Happy News for the Andersons

Today, we have a lot to celebrate.  We found out that my uncle's lymphoma is in total remission!  With amazing news like that, there was an immediate need for a celebratory dessert. It took me a while to find one I wanted; I knew I wanted to stick with my favorite blog, Annie's Eats, because she's never steered me wrong .  I also knew I wanted cupcakes or cakes, because I felt they are more festive than cookies or brownies.  Lastly, I felt like a challenge; today the kids had MCAS and so basically I sat around all day watching them (struggle), and I felt an urge to prove that I am not a waste of life!  Hence, we have the caramel peanut-topped brownie cake: a chocolate, bowl-shaped cake, topped with homemade caramel sauce and honey-roasted peanuts.  7 paragraphs of directions could not frighten me tonight!  Although, maybe they should have...



Looks perfect... tasted awful!

Looks too light... but tasted perfect!

The cake itself was simple enough; with a little bit of double boiling action to melt the chocolate and the butter.  That went into the oven in no time.  Then the caramel... I followed Annie's directions perfectly, boiling the sugar, water and corn syrup without stirring, and waiting for the color to turn to "dark amber."  When the color matched the picture on the blog, I turned the heat down and added butter and cream like the recipe said.  I mixed in the peanuts, and voila!.... burned caramel sauce.  It looked 100% like the picture, and yet it tasted chemically and bad... and burned.  I was depressed, but refused to let the celebratory spirit leave me just yet.  In fact, if I may be honest, I had earlier loudly bragged that I enjoyed baking difficult cakes, so even though Mom urged me to just top it with whipped cream, I went to the store for more ingredients to try again.


If you every decide to make this cake, here is what you need to know.  Do NOT let your caramel turn the same color as Annie's picture.  If you do, there is a teeny tiny fine line between perfection and burned horribly.  The second time around, a nervous Mark forced me to stop boiling the caramel earlier than I expected; it was still lighter than Annie's pictures, but we did not want to ruin another batch.  Once I poured it on top of the cake, it still looked a little lighter, but I can promise it tasted better!  So even though my beloved Annie says not to be afraid to wait till your caramel gets dark, I'd have to disagree!

Success!  A lighter caramel color meant a MUCH better taste

As someone who does not love sweets, I actually didn't even try a piece of this, but I ate a bite of Susie's, and it's pretty great!  The cake is soft and fudgy and turns slightly caramel-soggy.  The crunchy peanuts on top are a great texture contrast to the gooey caramel.  It was a big hit, and I am really glad I made it for the Andersons tonight.  Congratulations, you guys!  Love you :)

P.S. In between baking cakes and making caramel sauces,  I also made my favorite pizza dough recipe.  Mark made the pizzas for me so I could focus on my rather involved cake! He ended up making one pizza with both doughs; it was so soft and fluffy and delicious!  Nice work, honey!

Recipes:
caramel peanut-topped brownie cake

pizza dough

adapted from Bobby Flay at foodnetwork.com

This recipe makes 2 14-inch pizza crusts

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 to 4 cups flour, plus more for rolling (Using bread flour will give you a much crisper crust.  You can substitute it with all-purpose flour if you want a chewier crust.  That is the type I prefer!)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 envelope instant dry yeast (or 2 1/2 teaspoons)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups water, 110 degrees F
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 teaspoons

Directions:

1) Combine the bread flour, sugar, yeast and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and combine.

2) While the mixer is running, add the water and 2 tablespoons of the oil and beat until the dough forms into a ball. If the dough is sticky, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together in a solid ball. If the dough is too dry, add additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

3) Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead into a smooth, firm ball.

Grease a large bowl with the remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil, add the dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm area to let it double in size, about 1 hour.

4) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Cover each with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let them rest for 10 minutes.

