Pasta!

This post is dedicated to Kaz and Andrea, who made today's recipe possible :)

I HAVE MADE MY OWN PASTA!  Yes, you've read that correctly.  I literally made fettucini and raviolis from scratch.  I am so excited about this, you cannot even believe it.  It was fun, it was easy, and it was absolutely delicious. 

Back at Christmas time, I started pining for a pasta machine.  Preferably, the one that attaches to my Kitchen Aid mixer.  Except for the fact that... it's about $500.  I really thought I was going to get one, but then I got an engagement ring instead, which is 100% okay with me!  Then, Andrea gave me a ravioli mold that can press out 12 perfect raviolis at once, and it even came with its own cute little rolling pin.  But still, no pasta machine, no raviolis.  Then last week, Kaz gave me the pasta machine that his mother gave to him (since people with celiac disease can't exactly be making their own pasta left and right!), and I officially had all I needed to start being the good little Italian girl that I am!  I decided to make a double batch of doughs and make some raviolis (and I ended up making fettucini with the extra dough).

Dough balls resting under their wet towel!

After much research, I decided to do a flour blend using half regular, half semolina.  I am very glad that I did, because semolina hs a really high gluten content, which makes the dough easy to work with and stretch, which is definitely a must for making pasta.  It also had the perfect consistency, so I will do that again.  Then I just mixed the flours and salt with eggs, olive oil, and a little water.  I used my mixer for most of it, and then kneaded it by hand until I had a dough.  Then I let it sit for a while (Annie says to let it rest 30 minutes) and made my fillings.

I decided to make two different fillings for my raviolis, based on my family's requests.  Mom asked for a spinach and ricotta, and Rachael wanted plain cheese.  After some research, I came upon the Pioneer Woman's recipes for three different fillings.  I mixed and matched them a bit and came up with two absolutely delicious fillings that were both very well loved (although there is a special place in my heart for those spinach raviolis... oh man... so fresh-tasting and amazing!).

Then it was time for the real fun to start.  To use the pasta machine, you have to roll out the dough thin enough to fit through the widest setting, then feed it through and crank away.  After one swipe through the machine, it is a bit shaggy and torn-looking, so you fold it into thirds, roll it out again, and put it back through the machine.  Some people suggest doing this a few more times, but my machine must be extra awesome, because I was ready to go down to the next thinnest setting.  My machine has 7 settings, and I found that the perfect ravioli setting to end on was 4.  5 was too thick and 3 a little bit too thin.  This part was really fun and exciting- maybe I am a dork - but it was awesome to watch the dough getting thinner and longer and stretching so perfectly.

Once the dough was ready, I laid one end of it over my mold and pressed the dough inside the holes. Then I filled each hole, and folded the other end of the dough over the top.  Here is where the trusty little rolling pin came in handy to press the dough down, sealing the raviolis and cutting them out.  I used a toothpick to help me get the first ravioli out, and then I was able to pull them all out easily.  Again - this was so much fun!!!  Am I weird?!

These guys only required 3 minutes in boiling water, and they were ready to go.  And go they did!  I had Kenzie and Nick make me their spaghetti sauce (meatless this time!) and it was really a wonderful meal.  I am already looking forward to my next pasta creation.  Tortellini?  Spaghetti?  Some other bizarrely-stuffed ravioli!?  My options are endless.  I am pumped with my new hobby.

One last note: I told you I made fettucini because I had leftover dough and no more filling.  I laid them out (on an upright cutting board since I don't have a drying rack!) to dry for an hour and stored them in the fridge.  Today my mom went to cook them, but she only cooked them for the 3 minutes we gave the other pasta.  The issue was, once you dry them, they do take longer than 3-5 minutes, so be careful if you dry your pasta to cook it long enough!

Recipes:

homemade pasta dough
from Annie's Eats

Yield: about 1 lb. of fresh pasta

 

Ingredients:

1½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surfaces
1½ cups semolina flour
½ tsp. salt
4 large eggs
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. water, plus more as needed

 

Instructions:

 

1)  Combine the flours and salt in a bowl or on a work surface, creating a well in the center. Crack the eggs into the well. Using a mixer or by hand, slowly mix, incorporating the flour into the egg mixture a little bit at a time. Once you have a dry, shaggy dough, mix in the olive oil and water and knead by hand until the dough is fairly smooth and homogenous. Divide the dough into four portions and cover with a damp towel. Let rest for 20 minutes; if you are making a filled pasta, make your filling now.

