications:
2/3 lb elbow macaroni (yield: 4 cups cooked)
1 1/4 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 oz fresh Mozzarella cheese, diced
3 oz Muenster cheese, shredded
3 oz Pecorino Romano cheese, shredded
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
dried basil leaves
2 plum tomatoes
Fresh basil leaves, cut into thin ribbons
1 garlic bulb
3/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese
olive oil
Start with roasting the garlic and tomatoes.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Slice the top of the garlic bulb off, exposing the tops of the garlic cloves. Brush the bulb with olive oil and wrap in aluminum foil.
Slice the tomatoes in half lengthwise. Toss with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried basil. Place skin side down on a baking sheet covered in olive oil.
Roast the tomatoes for 25 minutes until the skin slides off, and the garlic 30 minutes until the cloves are soft and can be squeezed out of the skin.
While the garlic and tomatoes are roasting bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the macaroni to al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and set aside in a large mixing bowl.
Slice the mozzarella into uniform sized cubes and shred the other cheeses if needed. Also slice the basil at this time and set aside.
Bring the milk to a boil (I used the microwave).
Melt the butter in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Lower the heat and whisk in the flour, cooking 3-4 minutes making sure the mixture doesn’t brown.
Slowly add the hot milk, whisking constantly.
Add the cheeses except for the 3/4 cups of parmesan, stirring frequently until the cheeses are melted and the sauce is slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper.
Peel the skins off the cooled tomatoes and chop into 1/4 inch pieces. The garlic should be easily squeezed from the skin. It should be golden and translucent and smell oh-so-good. I chopped it a little as well since it was still pretty solid.
Turn off the heat and stir the tomatoes, basil and garlic into the cheese mixture.
Pour the cheese mixture over the macaroni and stir to thoroughly combine, pour into a baking dish.
Top with the 3/4 cups of parmesan and breadcrumbs.
Bake 10-15 minutes until golden brown and tasty.
I topped it with some leftover sliced basil to make it look all pretty.
These cookies are some of the tastiest chocolate chip cookies I’ve had in a while, they might be even better than Alton Brown’s recipe, but I didn’t say that. I think these have more brown sugar than them. They have that tasty crispy golden cookie crunch on the outside, but are chewy and gooey on the inside. The best of both worlds!
I’ve modified it slightly. The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of batter per cookie (with the same 15-17 minute cooking time). This just make waaaaaaay to big of a cookie for me, so I cut the size of the cookie down to about a tablespoon. I also raised the temperature of the oven because the centers were just a little too uncooked for me.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 335 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets, or line them with parchment paper or other non-stick baking apparatus (I have a silicone liner).
Sift the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.
Mix the brown sugar, white sugar and butter until combined, then add egg, yolk and vanilla and mix until creamy.
Add the sifted ingredients slowly, and mix until just blended.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop about 1 tablespoon at a time onto a cookie sheet placing them about 2 inches apart.
Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the edges are just beginning to brown and the centers no longer look gooey.
Let them cool on the cookie sheet a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.
4 oz wide rice noodles
hotwater
1 lime halfved
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
pinch red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp peanut oil
1/4 c cilantro chopped
1 egg
1/4 c unsalted peanuts
1 c bean sprouts
Soak the noodles in hot water in the medium mixing bowl while you make the sauce and scramble the egg.
Squeeze the juice from the lime into a small mixing bowl. Dig out any seeds with your fingers and discard the seeds. Add the fish sauce, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, sugar, and the peanut oil to the lime juice. Beat with a fork to combine.
Scramble the egg in the skillet over medium heat. When the eggs are solid drain the water off the noodles and add them to the skillet.
Add the sauce, the peanuts, and the bean sprouts to the skillet. Stir everything together with the tongs, and cook until its all warm.
Turn off the stove, take the skillet off the burner, and transfer your super fly ad thai to serving plates with tongs. Sprinkle with cilantro.
1 1/2 cups chopped bell peppers
1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli florets
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup diced radishes
1/2 cup Orange-Oregano Dressing or Creamy Dill Ranch Dressing
1 tablespoon minced red onion
Place bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, radishes, dressing and onion in a medium bowl. Toss to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
NUTRITIONINFORMATION: Per serving: 64 calories; 2 g fat (0 g sat, 1 g mono); 0 mg cholesterol; 10 g carbohydrate; 2 g protein; 3 g fiber; 198 mg sodium; 371 mg potassium.
