Pretzels!!!

Mmmmm!

Pre-bake and boil

Big soft pretzels are one of my favorite foods.  They always have been.  I remember my first Red Sox game, waaayyy before I was a fan, on the most sweltering day of the summer. I had said that the only 2 things I wanted were a soft pretzel and a foam finger.  Both items were attained before the game even started, so it is no surprise that I went to the van with the sick and the elderly in our group less than halfway through to listen to the game on the radio in the comfort of air conditioning!  Now that I am actually a huge fan, the pretzel remains on my to-do list at every game.  It is also there at fairs, movie theaters, and frankly even BJ's.  So, I am shocked that I did not think of baking my own soft pretzels until today.  I was thrilled when Kenzie came up with the idea, and even more thrilled when I found that my favorite food blogger had a recipe for them that seemed fairly easy.

boiling

As far as yeast breads go, these were easy and fairly quick.  They only had to rise for an hour, and be boiled for 30 seconds before baked for 13 minutes.  The dough has got to be one of the best I have ever touched.  It was ridiculously velvety and soft.  I would sleep on this pretzel dough.  I will confess that it was hard to roll each of the 8 pieces into a 24-inch rope, and my ropes were definitely not as long.  This maybe explains why my pretzels are a tiny bit ugly, but then again, so is all of my food, so my manta of "eat with your eyes closed" still applies.  Unfortunatey, the recipe only made 8 pretzels, and Rachael and I, being the only ones home, devoured three of them rather quickly.  Somehow there are only 3 left right now, and no one is 'fessing up!   Hopefully they will be there still when Mom and Kenzie get home from furniture shopping, but who knows?  These pretzels are way too delicious to last long.  Crunchy outside, and absolute perfect pretzely-soft inside!  Cannot wait to make these babies again, and definitely double the recipe.  Which brings me to my big announcement:

My new baby!

My new mixer has arrived!  Unfortunately it was delivered after I made the pretzels, but I am still thrilled.  It will definitely make doubling the recipe next time easier, since it is almost double the size of my puny current mixer. 

One last note: I have decided that, when I made a recipe twice this year, it is a good sign.  It means that I have tried it once, it was a hit, and I chose to feed it to my family another time.  For this reason, if a recipe makes it to Take Two, I will be putting the recipe directly on my blog, rather than linking to it.  For this reason, I have to yet again share the recipe for creamy chicken taquitos.  Last night, Tracy, Gary and Seth were coming to visit, and Mom brought home a rotisserie chicken from BJ's and asked me to do something amazing with it.  I know the taquitos were a huge hit at the last party I went to, so I figured that would be the perfect thing for this get-together.  I doubled the recipe and added beans, and made 25 taquitos... all of which were gone by the end of the night!  That does not always happen, so I was pretty pumped.  I tried not to be offended when my mom and Rachael insisted on dipping them in sour cream and hot sauce ;)  I definitely recommend these as the perfect party food. 

Recipes:
Soft pretzels

Creamy Chicken Taquitos
Adapted from Annie's Eats (www.annies-eats.com), adapted from Pennies on a Platter and Our Best Bites

Yield: about 12 taquitos

Ingredients:
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
¼ cup salsa
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. onion powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1-2 green onions, chopped
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese (cheddar, pepper jack, etc.)

1 can beans (you can use black, kidney, pinto, whatever you like. I used kidney because we had it)
10-12 6-inch flour tortillas
Cooking spray
Kosher salt

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 425˚ F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2)  In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, salsa, lime juice, spices, cilantro, green onions, chicken, beans, and shredded cheese. Mix thoroughly until well combined.

3)  Briefly heat the tortillas in the microwave to make them soft enough to roll easily, about 20-30 seconds. Place a tortilla on a work surface. Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the filling mixture down the middle of the tortilla. Roll the tortilla up tightly around the filling. Place seam-side down on a baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining tortillas and filling, spacing the assembled taquitos evenly on the baking sheet.

4)  Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt. 

5) Bake 15-20 minutes, until crisp and golden brown. Serve with sour cream and salsa, if desired
(or hot sauce if the people you are feeding are insane).

Strawberries or Mustard...?

Somehow, we have three containers of strawberries in our refrigerator.  All of them are opened, too, with some berries eaten out of each.  This is a much, much better problem to have than the fact that we also have three large open containers of mustard (uck).  I decided that whatever I made tonight had to attempt to address the surplus of strawberries, and thus we have strawberry shortcake cookies.

These were fairly easy to make, although the dough was more like a pie dough than cookie.  I even had to use my trusty old pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour.  The one thing that was a little stressful was that the recipe only calls for 2/3 cup of heavy cream, and there are about 3 cups of dry ingredients.  The wet-to-dry ratio seemed a little off, and the dough was way too crumbly to turn into cookies.  I added about another 1/3 cup, and I am glad I did, because they came out perfectly.  In fact, Kenzie said they were the best thing I made, and Allie and Mom both ate two. 