 

2) At this point, proceed with thinning and cutting as desired, depending on equipment available.

 

3) To cook, cook noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 3-5 minutes or until al dente. Drain well and serve immediately.

 

ravioli two ways: three cheese and spinach and ricotta

adapted from The Pioneer Woman

 

Ingredients:

12 ounces Ricotta

1 cup freshly grated parmesan or romano (the original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, and cuts out the mozzarella; do as you wish!)

1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1 whole egg

salt and pepper

4 cups baby spinach (you could also use arugula as the original recipe did)

1 tablespoon olive oil

 

Instructions:

1) Mix together ricotta, grated cheeses, egg, and salt and pepper to taste. Split into two separate bowls and set aside.

2) In a skillet over medium heat, heat olive oil and wilt spinach (this'll only take about 30-45 seconds.) Remove from skillet and chop. Allow to cool, then stir into one batch of the ricotta mixture. Set aside.

3) Once the ravioli are assembled, drop them four at a time into boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon.

 

Chickpea and Spinach Soup with Garlic

Ah vacation. How I have loved you!  It has been a wonderful week, and I am studiously trying to forget that I have one day left before it's back to the grind.  I've had time to go out to eat, hang out with my Marky, cook and bake to my heart's content, and book our wedding  at Gibbet Hill!!  Wahoo!  7/25/14, which by the way is only 516 days away :) 

One day this week, my lovely fiance showed up with a present for me.  He proudly handed me The Soup Bible.  Knowing how much I love soups, it was a great gift!  I immediately looked through the whole thing.  There are tons of vegetarian soups, and right away I went to the cabinet to see what ingredients I had because I wanted to try out a recipe.  I was intrigued by a chickpea and spinach soup with garlic.  I know that in itself doesn't sound that intriguing, but it has tahini in it!  In case you haven't figured it out by now, I get really excited when recipes call for tahini.  I love putting it in hummus, even cookies.  So I figured, tahini in soup was going to be an excellent thing. Plus it had cumin and coriander, and potatoes and spinach,  all of which I love.

The soup was pretty easy  to put together, and quick, too.  Lots of vegetable chopping, but nothing crazy.  Then it really only has to simmer for about 20 minutes total, and you're good to go.  There is 2/3 cup of cream added in the end, which unforunately made my whole family act like they are suddenly health freaks who refused to try it.  But Mark and I ate it, and we thought it was very good.  I love any soup with potatoes in it, and you could taste a nice subtle hint of the tahini.  I did change the chickpeas to cannellini beans, only because my family hates chickpeas (of course, since no one ate it anyway, it didn't matter!).  I think if I made the soup again, I would leave out the cream, just so my picky mother and sister would eat it.  But I thought it was very good!

Recipe:

chickoea and spinach soup with garlic
from The Soup Bible, edited by Debra Mayhew
serves 4

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/4 vegetable stock
2 1/2 cups finely chopped potatoes
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons tahini
3 1/2 cup shredded spinach
cayenne pepper (I left this out)
salt and freshly ground pepper

Ingredients:

1) Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the garlic and onion and fry for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft and golden brown.

2) Stir in the ground cumin and coriander and cook for 1 minutes  Add the stock and potatoes and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

3) Add the chickpeas and simmer for 5 minutes longer or until the potatoes are just tender.

4) Blend together the cornstarch, cream, tahini, and plenty of salt and pepper.  Stir into the soup with the spinach, and bring to a boil, stirring.  Lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.  Serve sprinkled with a little extra cayenne pepper.

Italian Bread!

Oh man, do I love vacation!  I have been cooking and baking like nobody's business and it's only Monday!  Yesterday, Tracy, Gary and Kelsey came over for the afternoon.  They are having a really tough week, so I knew that I wanted to really cheer them up with some great food.  I planned out a long grocery list and lots of exciting meals for the week, shopped, and then came home and then got right to work.  I made mostly repeat recipes: fluffernutter cookies, which Mom and Alex had been begging for, and which everyone was devouring at the most insane rate (they're all gone today!); strawberry shortcake cookies, which was my attempt to give Kels her request for shortcake when I feel too strongly that it's a summer dessert (most of those went too!); and Mexican lasagna for dinner, which got rave reviews from everyone.  Gary even took my turn getting logs in return for my cooking!  The whole meal went great, actually, and I got lots of compliments on everything.  In fact, Kelsey said that she usually eats food at a meal according to how much she likes things, but she was having trouble deciding which part was her favorite!  However, besides all those great recipes, I made something else yesterday that was a new one for me, and I am so excited to share it today, because it was awesome.

