Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  We are celebrating over here with a visit from Tuck and Linda, and lots of time in the kitchen.

Yesterday I made lunch for me and Mom.  I have been meaning to try this recipe for "summer lasagna" for a while, but the plan kept falling through: people weren't hungry, or got pizza, or no one felt like pasta.  In addition, it was rather a lot of work because it's not a typical lasagna that you make in a casserole dish and bake.  You don't bake it at all, or even put it in a big dish.  You make each serving separately, layering on the different foods onto each person's plate.  But, I decided that Mom and I were worth it.

The layers consist of cherry tomatoes sauteed with olive oil and garlic, zucchini and basil, parmesan and ricotta, and of course lasagna noodles.  This is an amazingly delicious, light-feeling summer lunch!  It's not served hot, but not cold either; the noodles and veggies are still warm from cooking, but the cheese is cold, so the meal itself is warm, which I really liked.  It was perfect for a hot day's lunchtime.  Mom announced that she is in love with this meal.  We are brainstorming ways to make it at out vacation for a crowd; perhaps a buffet, make-your-own kind of thing?  Or I could put it all in a casserole dish, but I think it would be hard to cut.  Something to ponder.

After lunch I made the sponge and dough for bagels.  I have made these a number of times now, and while I just cannot get them as pretty as in the pictures, they are delicious.  There are many steps, and it takes two days, but they really are easy.  I think anyone who may be slightly nervous in the kitchen should make bagels, because it is a confidence booster!  I ended up with 14, and I made 4 cinnamon-sugar just by sprinkling it in the tops.  I only tried a plain one straight out of the oven, and it was delicious.  Tuck and Linda even split one and Tuck said it was one of the best bagels he ever tasted.  Wahoo!

Lastly, since it's the Fourth, I needed some sort of Patriotic dessert, so I resorted back to my good old red, white and blueberry cheesecake yogurt cupcakes.  Tuck had eaten a couple last time since they aren't too many carbs, and they are red, white and blue, so I whipped up a batch this morning.  This is the first time I actually had the mini cupcake tin wrappers, so it made 24 mini muffins.  The only issue was that you are supposed to use vanilla wafers as the crust, but they didn't fit in the mini muffin cup, so I had to crumble them.  It worked out just fine.  There are enough left that I think I may bring them to a barbeque tonight.  It's always great to have a delicious dessert that is less than 100 calories per cheesecake!

Recipes:
summer lasagna
bagels
red white and blueberry cheesecake yogurt cupcakes

Gluten-Free Sweets!

It has certainly been a crazy few days.  Thursday night I went out to eat with Mark.  We went to Michael's Harborside in Newburyport, had some calamari for dessert, and I got delicious seafood pasta.  When I got home (later than expected) I was panicking because I had to bring a hot dish to my school's volunteer appreciation breakfast.  Kenzie found me a quick and easy overnight French toast casserole.  I was going to be rather embarrassed to bring it; it looked pretty blah since it was just pieces of white bread withbrown sugar,  cinnamon, egg and milk sprinkled on it, but it was all I had time to do.  Luckily, I did not have to show up with an ugly casserole.  Unluckily, that was because I threw up early Friday morning.  I blame the calamari and think that I am now finished with squid; Mark and I have both gotten sick eating them on separate occasions.  But this meant I got to eat the casserole myself last night.  The casserole is okay; I don't really like French toast, and that is exactly what it is.  I would recommend it if you have to make French toast for a crowd, because it is an easy way to feed a lot of people at once, when French toast usually takes a while to make for everyone.

Yesterday was a bit of a culinary challenge for me.  Kenzie's friend Jane is visiting from Maui with her husband (!).  We went to their wedding last weekend, and it was great to see them again and really get to know her Matty.  The culinary challenge was that Kenzie invited them over for a tea party, and Jane has celiac disease and is gluten-free.  As I looked through my recipes, I realized I do not think I have ever cooked or baked a single gluten-free item.  In fact, my entire life revolves around gluten.  I might die if I had to go gluten-free.  With that said, I knew immediately I needed to call in the experts, so I called Kaz and Andrea.  Kaz also can't have gluten, so they were the perfect people to give advice.  They gave me the name of their favorite gluten-free baking mix - which of course Kenzie went to buy, and didn't find it.  She bought a different gluten-free flour along with some GF cookies, and I set to work attempting my first gluten-less desserts!

Last week I made those low-fat cheesecakes, and I remembered seeing a footnote about how to make them gluten-free, so I decided to make them again.  There is only a tablespoon of flour in them, so I used a tablespoon of the GF baking mix instead.  They call for vanilla wafers to be the bottom crust, but instead, Kenzie bought gluten-free ginger snaps (thanks for the tip, Andrea)!  Then I popped those in the oven and set to work on my next sweet snack.