They taste a lot like biscuits (the dough recipe is very similar to biscuit dough) with big hunks of strawberries in them.  The berries stayed red and juicy instead of disappearing, as often happens with baked berries.  I did what the blogger said, and I didn't chop them, but sliced them pretty large to help them "stay alive" throughout the baking.  Basically, this is strawberry shortcake in one tidy hand-sized package!  Sheer genius.  It's a good thing we have 2 containers of strawberries left!

Recipe:
strawberry shortcake cookies

Strawberries everywhere!

Mexican Lasagna

It is no secret that I hate lasagna.  I've always hated it.  It has a negative connotation for me and my family. Ever since I was 16 and Dad had his first hospitalization, people have brought us lasagnas.  There was one time that we had literally 7 lasagnas in our house, overflowing the fridge and freezers.  It was horrible.  Lasagna makes me depressed, and I also hate ground beef, which seems to appear in far too many of them. 

Kenzie is excited for lasagna (and Mark's margaritas and caprese salad!)

So: it may be shocking to hear that I made a lasagna tonight for dinner!  I found the recipe on my favorite food blog, and it has never steered me wrong before.  It was a Mexican lasagna, with fresh cilantro.  As I have mentioned, I am in love with fresh cilantro these days.  I think it totally makes every dish that it appears in.  To top it off, this recipe was vegetarian!  It had black beans and corn instead of hamburger meat (AKA pink slime these days).  Vegetarian and fresh cilantro?  I was hooked.

Halfway gone...

I think it is always a good sign when I make a meal and the entire thing goes!  Especially when said meal is vegetarian, and my family always whines about that.  Luckily, this was delicious!  The cilantro obviously made everything else taste fresh and fabulous, and the black beans, corn and scallions were a far better filling than pink slime and ricotta.  I am still impressed that we ate the whole thing!  I am a bit sad that I won't be eating leftovers at lunch tomorrow,  but I will focus on being happy that everyone liked my dinner  :) 

Recipe:
Mexican lasagna

Caramels and Alfredos!

Sorry I didn't update on my culinary adventures last night.  I made caramels, and it took a while, and then I went to see The Hunger Games movie, so by the time I got back and cut the caramels, it was too late to do anything but get right to bed.

Anyway: the caramels.  They were a recipe for salted caramels, which I love, but I have to say, they are not as salty as I want.  The recipe calls for a teaspoon of sea salt, which I did, and then it recommends salting each piece separately after you cut it!  I didn't do that part, so maybe that is why it isn't salty enough for me, but my family is wild for them.  Mom said it is the best caramel I've ever made (I went through a stage of making tons of apple cider caramels in November and December... I think I like those better, but they take about 3 hours total.  These take maybe 1 and a half).  The worst part about them was the cutting process.  With the apple cider caramels, they were softer and very easy to cut.  These ones had to be refrigerated, which I think made them much harder and very difficult to cut.  They are softer today, so I guess I should have just waited longer after taking them out of the fridge, but I was getting frustrated sawing at rock-hard caramels!  They are pretty good though, I must admit, and as far as caramels go, they were fairly quick to make.

All wrapped up!

Then today Mark and I made dinner for my family.  Kenzie was craving chicken and broccoli alfredo, so that's what we made.  Mark took charge of the meal and made the chicken, the pasta, and the broccoli.  I made the sauce.  Mark had found a sauce recipe, but it called for heavy cream, and I definitely do not need that, so I looked up a lower fat recipe.  The one I found was pretty damn good for being low fat, too!  I wish Mark had told me that he was cooking two pounds of fettuccini, because I should have tripled rather than doubled my sauce, but all in all our dinner was delicious. 

Recipes:
salted caramels
reduced fat alfredo sauce

Back to Old Favorites

I think that it might be a good sign that I am beginning to cook and bake old favorites.  I no longer always need the "wow factor" of new recipes, because I am starting to have things that I know that I love to eat and make - for example, the herbed focaccia, Irish soda bread, and bagels.  Okay so apparently my favorite things are all bread.  Anyway, today I made some oldies but goodies.

First, I finally got around to making Mom's beloved old mocha roll.  She has been asking for it since I started my resolution, and since I am not a huge chocolate lover, I put it off for a while, but it was time today.  She used to have Dad make it for her (this is an old recipe... it is from some magazin called McCall's in 1996!).  It was not that hard of a cake; it is very light and fluffy because you beat the egg whites before putting them in the batter.  I still have to work on my rolling techniques, because it was a little bit lopsided, but everyone who has eaten it has been quite happy with the result - especially Mom!

For dinner, I made my spinach and ricotta stuffed shells. They were just as delicious and easy as they were last time.  I do think that I probably should have made bread to sop up the extra sauce and cheese like I did last time, but I was ready for a break!

Recipes:
spinach and ricotta stuffed shells

Mocha Roll (what mom calls it... apparently its real name is a cocoa-coffee roulade)
adapted  from McCall's, January 1996

For cake:

cooking spray and butter for greasing pans
1 tablespoon + 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For filling:

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup  sour cream
1/3 cup confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon dark rum
1  1/2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1 ounce semiweet chocolate, grated (I used probably half this amount and it was fine... I would say it's optional.  It's just for sprinkling on the filling)


1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  With cooking spray, coat jelly-roll pan.  Line with waxed paper, and butter the paper.  Dust with the 1 tablespoon of flour. 