It is no secret that I love bread.  I love eating it, I love making it, I love smelling the yeast activating  (is that weird?).  And I have made a lot of breads this past year.  But one thing I never made is Italian bread, which strangely enough is one of my favorites.  I recently pinned two different recipes for it, and when Tracy requested homemade bread, I knew it was the right time to give one of them a try.  And I am thrilled that I chose the one that I did.  This is my new go to bread recipe.  Yup, that's right, folks.  The bread lover has found her favorite bread recipe for your everyday bread to go with dinner. It was really easy, only needed to rise for an hour and a half, and it was delicious: salty, soft, with the most gorgeous brown crust.  I am so happy about this bread!

Another great thing about it is that it makes a lot of bread.  The loaf is rather enormous.  Okay, it is plain humungous.  And you slice it down the middle before you bake it to let it "bloom," and so it spreads out ever larger.  It ended up growing the size of the sheet I baked it on! 

Two things you don't want to forget to do: first, don't skip the egg wash.  I skipped the sesame seeds, but the egg wash really helps it to brown up beautifully.  Second (and this was a tip from the blog I got the recipe from), put a pan in the oven when you preheat it.  Then, when you put the bread in, pour a couple cups of water into the pan.  This lets the steam out right away and helps to keep the crust moist and perfect. 

This bread will be made again soon in the Tucker house.  Most of it went yesterday, and it is still pretty good today, which is kind of rare for breads.  And it is soooo good!

Recipe:

Italian bread
from Browneyed Baker

Instuctions:

2 cups lukewarm water (~100°F)
1 package active dry yeast
5 to 5¾ cups bread flour
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2½ teaspoons salt
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Instructions:
 

1. Stir the yeast into ½ cup of the warm water. Let proof as you measure out the dry ingredients.

2. Combine 5 cups flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the yeast mixture, remaining water and olive oil. Using a dough hook attachment, mix on lowest speed of electric mixer  until a dough starts to form, adding more flour as needed. Knead on low speed for 7 minutes. Transfer dough to lightly floured surface and need by hand for 1 to 2 minutes, or until a smooth, firm, elastic dough is formed.

3. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and spray the dough with a thin coating of cooking spray. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to proof in a warm, draft-free place for 1½ hours or until doubled in size.

4. Remove the plastic wrap, punch down and flatten the rounded dough with the heel of your hand. Roll the dough up tightly, sealing the seam well after each roll. The dough should be elongated and oval-shaped, with tapered and rounded (not pointed) ends.

5. Preheat the oven lined with a baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles (or not... I just threw in a pan that I planned to pour water in later) to 425°F.

6. Place the dough on a baker's peel heavily dusted with flour, or alternately on an inverted baking sheet (I just used a baking sheet, not inverted). Allow the dough to proof, loosely covered with a floured canvas cloth, for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.

7. Brush the dough with the egg white and sprinkle the sesame seeds over the top. Using a razor blade or sharp knife, slash the dough lengthwise about 1/4-inch deep, keeping the blade at a 45 degree angle.

8. If you are going to use the water pan trick, put the bread and the water in the oven.  If not, spray the dough generously with water from a water bottle and place in the oven on the baking stone. Immediately close the oven and bake for 3 minutes. Open the oven door and spray the dough again with the water bottle. Close the oven door and bake for an additional 3 minutes before spraying the dough for a third time (the spraying of the dough will ensure a crisp golden brown crust).

9. Bake the dough for a total of 45 minutes, or until a hollow thud is heard when tapping the bottom of the bread. Allow the bread to cool before slicing.

Banana Crumb Muffins

What is this?!  Two posts in one day!?  Consider this my apology for being such a lackadaisical blogger so far this year.  I hope to be better this week, since it is vacation week!!!  Good lord, I think this may be the most needed February break ever.  So, while I have the time, I'm going to try to catch up on blogging my backlog of recipes, while definitely trying out some new ones :)

So, this recipe comes to you from last Saturday.  Like I said in other posts, we were in the middle of a blizzard last weekend.  This storm, bizarrely named Nemo, did not mess around.  It resulted in a snow day Friday for us, and a delay Monday.  Some schools around Massachusetts were closed for most of the week!  We got over 2 feet of snow and thus we were really stuck at home all weekend.  It was the perfect weekend to bake up something delicious for my bored, hungry family!