Nutrition bonus: Vitamin C (240% daily value), Vitamin A (140% dv).
4 stalks celery, trimmed and cut in half crosswise
2 tablespoons cider, pear, raspberry or other fruit vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 ripe pears, preferably red Bartlett or Anjou, diced
1 cup finely diced white Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted (see Tip)
Freshly ground pepper to taste
6 large leaves butterhead or other lettuce
1. Soak celery in a bowl of ice water for 15 minutes. Drain and pat dry. Cut into 1/2-inch pieces.
2. Whisk vinegar, honey and salt in a large bowl until blended. Add pears; gently stir to coat. Add the celery, cheese and pecans; stir to combine. Season with pepper. Divide the lettuce leaves among 6 plates and top with a portion of salad. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
2 6-oz cans chunk light tuna, drained
1 15-oz can small white beans, cannellini or great northern
10 cherry tomatoes
4 scallions, trimmed and sliced
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
ground pepper to taste
Combine tuna, beans, tomatoes, scallions, oil, juice salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir gently. Refrigerate until reado to serve.
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten and room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
7 tablespoons butter
1 or 2 green tart cooking apples, thinly slices
Preheat oven to 400° F. In a small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside. In a large bowl, combine eggs, salt, flour, and milk; beat until batter is smooth.
In a large heavy ovenproof frying pan or a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, melt butter, turning pan to cover sides. Add apples and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture. Stir and let cook for 5 minutes.
Pour batter over apples into pan and bake 25 minutes or until puffed above sides of the pan and lightly browned. Remove by flipping upside down onto a serving platter (apples and cinnamon will be on top). Serve immediately.
Prepare the greenbeans. If they are fresh cut them into bite sized pieces and trim off the ends. Cook until tender, steam in microwave or blanch.
While the green beans are cooking, prepare the bacon. Its best to used the vacuum sealed slab you get at the grocery store that is already cut into slices, partially frozen. The frozen part makes it easier to cut into slices. Working from the end cut off 1/4 inch wide slices for about 2 inches or as much bacon as you’d like. Fry the bacon until cooked. Drain all but a tablespoon or two of the bacon grease.
Stir 1-2 tablespoons each of the mustard and brown sugar. Use as much that suits your tastes.
Then take this bacon/mustard/sugar sauce and mix it into the greenbeans.
The holidays just aren’t the holidays with this tasty
Cocktail Weenies
Currant Jelly
Yellow Mustard
Mix equal parts mustard and jelly, enough to cover the cocktail weenies (but don’t add them yet!). Warm in a small crock pot until jelly blobs are gone. Add weenies and cook until warm.
(You can also slowly microwave the sauce instead of using the crock pot.)
Skinny pancakes! I find using 1/3 of the recipe works best, this one makes alot of blini (way to much for just me) the measurements for 1/3 are in parentheses.
2 c whole milk (2/3 c)
3 eggs (1)
1/2 cup warm water (2 tbsp 2 tsp)
1/4 c sugar (4 tsp)
1 tsp salt (a little bit)
2 1/2 c flour (3/4 c)
veg oil
jam and sour cream for serving
In large bowl whisk together milk, eggs and water. Add sugar and salt, mixing well. Set aside 1/2 mixture. Add flour, a little at a time, whisking each time, until the batter is thick and spongy. Whisk in reserved egg misture until it is smooth and has no lumps.
Heat a 9 in skillet until it is very hot, but not hot enough to burn the oil (found that out the hard way… and a cast iron skillet works best). Add about 2 tbsp of the oil, swirling it to cover the skillet completely, and pouring off the excess. Reduce heat to med-low.
Pour about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan tilting it to cover the bottom evenly. Cook for about 30 seconds then flip, cooking another 10-15 seconds, or until the batter starts to turn a darker color and bubbles a little. Cook the rest of the batter like this adding more oil when needed (not too often if you have a worn in iron skillet).
These are the spiffiest muffins in the whole wide world. I definitely recommend them.
2 1/4 c
303 g
All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp
10g
Baking Powder
1 tsp
6 g
Baking Soda
pinch of salt
1/2 c
105 g
Sugar
1/2 c
Vegetable Oil
1
50 g
large egg
1
20 g
large egg yolk
1 c
Plain Yogurt
1-2 c
Muffin Fixins (nuts, fruit etc)
Place rack in center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees Ferenheit. Prepare a muffin tin. Assemble the dry goods, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then in a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients, the sugar, oil, eggs, and yogurt. Mix the wet goods in the dry adding the extras, and mix until just combined. There will be lumps. Drop the batter into the tin, the cups should be full. Bake for 18-20 minutes until interior reaches 210 or a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven immediately and turn the muffins on their sides so that the steam can escape the pan. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for up to a week or until they taste gross, smell bad or grow fur.