2.  In small bowl, combine the 1/2 cup remaining flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

3.  In the bowl of a mixer, beat egg whites 30 seconds or until foamy with mixer and medium-high speed.  Gradually beat in 1/2 cup granulated sugar.  At high speed, beat whites until stiff, but not dry. peaks form.

4.  In large bowl, beat yolks and remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar 3 minutes until thickened.  Add vanilla.  Beat in half the flour mixture.  Fold in half the egg whites.

5.  Fold in the remaining flour and whites.  Spread into pan and bake 12 minutes, until top springs back when pressed.

Cake with way too much sugar under it!

6.  Dust a clean towel with 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar (I would not use this much again... I bet half this amount would be fine).  Invert cake onto towel.  Peel off paper.  Cool for 2 minutes.  Then, starting from a short end, roll up cake in towel.  Place seem-side down  on a cooling rack and cool completely.

All rolled up!

7.  Meanwhile, make filling.  Beat heavy cream, sour cream, sugar, run, and coffee granules until stiff.

8.  Unroll cake.  Spread evenly with filling, leaving 1 inch of plain cake at one short end.  Sprinkle with grated chocolate.  Starting with the filling-covered short end, roll up cake.  Place seam-side down on platter, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight.   (The recipe here calls for dusting with more confectionary sugar, but since the towel was dusted with so much, my cake was already white!)

Inside Out Muffins!



Mom splitting her muffin open!

I have been meaning to make these little guys for a couple of months now.  When I found the recipe, I was very intrigued: carrot cake muffins with the cream cheese frosting inside?  This is great for a few reasons.  One: I love carrot cake.  Two: I love cream cheese frosting.  Three: everthing that I frost ends up looking like crap, so by hiding the frosting inside the muffin, my food can still look nice!   Finally tonight, Mark took over the dinner planning and cooking,so I had time to get back to my beloved baking, and inside-out carrot cake muffins were at the top of my list.

I like to tell msyelf that these are healthy.  After all, there is a whole cup of fresh carrot in there (and perhaps a little bit of my pinkie... good lord is my new grater sharp!).  The cream cheese frosting is healthier than when it's on the outside, because there is no butter, just cream cheese and sugar.  There's only 1/4 cup of oil in the muffins themselves.  While saying that they are healthy might be a stretch, they certainly aren't as awful for you as most of my baked goods.

The great news is, these are absolutely delicious.  The carrot cake is spiced and soft, and the gooey cream center is just amazing.  My mom ate one right out of the oven and while she burned her tongue, she was raving over them- and you  know  how picky she can be.  Mark and Rachael both devoured one too. I am waiting to let them cool a little bit before I have my own, but I took a few bites of my Mom's and was pumped.  These little guys are a keeper!

On a side note, I think I am in love with the muffin cups I used.  They are made by Reynolds and are lined with what appears to be tin foil.  They are very stiff, so they don't let your cupcakes sag outward, and they keep their color.  The best part about them is that they peel off perfectly.  We were joking that I could reuse them, because not a single crumb was left on them after we took out our muffins!  I am sick of crappy muffin cups and might be hooked on these ones from now on!

My new favorite muffin cup liners :)

Recipe:
Inside-out carrot cake muffins

Leftovers Revisited

On Saturday, we had corned beef and cabbage like good Irish folk.  Of course, making 2 giant corned beef meant lots of leftovers, and that was fine by me, because I had an idea brewing.  I had seen an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where they went to some Irish pub and had stuffed cabbage filled with corned beef and mashed potatoes.  They also had some sort of a mustard sauce, which I hate, but it got me thinking.

I based my ideas off a recipe on About.com, but I changed enough that I will just write what I did here.  I think the meal was a success.  Mom, Kenzie and Mark all had seconds (Nick refused to eat it because he hates vegetables and anything that might be good for you).  I definitely think the cheese sauce is mandatory.  It was delicious with the stuffed cabbage, even if that sounds like a strange mix (it did to me, but I totally get it now).  This was also a ridiculously easy meal, since everything was basically already cooked (the potatoes and corned beef).  The only hard part was removing the leaves from the cabbage in solid-enough form to be able to roll them.  Most of my rolls had large holes or rips in them.  I have a newfound respect for the good people at Shiraz making their lahana dolma!



Recipe:
Corned beef stuffed cabbage
Adapted from http://southernfood.about.com/od/cornedbeefandbrisket/r/r90328b.htm

1 large head cabbage

3 cups diced cooked corned beef

3 cups diced cooked potatoes

1 cup chopped cooked carrot

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

dash black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2  cups beef broth

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

1 cup shredded mild Cheddar cheese

salt and pepper, to taste

1)  Heat oven to 350°.

2) Separate leaves from cabbage (good luck with this part). Put leaves in a large cooking pot with a little water; cover and let the leaves steam just until slightly wilted and flexible.

3) In a large bowl, combine the corned beef, potatoes, carrots, thyme, salt, and pepper. Stir in the egg.