In my last post, I told you that I was baking king cakes for the church on Saturday.  My family kept complaining that they couldn't believe that I was baking things for anyone besides them, so I knew it would be a fun idea to secretly bake them something while I waited for the king cake doughs to rise.  Since I had three very ripe bananas, I decided to find something good to use them in.  A quick trip to Annie's Eats, and I found a recipe for banana crumb muffins that just so happened to call for three very ripe bananas.  Perfect.

This recipe only makes 9 muffins, which is actually really sad because these muffins are delicious!  You can really taste the banana, and the cinnamony, buttery crumb topping is such a great addition.  Miracle of all miracles: all of these muffins got eaten!  Everyone was so excited when I flounced into the room carrying a muffin tin full of hot, steaming muffins as a surprise!  And they were honestly gone by the end of the weekend.  They were quick, easy, and delicious, and I am currently eyeing some more ripe bananas and making plans for them ;)

Recipe:

banana crumb muffins
from Annie's Eats, originally from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

For the muffins:1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, melted 

For the topping:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter   

Directions:1) Preheat oven to 375°.  Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers. 

2) In a large bowl, mix together 1 ½ cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, cinnamon and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.  

3) In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.   

4) Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Cream Cheese-Filled King Cake

My 2 King Cakes!

Happy Mardi Gras!  Well, okay, I am a little late in wishing you that, but the cake was not late, despite the fact that I was baking it in a blizzard.

Let me start from the beginning: a few weeks ago, Anne asked me if I would help her out with baking some king cakes for our church's annual Mardi Gras party.  Apparently you can order them to be shipped from Louisiana,  but it will cost you an arm and a leg. Last year, if you remember (or if you don't, like my mother),  I made a king cake over February vacation after watching how to do it on the Today show.  So I knew I could easily handle whipping one up for the party.  She asked for a regular one like last year's, but also a cream cheese-filled one.  Since the traditional one already got its own blog post, this will be dedicated to the cream cheese-filled cake cake!

The dough of this cake was different than the more traditional one; it was flavored with nutmeg and lemon zest.  I am a huge believer of the wonderfulness of lemon zest; it just makes everything pop and brighten up flavors a little more.  It is a yeast cake, so it does take a while.  And it was not easy to roll the risen dough to a 20-by-10-inch rectangle.  In fact I found it nearly impossible.  But I tried.  Then I spread on the filling, which had more lemon zest (yay!), folded it over, and attempted to make a large ring out of the tube of dough.  I definitely made a ring, but it was not so large.  It was tough to work with a tube of dough filled with cream cheese filling without squashing it or squeezing out the insides, so while it may not have looked perfect, it was still a ring (at least until I baked it and the center hole sort of disappeared, but that's okay too!)

It is SORT of a ring...

Rachael and Mom helped me to decorate it.  One thing I love about king cakes is that they are not really supposed to look nice.  They get frosted and then decorated with Mardi Gras-colored sprinkles.  It's okay if they look tacky and garish because that is kind of the point!  That's good to hear because I still, more than a year after learning to cook, suck at making anything look nice.  But we frosted and sprinkled to our heart's content.

Rachael sprinkling

I was a little worried about this cake, because I never got to try it before I sent it off to the party.  And to make things worse, I made it Friday, since I had a snow day and Mardi Gras was scheduled for Saturday... but then Saturday the blizzard was still going so it was pushed off till Sunday.  However, I think having the cream cheese in there helped it to stay moist, luckily, because although I didn't get to eat this, the ladies at the Mardi Gras did, and not a scrap was left!  Whereas the other cake only had maybe a quarter missing, this one went completely.  And I even got a Facebook message from one of the women telling me that the "cake with the lemon filling" was "absolutely delicious!"  So I guess I can infer from that that the cream cheese filling is lemony and good, and the cake itself was a hit!