To Daddy

When your dad is sick, small artifacts from life "Before" become incredibly important.  Coffee mugs that are way too small to fit even a Keurig coffee do not get thrown away, because they say DIGITAL on them, and Dad got them at work.  Ratty old tee shirts from his old road races or business trips become our favorite pajamas.  And anything, anything, with his handwriting on it, is crazy precious!  We don't get to see Dad's chicken scratch anymore, so short notes, grocery lists, tax calcuations, and recipes become treasured artifacts.  Tonight it was time to take a closer look at the latter. 

Dad had hand-written a recipe for blueberry muffins, and I remember them being the best muffins ever.  A few years ago, when we stumbled upon the page, Anne had it framed.  It's a mess: wrinkled, creased, stained (like all of Dad's favorite recipes!  He was a messy chef.)  It says "add vanilla" but never says how much (I did a teaspoon).  It says to add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, but never says to mix the dry ingredients together first (thank god I ama  baking pro these days!  A newbie would have struggled here!) And yet, this sheet of paper means way more than a flashy new cookbook.  I love cooking things that Dad used to cook for us.  It makes me feel like I really am his daughter :)

It would be easier for you if I posted the recipe with my amendments, and typed it all up nice, but I am not going to.  It will mean more if you make these using Dad's words :)  Love you Daddy!

Recipe:
Dad's blueberry muffins

Crazy Weekend

This has been an absolutely crazy weekend.  It has been full of Red Sox, cooking, walking, company, and gardening.  Now I finally have a few minutes to update my poor neglected blog before dragging my exhausted self to bed (how on earth is it already Sunday night!?)

Friday night, I had Red Sox tickets.  I had bought them for Kenzie for Christmas, so we went with Mark and Nick.  It was a bit stressful, because the whole time, I was remembering that I had cooking to do to after we got home.  Saturday was our Cure is Coming event, and I had invited the team over for breakfast.  I had already made energy bites, and I hate yogurt made, but I wanted to make a casserole.  We ended up leaving in the 2nd inning due to my stress (and luckily - the Sox lost in extra innings!) and thus, there I was, cooking up bacon at 2 midnight.  I am not going to lie that I was stressed about being up so late and having to get up quite early, but it was worth it in the end!  My hash brown casserole was a big hit with Team Tony in the morning.  Shockingly, it was from Cooking Light, but it does not taste light, with bacon, low fat sour cream, and low fat cream of mushroom soup.  It is creamy and potato-y - two things I love.  It was a nice filling way to get Team Tony ready to go support out favorite charity!  My energy bites were also a huge hit; I ended up whipping up a second doubled batch later that afternoon!  They are chocolatey, peanut buttery, and have a great honey taste too (in fact, we are officially out of honey).  Two successful breakfast dishes down!

Today, I let Kenzie pick dinner and she chose Thai chicken enchiladas.  I am always interested in anything with fresh cilantro, and add coconut milk and you've got me intrigued.  The filling is chicken, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, green onions, peanuts, sweet chili sauce and coconut milk.  It tasted great, and I had a lot left over because I tripled it.  The only weird thing is that the enchilada sauce is a mixture of cocout milk and chili sauce, so it's very thin.  It makes for a rather mushy bottom half of the enchilada, since while it bakes, the top dries out, but the sauce kind of sogs up the bottom.  Kenzie couldn't get past the texture.  Surprisingly enough, Mark, Nick and Mom - the pickiest and most texture-aware people - liked theirs and ate them, so who knows?  Probably not something I'd make again, but we all agreed the filling would be excellent on rice, so maybe I'll make the insides again and skip the enchilada part.