4) Place some filling on the cabbage leaf, tuck sides in, and roll up. Place in a large baking dish, seam-side down. Repeat with remaining corned beef mixture and cabbage leaves, until all are used. If you have any cabbage leaves left, you can add them to the pot.

5)  Pour beef broth over the cabbage, cover tightly, and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes.

6) Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir in flour until blended and smooth. Add the milk and continue cooking, stirring, until thickened. Add the cheese and cook until melted. Taste and add salt and pepper, to taste.

7) Serve cabbage rolls with the cheese sauce.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Today, in honor of my Irish half, I decided to make Irish goodies for my family.  I knew we'd be having people over in the afternoon, so it was a good time to make sweets, which we never end up eating on our own.

My first task was Irish car bomb cupcakes.  I had pinned a recipe on Pinterest for these, but it called for a ganache filling, and I was feeling too lazy to do that, so I found a new one that called for a chocolate Guinness cupcake with Bailey's frosting.  They did not take too long, although the cupcakes took longer than normal because you have to melt the butter into the sugar, cocoa powder and Guinness on the stove, and then allow the mixture to cool before you mix it in to the flour.  However, I can say that they are worth the little bit of extra time.  The beer (which I usually hate) made the cake stay really moist and they have a great chocolatey taste.  The frosting got rave reviews, thanks to the 3 tablespoons of Bailey's!  My recipe made 24, and we only have 6 left.  That's a lot of cupcakes to disappear from my house.  My aunt Heidi stopped by and ate three!  These guys were a big hit.  They may be my new St. Patty's day tradition.

Then I stuck with an old tradition: Irish soda bread.  My parents have made this beauty for years.  The recipe we use comes from the Fanny Farmer cookbook, and only calls for 4 ingredients.  Today Allie sent over her old family recipe's soda bread, and it was so different from mine.  It was really sweet, and crumbly. Mine has no sugar and is more bread-like than crumbly.  I got curious and Googled it, and apparently (no offense, Allie!) our version is the traditional Irish soda bread.  The authentic ones only have 4 ingredients: salt, flour, baking soda, and buttermilk, since the people making it were very poor and could only bake with the bare minimum.  I add raisins to mine, which invalidates the authenticity (apparently then it is called spotted dog... or a spotted dick... ew!), but I love it with raisins!  More than half of the bread is gone, and since it was such a ridiculously easy recipe, I might have to make another one tomorrow.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone who is Irish, and everyone who wishes they were ;)

Recipes:
Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's frosting

Irish soda bread
adapted from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook

4 cups flour
1 1\2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet.

2) In large bowl toss together dry ingredients.

3) Add buttermilk.  Stir briskly with fork til dough forms together in a rough mass.

4) Knead on a liberally floured surface for about 30 secs. Pat into a round.  Slash a large 1\4″ deep X across the top. Place on baking sheet, and bake 45-50 mins. or until the crust is browned and the cross has spread open. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Apparently, the traditional thing to do next is to wrap it in a slightly damp tea towel and let it rest for 8 hours. Wrapping the baked, cooled bread in a damp towel helps it to settle and makes it easier to slice.  However, when you take this bread out of the oven, no one in your family would be able to wait 8 hours to eat it :)

To my bread, I probably added about 1/4 cup of raisins to the dough while I was kneading it.

My Irish baked goods!

Cooking from Dawn till Dusk!

Well, I am certainly not a fan of setting my alarm clock 30 minutes earlier than usual to have time to pop a breakfast casserole into the oven and make a blueberry sauce, but it certainly felt worth it when I was dining with Kenzie at 7:30 before we left for work this morning.   The overnight blueberry French toast was a hit with both of us (and apparently later on in the morning with my mom!).  I wish there were more people living in my house, though, because there is a ton left.  Looks like we will be eating breakfast casserole for a few more days!  Even though it was good, that whole 12 eggs thing really freaked me out, and this casserole has most likely seen its last days at the Tucker house.  I do think, though, that if I had a big crowd coming over (or if Glenwood was the old Glenwood and we still did our monthly staff breakfasts), it would be perfect.  It's sweet, syrupy, crunchy and soft at the same time.


After work, Mom was craving pizza, so I made up two doughs.  In the end, we decided to make just one pizza on a cookie sheet instead of two, one at a time, on our one pizza stone.  Mom and Mark covered half with grilled peppers from the other night, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, and sliced onions.  I had herbed goat cheese along with the mozzarella.  I can definitely say that this was one of the best pizzas ever!  My crust, if I do say  so myself, was perfect: puffy, soft, and chewy, and our strange mix of toppings just worked.  We all enjoyed, considering I made two doughs and the three of us ate all but three pieces :)  I liked this pizza dough recipe just as much as the last time I made it.  Bobby Flay knows his food.  I think I should sell my doughs (or pizzas?) at the Westminster farmer's market!

Recipe:
pizza dough

How cute is my mom, sitting on the floor to watch our pizza cook?