It was good to know that this cake could be made a day or so before you plan on serving it.  I recommend not frosting it until the day of, though.  That's what I did, and it seemed to work out well :)

Recipe:

cream cheese-filled king cake
from Gourmet Girl

Ingredients:

for dough:
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast or 1 package instant yeast
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter softened (1/2 stick)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon nutmeg
grated zest of one lemon (1 tablespoon)
2 1/2 cups flour

for filling:
10 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla

Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
colored sugars (green, purple and yellow)

Instructions:
1. Heat milk to 105-110 degrees in a small saucepan over low heat (to be honest, I was lazy and microwaved it briefly!). Place milk in the bowl of a standing mixer, add yeast and stir to combine. Allow milk mixture to rest for about 10 minutes or until frothy.

2. Beat the egg in a small bowl and add to milk mixture. Then add 2 1/2 cups flour, butter, sugar, salt, nutmeg and lemon zest. With the dough hook on low speed, mix until dough comes together. The dough will be slightly sticky, not too wet. If the dough seems very moist you may add up to 1/2 cup additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time (but less is more!). 

3. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for a few minutes until dough is soft and smooth. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Allow dough to rise in a warm and draft-free place for about an hour, or until doubled in size. 

4. Make filling by beating the cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar together with a mixer until fluffy then set aside.

5. Lay dough on lightly floured surface, punch down and roll into a 20" by 10" rectangle. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly on one half of the dough, then fold other half over to cover. Pinch dough together to seal in cream cheese. Make a ring and pinch ends together, the ring can be a circle or oval. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rose for 45 minutes.

6. In 375 degree oven bake king cake for 20 minutes or until slightly browned. Remove from oven and set a side to cool. (If you plan on adding a plastic baby, as tradition states, you should poke it into the bottom of the cake now!  The person who gets the baby will have good luck this year).

7. Mix icing ingredients together and whisk until smooth. Drizzle icing heavily over king cake, and while still wet, sprinkle with colored sugars.

Mom frosting my other king cake :)

North African Chickpea and Kale Soup

Well, this has been the perfect weekend to cook and bake to my heart's content.  Thanks to the lovely Nemo Storm, AKA the Blizzard of 2013, AKA the ginormous storm that dumped almost 3 feet on Massachusetts, we had a snow day on Friday.  Then there was a ban on traveling on any road in the state, so I was (happily) homebound.  It was a lovely weekend, snowy and cozy and full of soups and baked goods.

In addition to making my favorite baked potato soup , I also made North African chickpea and kale soup this weekend (a blizzard really is perfect soup weather!).  On a whim, I had asked Nick to buy kale when he was running to the grocery store recently, so I decided that it was the perfect time for a kale-based soup.  After googling "kale soup recipes," I came up with this one.  It was just what I liked: meatless but weird, and you know how I like that!  It has carrots, onions, chickpeas, and kale, of course, but then it is spiced with all sorts of fun and interesting things like saffron, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, allspice, paprika, cumin, chilli powder, and ginger.  I thought this was the most eclectic mix of spices I have ever seen in a soup, so I knew it was the recipe for me!

The soup is really pretty; I loved the colors of the vibrant green kale and the pop of orange from the carrots.  And it's healthy; carrots and kale are both great for you.  But beyond that, it is delicious.  There are so many layers of flavor going on in this soup; you can definitely taste that "North African" flair.  It tastes like you just got off a camel ride in Morocco (I would know).  Of course, I have been thrilled to eat this soup for three days now, and plan on taking more for lunch tomorrow.  Kenzie wasn't a fan since she doesn't like chick peas.  Rachael said it wasn't her favorite but it was good.  These people are tough to please.  I, for one, love this weird, interesting soup!

Recipe:

North African chickpea and kale soup
from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen

 

Ingredients:

1 large onion, chopped

2 carrots, sliced or diced

4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/8-1/4 teaspoon chilli powder or cayenne

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

generous pinch saffron, lightly crushed

2 bay leaves

1 3-inch cinnamon stick

3 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)

8 cups vegetable broth (or water plus bouillon)

1 large bunch kale, thick center ribs removed and chopped (at least 8 cups)

about 2 cups water

salt to taste

 

Instructions:

 

1) Spray a large saucepan with olive oil spray and heat it. Add the onion and carrot and cook over medium-high heat until the onion begins to brown (about 5 minutes). Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the spices, including bay leaves and cinnamon stick, and cook, stirring, for another minute. Add the chickpeas and stir to coat them with the spices. Pour in the 8 cups of vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.

 

2) Add the chopped kale and stir. If necessary add water to cover the kale and cook until it is tender, about 10-25 minutes, depending on how cooked you like your kale. Check frequently to see if it is becoming dry and add water as needed. Add salt to taste and serve.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart

Pre-peanut butter!  How shiny is that ganache!?