This turns out just like the canned stuff, but its not.
1-2 small zucchini
1 can of plain tomato sauce
1 can tomato sauce with tomato bits (stewed tomatoes, canned tomatoes)
oil
basil
oregano
garlic
Wash the zucchini and cut it up into small pieces, slice longways slice that piece in half then cut into little triangular pieces.
Add a small amount of oil to the pan and sautee the zucchini until just tender.
Pour in the tomato sauce and add the sauce with the bits in it. If using whole canned tomatoes, squish them in your hand (or cut them into smaller pieces with a knife) before adding.
Add some basil. I use about a table spoon of basil and a teaspoon of oregano because I loooove basil.
Crush a garlic clove or two (to your liking) and add to the sauce. You can also add it when sauteeing the zucchini, but I have a tendancy to burn it when I do that then it just tastes gross. If you dont have fresh garlic go ahead and use some powdered garlic to your taste. Fresher is better.
Let everything simmer and mellow out for a while. If I’m makingthis for dinner I usually start it first so it can simmer while I’m cooking everything else.
This is sort of like alfredo sauce, but not. Its really good and really creamy
1 8oz Package of Cream Cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp Dried Basil
2 tbsp Dried Parsley
1 tsp Garlic Powder or 1 garlic clove chopped
1/4 c Grated Parmesean Cheese
1/4 c Olive Oil
1/4 c Boiling Water
Melt the butter in a saucepan at low and add the basil and parsley, dont let the butter burn.
Cut the cream cheese into smaller chunks and add to the butter herb mix.
When the cream cheese begins to melt add the olive oil.
Then add the Parmesean cheese and garlic powder. You can adjust any of the herbs or parmesean cheese to your taste. (Although adding a large amount of parmesean cheese makes it a little stringy).
When everything is incorporated and beginning to come together (its ok if things are still lumpy and separated), add the boiling water. This is an important step, without it everything stays separated and is gross (I know this from expirience). Stir at low heat until everything is blended and creamy.
Serve over noodles of your choice.
While cooking or after refrigerating the sauce it may separate. If it separates during cooking you may have it too hot or too cold, adjust the temperature until it blends together again, dont worry. If it separates in the refridgerator, just warm the sauce again slowly stirring occasionally (like 10-15 seconds in the micro, stir, repeat) until blended together again.
This is a really tasty and easy dinner. If you forget about marinating the steak until the last minute, dont worry let it marinate while you cut up the pepper and drain the pineapple, instead of cooking it while you do those things. Its also a good way to use the steak that has been in your freezer for a while or if you cant afford expensive stuff.
1-2 lb steak (doesn’t have to be expensive)
1 Can Chunk or Tidbit Pineapple
1 Green Pepper
Soy Sauce
Cornstarch
1 c White Rice
Slice the steak into thin strips cutting against the grain.
Place the steak into a large bowl and add soy sauce until the steak is pretty much covered.
Let the steak marinate 1-2 hours (or overnight if you really like
soy sauce).
Cook the rice (I’m assuming you know how to do this).
Heat a large pan and add the steak and sauce from the bowl.
While the steak is cooking wash and cut the pepper into bite sized pieces.
Cook until almost all of the pink is gone.
Add the pepper and cook until almost tender.
Drain the pineapple juice from the can reserving it in a bowl.
Add about 1 tbsp of cornstarch to the juice and mix well.
Add the juice to the steak and pepper.
When the sauce has thickened slightly add the pineapple and heat just long enough to warm.
Stumble It! | Comment [2]
It whirled all right but it didn’t fluff thats for sure. The butter kept breaking and separating even at the lowest setting, so all I had was at the end was a thick buttery sugary syrup. It tasted great, it just not quite right for frosting a cake with.
If you haven’t seen this book, pick a copy up for yourself. These authors’ 
The other day an internet friend who recently took a trip to New York City posted a link to a recipe for some macaroni and cheese she had at 
These are kind of like pancakes, but they’re not. They’re fluffy and they grow and are really good with syrup.