Jane had been craving blueberry muffins.  Her stepmom had made a batch of regular ones, and when Jane tried to go to a gluten-free bakery to buy some of her own, they were closed, so I knew that this was what I had to make her.  I found a recipe for muffins on The Food Network's site; in case they turned out horrible, I couldn't bear to use my dad's recipe.  I had attempted to look up specifically gluten-free blueberry muffin recipes, but they called for bizarre things like xanthan gum.  Andrea and Kaz had said that you can use gluten-free flour just in place of regular flour, so that is what I did.  I was nervous, especially when I took them out of the oven.  They aren't that pretty, puffy white color that normal muffins are - but then again, they are not normal muffins!  We let them cool for a while, and then I passed around my gluten free cheesecakes and muffins.  Moment of truth!

And, they were a hit!  Not only did Jane get to eat desserts with the rest of us (and I didn't make her sick!), but we all ate them and liked them.  Rachael claimed they were the best muffins ever.  They  did not taste gluten-free at all.  Thank you, King Arthur's Gluten-Free Baking Mix!  I was glad that I had experimented with gluten-free baking for Jane, and now that I have a big bag of the baking mix, I will have to try that again soon.  Kaz, start getting hungry :)

To make up for my lack of gluten during the day, at night I decided I needed to make a bread.  Mom had ripped a recipe out of a magazine for overnight pull-apart cinnamon loaf.  It's a lot like monkey bread, but it looks like a loaf of bread rather than little balls.  I made the dough last night, and then had to let it rise overnight in the refrigerator.  This does confuse me a bit, because rising only happens when it is warm, right?  But okay, I'll follow the recipe.  Tonight it will be our dessert  (hopefully).  I will keep you posted.  Since Mom did cut the recipe out of Better Homes and Gardens and then promptly lost the second page, I had to find it online, so I am attaching the page I usd.

Mark and I went grocery shopping today for the ingredients for dinner tonight and tomorrow, so stay tuned for some very intriguing dinners :)

Recipes:
French toast casserole
blueberry muffins (the recipe isn't gluten free, but I substituted GF baking mix for flour)
red, white and blueberry cheesecake yogurt cupcakes (substituted GF baking mix for flour, and used GF ginger snaps as the crust)

I'm BACK!

Great news: I am no longer on death's door, and that means that I finally can get myself back in the kitchen!  It has been a long, horrible, salmonella- and parasite-infested two weeks, but I'm back!  As soon as I was eating again, I went right back to my long lost Kitchenaid Mixer!

Yesterday I made red, white, and blueberry cheesecake cupcakes.  I was in the mood for baking a dessert, and since it is Memorial Day weekend, I thought these were perfect.  Even better, they are actually low fat, from the Skinytaste blog (definitely one to check out if you want delicious but low-fat food!)  You use low fat cream cheese and Greek yogurt, and only 1/4 cup of sugar.  The bottoms are vanilla wafers.  They are really easy to whip together too.  The only problem was that they are supposed to be mini cupcakes, but I didn't have any mini cupcake wrappers, so I ended up making only 9 regular-sized cheesecake muffins.  I love them.  They are not super sweet, and the fresh strawberries and blueberries on top are so pretty and patriotic!  I definitly recommend these little guys.

Today is Alex's graduation party, and Rachael asked me to make something sweet to bring.  I looked through my dad's old recipe files, and found the recipe for Betsy's black bottom cupcakes.  These are famous in my family, and they were handwritten both by my mom (the directions) and my dad (the ingredients), so I thought that  was cool.  They were fairly easy to make, although you have to make the black bottom cake batter, and the cream cheese topping.  I added the nuts and sugar to some of them to make Mom happy.  The recipe is a little weird (it has things like vinegar in it!). 

They just came out of the oven, and it seems like something has gone a bit wrong.  I am not sure what, but the tops of the muffins taste chemically somewhow.  And it's only the very tops!  No idea that this means.  I am perhaps a bit rusty in the kitchen :(  Hmph.


Recipes:
red, white and blueberry cheesecake yogurt cupcakes


Black Bottom Cupcakes

Ingredients:
6 ounces cream cheese
1  1/3 cup cugar, separated
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoo salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Optional nut topping:
2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup nuts

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 18 muffin tins.

2.  In a small bowl, mix the cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, and egg.  Mix well.  Stir in chocolate chips and set aside.

3.  In a large bowl, mix flour,  remaining 1 cup sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.  Beat 2 minutes on medium speed.

4.  Fill cupcake tins with black mixture 1/2 full. 

5.  Top with 1 tablespoon cream cheese mixture. 

6.  Mix sugar and nuts and sprinkle evenly on each cake.

7.  Cook 20-30 minutes.