This decadent little gem of a desert was one that I made for Kenzie's birthday. We were going out to dinner and dessert since her 25th fell on a Friday, but my mom still wanted me to make a cake or something to offer aunts, uncles, grandmothers, etc. who may be stopping by before we left at 7:00. I just wasn't in the mood for a cake, though. I stopped at the grocery store and sat there in my car, googling dessert ideas, and then when I re-discovered Annie's Eats' recipe for a chocolate peanut butter tart, I knew I was ready to bake! Annie had posted this back in the summer, and I thought it looked amazing, and frankly pretty easy too. You have to make a chocolate crust and bake it in the tart pan (it was my first time using my pie weights! Wahoo!). Then you make a really simple chocolate ganache (pour hot cream into chocolate. Wait. Stir! That's it!) and pour it on. Then melt some peanut butter in a microwave, pipe it onto the tart, and use a toothpick to marble it. And then you're done! Well, then you have to chill it, and by the time mine was chilled, it was time for everyone to leave, so no one ate it until the next day,



Note the peanut butter on the stove... ohhhh Mom!

The end result is a dessert that feels almost more like candy than a baked good. The crunchy chocolate crust is a good texture contrast to the smooth, creamy filling. It kind of tastes like a big peanut butter cup. It's very rich - you don't want to cut more than a little sliver. But it is good. And it is so pretty! My mom helped with the decorating; make sure when you marble the peanut butter, you just zig zag a toothpick through the peanut butter lines. At first Mom was swirling all over the place, and that side of the tart looks a little uglier than the other!

Bad swirling!!!

Unfortunately there is still a lot left here; my mother is not a chocolate/peanut butter person, and Kenzie said it "made her thirsty." Whatever that means. Nick has eaten quite a bit of it and says that it's great; the Cormiers were big fans too. Although there is really only one member of my family who has adored this tart more than anyone else, and that is Neely Mouse. He has never been so excited to eat anything in his year and a half of life! He usually hides any treats that he gets to eat later, but he is too ecstatic about the tart and eats it right away :) So if you have to make a birthday cake for a mouse any time soon, this is my recommendation. Or, if you happen to have a peanut butter/chocolate lover, and you have a couple hours to allow for all the cooling and chilling time, make this delicious, sweet, rich, beautiful and easy tart!

Muuuch better :)

Recipe:

chocolate peanut butter tart

from Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup sugar
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. heavy cream

For the filling:
¾ cup creamy peanut butter, divided
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
¾ cup heavy cream

Instructions:

1) To make the crust, combine the flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients alternating with the cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. The dough will be quite soft. Transfer the dough to a piece of plastic wrap, form into a rectangle, and wrap tightly. Chill until firm, at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

 

 

2) Transfer the chilled dough to a well floured work surface. Roll the dough out into a 7 x 16-inch rectangle and fit into a 4½ x 14-inch rectangular tart pan, pressing the dough into the edges of the pan (FYI, my pan was much smaller than this, and it worked just fine; I just had a little extra dough) . Trim away any excess. Prick all over the surface of the dough with the tines of a fork. Freeze the lined tart pan until the dough is firm, about 30 minutes.

 

 

3) Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line the crust with parchment paper and fill with baking beads, dried beans or rice. Bake until the edges are set, about 20 minutes. Remove the weights and parchment and bake 5-10 minutes more. Let cool completely, about 30 minutes.

 

 

4) To make the filling, place ½ cup of the peanut butter in a small microwave-safe bowl. Heat until fluid, about 20-30 seconds. Pour into the bottom of the tart crust and smooth into an even layer. Freeze until the peanut butter is firm, about 20 minutes. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Bring the cream just to a boil. Pour over the chocolate and let sit 1-2 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the remaining ¼ cup of peanut butter until fluid. Transfer to a plastic bag. Whisk the chocolate mixture together until a smooth ganache forms. Pour the ganache into the tart shell in an even layer. Snip a small tip off of the corner of the plastic bag and pipe the peanut butter in diagonal lines on top of the ganache. Use a toothpick or skewer to marble them gently together. Chill until well set, at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours. Slice and serve.