My First Fish

Tonight I made my first fish for dinner!  I had found a recipe on Pinterest that sounded rather delicious, and I like that fish has little to no raw meat touching.  Marky was yet again my trusty sous chef, chopping onions and garlic like it's nobody's business.  I think we make a rather fantastic cooking team, if I do say so myself.  We made a orange zest, garlic and butter glaze for the haddock, and then made a sort of black bean and corn salsa with fresh cilantro (my new favorite ingredient).  You put the salsa down on tin foil, put the fish on top, and then fold the foil up into a packet and bake it like that.  One thing that was a little weird about the recipe is that it was supposed to be done in 20 minutes, but it took at least 40.  I think there may be something a little off about my oven, since it always takes longer than recipes say, but this was drastically longer!  It could be that our 4 fish fillets were about 75% larger than what we needed... but anyway, the wait was worth it!  This fish was absolutely delicious.  The orange juice and zest gave it a great citrus-y taste, and my new obsession, fresh cilantro, gave the salsa a great flavor.  Let's just say that the sheer amount of fish ingested by Mom, Mark and I is rather disgusting, but only the 3 of us like fish, and there were 4 pounds of haddock (okay, we overbought) all cooked to perfection!  This was a big hit and will find its way back to our dinner table again... when Rachael and Kenzie aren't around to complain.

Then, I moved on to my next dish.  We had a big loaf of French bread that had barey been touched but was super stale.  I hate wasting food, so I tried to finda use for it and came across a breakfast casserole.  I love breakfast and never seem to have time in the morning, so anything I can do the night before is great.  This casserole is called overnight blueberry French toast.  Tonight, I had to make the casserole and let it sit overnight in the fridge.  Tomorrow morning, it bakes for an hour.  I am a little concerned that I need to find the time to come downstairs, preheat the oven, take the foil off after 30  minutes - never mind the time to make the sauce that goes on top.  But I hope it will be worth it as Kenzie and I eat a delicious French toast casserole to get us through the day (Hat Day at work, which is definitely one of my least favorites... particularly during lice season...).  One thing I do not like about the recipe already: it called for 12 eggs.  TWELVE. An entire dozen eggs in one casserole!  I hate to say it, but most likely, no matter how good this recipe is, I doubt I will make it again.  The only reason I did it this time was that I had bought an 18-pack of eggs recently; but to use an entire container of eggs on one dish seems insane.  I'm sure this casserole will last us many breakfasts, but still.  Anyway, I should get to bed, since I will be up far too early tomorrow to work on my gourmey (eggy) breakfast!

Recipes:
Foil-baked fish with black beans and corn
Overnight blueberry French toast

Amazing News

I JUST BOUGHT AN AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS 7-QUART KITCHENAID MIXER!!!!!!  I am so excited :)  No recipes to share as of right now... I just had to share this fabulous news.  I have wanted a larger mixer (ours is an ancient 4.5-quart) since I started baking; this one was really too small to double any batches of things, which can be annoying.  My dad always used to want a bigger one too, and the kind that cranks the bowl up and down, not the head tilt like we have.  I ordered it with him this afternoon and I think he was happy!  It was a rather amazing deal, so if you were in the market for a new mixer, go to the Beyond the Rack website!  The downside is that I now need to wait 2-3 weeks for it to ship, but it will all be worth it when it comes in.  Wahoo!

My gorgeous new baby!

The Crock Pot is my Friend

Last night before I went to bed, I got things prepped for dinner tonight.  This is a first for me, but I have realized that the crock pot is my friend.  I like that whole "set it and forget it" thing; it makes cooking more like baking, which I like so much better.  And Laura, my cooking guru friend from work, gave me this recipe and said that everyone raves about it.  So last night, I poured onion soup mix into a crock pot, put the pork chops into a zip lock bag in the fridge (they were individually wrapped and believe me, this step took a while), and took out a can of cranberry sauce (and yes, those are all the ingredients).  Then this morning, I put it all into the crock pot, turned it on, and dragged myself off to work. 

Mark's "minimalist" plate!

By the time I got home, the house smelled pretty damn good, and the pork chops were starting to fall apart!  Mom made potatoes and some green beans and carrots, and I made a gravy out of the sauce that was left.  I still cannot quiet get over how few ingredients there were in this, and yet how amazing it was - and also, the fact that it tasted neither like cranberries nor onion soup mix!  It ended up only being Mom, Mark and I for dinner, but all three of us really enjoyed it.  Mark and I were a little obsessed with the gravy and were sopping it up with some of my leftover focaccia bread from the pot luck lunch (don't get me started how much was left over... I will try not to be offended).

The recipe called for a beef chuck roast, but pork chops were cheaper, and Laura said she used a pork tenderloin so I figured it would be okay to use chops.  I still cannot get over the small amount of ingredients (and work!)  that this recipe required, and that is a very good thing for something that tastes so good.  I'd recommend this, and will probably be making it again when there are more than 2 people with me at the dinner table!

Recipe:
Slow cooker cranberry roast or pork chops

Macaroons or Macarons?