Happy birthday, Kenz!  I'll forgive you for eating someone else's cake ;)

Skinny Coconut Shrimp

Let us rejoice: football is over.  With the Super Bowl on Sunday, the season roared to a close, and I am truly ecstatic.  It seems like that horrific sport is a year-round pain in my ass, but, praise God, it's done.  I still wasn't feeling the greatest the day of, and Nick was cooking up loads of meaty things like chicken wings and sausage calzones, so I let him have the kitchen.  Once the game started, everyone scattered and I was able to get back in there.  I was pretty excited to try out a recipe that I have been wanting to make for a while now: coconut shrimp.  Not just any coconut shrimp, either: skinny coconut shrimp, from Skinny Taste. 

I have always been a fan of coconut shrimp; I think it was basically the first way I started eating shrimp when I was a teenager.  But let's be honest: frying anything at home is not easy or fun (remember my painful experience of the fried shallots for the green bean casserole?), or healthy, for that matter.  That's why I was thrilled when I found a baked version that is so healthy that you could eat three shrimp, plus a whole tablespoon of dipping sauce, for less than 4 grams of fat and 161 calories.  Can you even imagine!?

The thing about shrimp is that it is tricky to buy them.  You can get them fresh, shelled and deveined, but you have to use them that day.  You can buy them frozen, shelled and deveined, but they cost $15 for a pound.   Or, you can buy frozen for $7 a pound, but you have to be a ruthless butcher and shell them, and rip them open and peel out the veins.  So there is no good option, if you ask me.  For this night, I unfortunately ended up having to do the latter.  The shrimp were pretty small, so a pound of them ended up being a fairly large number, and it took me a loooong time to peel and devein them.  It took me so long that my grandmother kept asking where I had gone.  But I can promise that there was not a scrap of anything gross in my shrimp!  It's like when I do anything with meat, and I spend hours removing any repulsive segment of fat.  But anyway once I got them in tip-top shape, it was time to coconut-ify them.  That was really easy, actually.  You dredge them in flour, then dunk them in egg, and then into a mixture of coconut, panko, and salt.  Then bake them  up, and your kitchen smells like Bermuda, and then: coconut shrimp time.

Of course, while they bake, you have to make the dipping sauce.  Any good coconut shrimp comes with a sweet and spicy dip, and this was no different.  This one is really easy: apricot preserves, rice wine vinegar, and crushed red pepper flakes.  Of course, I barely sprinkled the pepper flakes in, and certainly did not use the full 3/4 teaspoon it called for, but you know me: I hate spice.  The sauce was delicious, but it did make way too much; you could definitely cut the recipe in half if you don't have a crazed dip lover.

The final result was amazing.  I loved these little bites of coconutty shrimp, and the sweet and spicy apricot dip was a perfect complement.  And if you don't want to take my word for it, ask Nick, who hates everything but devoured them.  Or my mother, who sat next to me as the two of us ate shrimp after shrimp.  Or my grandmother, who I am pretty sure never eats anything if she can't cut it in "hoff" or "just put a little on a sauc-ah;" she ate eight  of them!  Definitely an excellent snack for a football party, or, since (thank god) football is done, for any time, really :)

Recipe:

Skinny coconut shrimp
from Skinny Taste

Servings: 8 • Serving Size: 3 shrimp, 1 tbsp sauce • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 4 pts
Calories: 161.6 • Fat: 3.4 g • Protein: 10.2 g • Carb: 22.2 g • Fiber: 1.8 g • Sugar: 15.7 g
Sodium: 164.3 (without salt)

Ingredients:
1 lb. (or 24) large raw shrimp, peeled and deviened (weight after peeled)
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp panko crumbs  (I was out of panko and used regular. All was fine)
2 tbsp all purpose flour (you will only use 1 tbsp)
1 large egg
pinch salt
non-stick spray

For the Sweet and Spicy Dipping Sauce:
1/2 cup apricot preserves (you can use sugar free if you wish)
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
3/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 425°. Spray a non-stick baking sheet with cooking spray.  Combine coconut flakes, panko crumbs and salt in a bowl. Place the flour on a small dish. Whisk egg in another bowl.

2) Lightly season shrimp with salt. Dip the shrimp in the flour, shaking off excess, then into the egg, then in the coconut crumb mixture.

3) Lay shrimp on the cookie sheet then spray the top of the shrimp with more cooking spray; bake in the middle rack for about 10 minutes. Turn shrimp over then cook another 6-7 minutes or until cooked though. Remove from oven and serve with dipping sauce.

4) For the sauce, combine all the ingredients and place in a small bowl

Interested?