First: I did end up finding a new whisk attachment for my ancient mixer.  I cannot wait for it to come in.  In the meantime, I borrowed Betsy's.  Thank you Bets!  Come on over for some macaroons as payment ;)


Today, after hearing my mother vehemently swearing because she forgot to tell my sister to pick her up some coconut macaroons from Gerrardo's,  I decided that I would make her some!  When I Googled a recipe, I found quite a confusing mix of recipes.  Apparently there are macaroons,  and there are macarons.  The macaroons that I was looking for are made mostly of coconut, sometimes dipped in chocolate, and are white.  The macarons that I was finding (and sometimes spelled macaroons, to double my confusion) look like mini sandwich cookies and are many different colors.   Apparently, they both start off with egg whites and sugar, but differ from there.  So, if you areas confused as I was, here is what I found out by researching the macaroon/macaron quandry (thank you thekitchn.com!) :

Macaroons:

THESE are macaroons!

These are the easier cookie.  Once you have your meringue, you fold in sweetened coconut, and drop tablespoons onto a cookie sheet.  Once they are cooked, you can dip them in chocolate if you so choose.  They are cripsy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Macarons:
Once you have a meringue, you fold in confectionary sugar and ground almonds.  The batter is very fluid and gets piped onto a cookie sheet.  A buttercream frosting must be made, and you use that to sandwich two cookies together.

A bit poopy-looking, but delicious!

Now that that is all cleared up, I was making macaroons today (although macarons definitely intrigue me... ).  They were shockingly easy and quick, and come out great.  The only bad part was Mom insisting that she needed them to be dipped in chocolate, which I did not have.  I was wearing sweatpants and fluffy slippers and was not looking forward to going out, but she was begging.  She came up with the idea of melting a Lindt chocolate bar (for some reason, we have a huge amount of them).  I tried to tell her that you need high-quality chocolate mixed with lots of butter to make a dippable chocolate - I recently read a whole article on this in  my Foot Network magazine - but she insisted, so I tried.  It ended up looking a little bit like someone pooped on top of each cookie (after eating hazelnuts... because the candy bar was a chocolate hazelnut one), because as I expected, the chocolate seized up, but hey: if you shut your eyes, they taste amazing!  Why does it seem like I say that all the time?   Oh well! They were a big hit with Mom and her macaroon cravings.

After that, I made an enormous double batch of my good old herbed focaccia for tomorrow's pot luck lunch at work.  We have a professional development day, and I thought homemade bread would be pretty impressive for my coworkers.  Unfortunately, the lunch is the only 45 minutes of the day that I am looking forward to, so I hope the focaccia goes over well!

Giant focaccia bread!  It's almost as big as my pastry board!

Recipes:
Chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons
Herbed focaccia

Whisking like Crazy

Last night, we had a little party to go to.  I went to Mark's after work, and together we decided to make taquitos to bring with us!  Strangely, his house had absolutely none of the ingredients I need (what kind of a place doesn't keep chili powder on hand?  Or garlic?!) so $45 later, we were ready to get to work.  We kind of cheated and bought a rotisserie chicken to cut down on cooking time, and it made the taquitos pretty easy.  Basically, I just mixed everything together in a bowl, spooned it onto the tortillas, rolled them, and baked them.  I doubled the recipe, and I also added a can of kidney beans (I wanted black beans, but of course that was all I could find in Mark's cabinets!).  I also think corn would make a great addition next time.  They were absolutely delicious- and certainly not the healthiest thing on earth with cheese and cream cheese, but well worth it.  Kenzie said she had 3 at the party!  They were definitly a success.




Today I was craving making bread, but got too overwhelmed trying to find a recipe.  Mom stepped in and requested an olive bread.  I love olives and I love bread, so I thought that this sounde absolutely perfect.  It took a long time, because it had to rise three times, but I think it was worth the time.  It has  a great crust, and a soft, chewy inside.  The olives inside are nice and salty.  I do wish that I had used fresh olives instead of black chewy ones, because they have such a better flavor.  Mark's family has totally made me an olive snob!  I do wish that everyone else in my house liked olives, because apparently my sisters and cousins all hate them and thus hate the bread.  Mom and I were happy with it though, and I gave some to Dani after we had a lovely puzzle date tonight. 

Now, the bad news: apparently the bread was too much for Mom and Dad's ancient (older than me) KitchenAid mixer.  Luckily the mixer itself is okay, but the whisk broke.  A tine of it came flying off - it just snapped.  Mom and Rachael were unable to find a replacement for our (antique) model when they went shopping, so I went online... and it appears they do not even make replacement accessories for these oldies!  I am not sure what to do.  I'd love to upgrade to a larger one, but it's more than $500.... which is ridiculous.  And now that I am on the KitchenAid website, there are so many accessories that I would love to have... a ravioli maker... a pasta machine... a juicer... I need to stop looking and try to just find another whisk.  Otherwise my baking passion is in some deep trouble.  How could I make a merengue by hand?!  RIP ancient KitchenAid whisk :(

Recipes:
Creamy chicken taquitos
Rosemary olive bread

Soooup!

Tonight I was just in the mood for soup.  I am not sure why, since it is the warmest day we have had in months, but maybe it is just that I adore all soups, and I always have. On our first date, Mark took me to a little soup restaurant because he said he had noticed that I liked to eat "mush."  With soup and mashed potatoes on the top of my food lists, I guess he is right.  I was surprised to realize that so far in this 3 months of my cooking resolution, I had not attempted a single soup!  So tonight was the day.

Mark and I went to Stop and Shop without a real plan in mind, but knowing that we were low on time.  He grabbed two of his beloved marinated pork loins, and I quickly browsed one of my favorite cooking blogs and came up with a tortellini soup with beans and chard.  Perfect: a meatless soup with tortellinis! We grabbed what we needed andwent home, and I bet we were eating close to an hour later.  It was pretty quick, pretty delicious, and pretty beautiful (the chard is the most gorgeous deep green color, and I am so glad I got multicolored tortellini!).  Definitely a hit. 

I doubled the cans of beans, since 1 can in a big pot of soup really is not enough protein (I ended up not having 2 cans of cannelinis, so the other can was pink beans), and I also doubled the tortellinis beause I adore them.  I realize this sort of diminishes the healthiness of the soup, but I did not add the parmesan rind (simply because I didn't have one) and so I claim that it evened out.  Mark grated a little fresh parmesan on our bowls of soup, and it was pretty damn great.  Mom had seconds!  That's always a great sign. It ended up just being the 3 of us home, so there is plenty for me to take to school tomorrow.  One more day till the weekend, and I have some rather amazing things planned :)

Recipe:
Tortellini soup with beans and chard

Italian Night

Holy cannoli, I am exhausted tonight.  I came home from a long Tuesday with 22 11-year olds who are totally feeling the full moon, and did not have too much planned.  However, I wanted to make stuffed shells, and someow an Italian night began taking shape in my mind. Maybe it's that I am currently reading the sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun, enjoying the recipes far more than the prose, or maybe it's that I have been trying to be better about making whole meals instead of just a main course.  All of a sudden, I was planning not only the stuffed shells, but some sort of side salad, bread, and pizza!

Italian Night Dinner!

First I made the bread, since it takes longer with the rising and all.  I made my old fall-back, herbed focaccia.  This is the third time I have made it since my blog began - the only recipe I have made three times! That definitely means something.  So easy, so quick, so delicious!  It went perfectly with the rest of the meal.  I still think that this is the best bread for anyone who is nervous about trying to make bread.  It's pretty hard to mess up, and with the fresh herbs (I used fresh rosemary and thyme, and dried oregano and basil), it just has amazing flavor.

Then came Mark to the rescue with the side salad.  He whipped together a gorgeous Caprese salad; he even bought special thick and gooey balsamic.

I tried not to be offended when Nick came in from Wal-Mart angry that they were out of breadmakers.  Breadmaker?!  Isn't that what I am?  He said he wanted it to make pizza dough, and so that was my next recipe.  I knew that it was basically just a yeast dough, so it was really quick to whip that up.  The pizza would fit in perfectly with my Italian night, too!

By far Nick's best pizza... not just because of my great dough!

Last came the stuffed shells.  I made spinach-and-ricotta-stuffed shells, and they were absolutely delicious.  Such good flavor from the ricotta, spinach, parmesan, and mozzarella!  These will definitely reappear soon.  I think they would be great with some chopped basil added in to the spinach, but we were out, after putting it in the Caprese and the pizza.

How pretty are these shells?

Now that I have been on my feet cooking for about 4 hours, I would say it's time to take a break!  But I certainly recommend everything I made tonight for your Italian night dinner! (Can you tell I taught a lesson on advertising recently?)

Recipes:
herbed focaccia
pizza dough
spinach-and-ricotta-stuffed shells

Weird but Good

My goal today was to make a dinner that sounded absolutely bizarre.  You know me and my weird food tastes, so when I came across a recipe for caramel apple pork chops, I was intrigued.  I like caramel and apples, and apples and pork chops, so it made sense to mix the three together.  I was fully aware that from the sounds of the food, most of my family would hate it, but it was worth a shot.

Actually, this came out better than I expected.  My mom even liked it, and she hates everything.  Nick, who claims to hate sweet meat, ate his entire pork chop.  It certainly was sweet, with the sauce made from brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and the apples, but it melded well with the savory-ness of the pork chops.  I am still not a huge pork chop fan, but I liked the flavors I came up with today.

I stuck quite close to the recipe this time.  One change I did was to not peel the apples.  They were such a bright green color that I couldn't bear to get rid of them.  I think they made the dish prettier.  I also used 5 pork chops rather than the 4, simply because we had 5 people eating, so I think I ended up with less sauce, but it was fine by me.  I also didn't have any pecans, but I think that it would have been a great addition.

Note to self: don't start a dinner with the pork chops.  By the time they were done, it was too late to start a side!  I am still figuring out this whole plan-a-meal thing!  Thanks for Mom for the lightning-fast green beans and reheating rice from yesterday :)

Recipe:
caramel apple pork chops

A New Enchilada!

Today, Mom, Kenzie and I ventured out to Wegman's. I have been once before, but with Mark and Jay (the two most ADHD people you could imagine).  They made me leave within 10 minutes of getting inside the super crowded place.  This time it was much different and mroe enjoyable!  It was still ridiculously crowded - Mom even got injured in an attempt to reach around a guy and get tomatoes and dragged her leg behind her like Frankenstein - but we had a lot of fun picking out the food for the recipes I have planned for the week, and grabbing random things we did not need at all.  I am pretty pumped about my triple-creme brie, Korean butter pears, and blood orange juice!

Anyway, like I said, this weekend, I have attempted to plan the week's meals ahead of time to minimize running to the grocery store every night.  I gave Kenzie the choice of what I should make tonight, and she chose honey lime enchiladas.  You may remember that back in February, I made enchiladas for Kenze's birthday, and they were a huge hit.  I wanted to try out a new recipe that I had seen on Pinterest.  I was intrigued by the honey-lime marinade, but also a little freaked out that the recipe called for a cup of heavy cream!  In addition, I needed a jar of green chile sauce.  While Wegman's appeared to have every other imaginable Mexican sauce, green chile was not one of them.  I am sure it was somewhere in that behemoth of a store, but I didn't find anything but a little can of chopped green chiles.  This had me quite worried, but determined.

Once we got home, I noticed that the recipe said to cook the chicken and shred it.  I am not the greatest cook, and am embarrassed to admit that my  mom had to explain that meant to boil it.  I was happy that by boiling the chicken, there was no need to touch raw, repulsive chicken breast or to hack out gross pieces.  Most of the yucky stuff melts in the water, and then I only had to shred it and be on the lookoout for weird things to toss to the dogs.... but probably everyone else on earth knows that already.  Then I made the marinade and let it sit while I thought about the lack of green chile sauce.  I ended up googling how to turn a can of green chiles into green chile sauce, and whipping that up while the chicken marinated.  I had 3 different people tell me that the kitchen smelled amazing while I was making it, so I am kind of glad that I made my own.  I think it made the enchiladas taste better. I would recommend making it if you try these, but double the recipe if you can; I didn't have enough chiles to do that, but I wished I had had more sauce to pour on top of the enchiladas.

When it was time to pour the remaining chile sauce on top of the enchiladas and add a cup of cream, I balked.  I poured the leftover sauce on top (there wasn't much left), and then used some of a can of green salsa, and maybe 2 tablespoons of the cream.  I just could not pour a cup of heavy cream onto any meal without feeling like a whale eating it.  The recipe also called for an entire pound of shredded cheese, and I can tell you that I did not use near that amount!  I'm trying to be slightly healthy, here!

The end result was something I was happy with.  Mom made some Mexican rice to go with it, and I ate my entire enchilada along with some rice.  So did Mom and Kenzie.  The enchiladas are a little sweet from the honey on the chicken, but you taste the lime, and my chile sauce was pretty damn good too!  Rachael didn't finish hers, and claimed something was spicy (I think it was the rice, because I hate spicy and nothing I put in was hot).  Nick hated it, and yet claimed to be "full" (this is something he says whenever he hates what I have cooked. He has never used the word "full" otherwise).  He fed more than half of his to the dogs.  Considering I had to make the chicken, the marinade, the chile sauce, and put the enchiladas together, this was not a quick recipe, so I was more than a little pissed. Kenzie says he hates sweet meat, so I am planning to retaliate tomorrow with this bizarre recipe I found for caramel apple pork chops!  Bwahahahah.  I may be evil, but I'm sensitive when it comes to my cooking!  I was sad that everyone wasn't a fan.  I realize now that I never even took pictures of the finished product, because when they came out of the oven, we were starving, and once we started eating, I was busy pouting and feeling bad for myself :)  Anyway: I would recommend these, with my little tweaks.  Definitely make your own green chile sauce, and try not to pour heavy cream all over the place :)

Recipes:
Honey lime enchiladas
Green chile sauce

I'm Baaaack!

After a week with a worthless oven, I am finally back in action!  The oven guy came yesterday and gave us a new touchpad, and we are back in the kitchen!  Wahoo!  Last night, I wanted to make something, but I was so excited that I ended up spending all night poring over recipes.

But today, I told Mom to choose a recipe for me. I was out for the morning, doing some last-minute quizzing for Mark before his teacher test, and then I had to stop at the studio to do some singing.  I was tired when I got home, but Mom had a recipe for a chocolate and vanilla marble cake, and I couldn't say no.

This is a pretty cake, and it is often quite difficult for me for me to make anything look nice, so that was a plus.  No frosting needed.  I also think that it looks like it took more time than it did, and that is always good too.   Basically you make the vanilla batter, then steal some of it and add the chocolate to it, then drop spoonfulls of each batter into the pan like a checkerboard.  At the end, you swirl it with a knife.  I swirled the top, but kind of kept the bottom in the checkerboard pattern.  I think it looks pretty cool.  And it tastes good too, of course!  My mom ate two pieces, and like I have said, she is picky, so if she has seconds, it means something!

Recipe:
marble cake



Is it just me, or does this piece have a face?