Tonight I have another batch of yogurt incubating.  My last batch came out too watery because I did not have a big enough strainer, but I picked one up today, so it's yogurt time.  In other news, my gardening hobby, while starting to get a bit too expensive, is going quite well.  My herbs that I planted over vacation are growing up nice and strong, and today I planted the strawberry plants we bought in a strawberry pot.  I am thrilled to announce that one of them even has a pinkish berry!  Very exciting.  Soon I will be able to plant my tomatoes in the garden and move my herbs into the buckets I bought to keep them in.  I am hoping this was the last time I had to buy cilantro :)

Recipes:
hash brown casserole with bacon, onions and cheese
energy bites
Thai chicken enchiladas

Cereal Treat Mania

This is turning out to be a ridiculously busy week.  I have a lot of things that all seem to be happening at the same time, and that did not hit me until last night, around 11 PM.  And then 12... and 1... and 2... and you get the idea.  I am crazy tired tonight, but had the kitchen calling my name!  I am still working on stockpiling food for the Cure is Coming on Saturday, so I worked on energy bites for that.  I also made two batches of a snazzy version of Rice Krispie treats!

I had seen a recipe for Trix Krispies (which to me are wrongly named... should be Trix Treats). They were so beautiful, I felt an instant need to make them.  Not like rice krispie treats were my favorite or anything, but with the colors and everything - so pretty!  The first batch was supposed to be for a wedding shower breakfast at work tomorrow morning, but Mom, Mark and Rachael ate so much of them that I was forced to make a second batch, and allow them to devour the first!  I am actually glad that I started over, because I decided that the original recipe did not call for enough marshmallows and butter; the treats were not sticking together well at all.  For my second batch, I kept the amount of cereal the same, but doubled the butter and marshmallows, and it came out much better.  I will confess that this may be a strange thing to bring to a shower, and they are gorgeous but look a little childish.... but I do think that as soon as anyone bites into one, they will be happy.  You forget how great  Trix are until you eat them!  Not to be outdone, Mark ran to the store and bought some random cereals of his own; hence we also have Captain Crunch treats from him tonight as well!

For the runners on Saturday, I also made energy bites tonight.  I thought it would be a good breakfast for runners, because they are healthy and will give them the energy to run!  They have things like ground flaxseed, honey, and oats in them, along with peanut butter, vanilla, chocolate chips, and coconut.  I mixed up the ingredients, put them in the fridge, and then rolled it into little balls.  Hopefully Team Tony will feel energized after eating a couple Saturday morning :)

And now: a much-needed good night's sleep, I hope!

Recipes:
energy bites

Trix Krispies
adapted from Cravings of a Lunatic

Ingredients:
4 cups mini-marshmallows
10 cups Trix cereal
1 stick butter

Instructions:

1)  Place the butter and marshmallows in a glass bowl and microwave until melted, 3-5 minutes.  You may need to stir in between microwave sessions.

2) Stir well, until mixed.

3) Pour onto the Trix, and stir.

4) Pour into a large greased pan (9 x 13 or 9 x 11) and press down with a spoon.

5) Cut into squares once it has hardened.

Dos de Mayo

I have been in a frenzy of yogurt creation lately.  Yesterday I made a double batch of it - which by the way cannot happen again until I get a larger sieve, because it was a little scary pouring the yogurt in there this morning.  Also I can't make any more until I get a new candy thermometer.  Mine took the whopping 4-inch fall from the side of my pan onto the stove and shattered.  Cheap crap.  I was a little heartbroken but I guess I will have to add that to my kitchen supply wish list, along with a larger strainer! Anyway, in addition to the yogurt, I also made another fruit mix-in last night.  I found in our freezer a bag of frozen berries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, so I made what I am calling the quadruple fruit mix-in.  Haven't gotten to try it yet, but I am looking forward to it tomorrow morning for breakfast with some of my new yogurt :)  My last batch was delicious, and the sauce and yogurt were both devoured in less than 24 hours!

Tonight, I had a plan for dinner, but couldn't find any of the ingredients I needed in Westminster, and I was too lazy to go to Gardner, so I changed my plan and went with Mexican lasagna.  I figured that, with the busy next three days I have, this is our last chance to celebrate Cinco de Mayo before the actual day!  We can call it Dos de Mayo.  I had made this before a month or so ago and it was a big hit.  It was a big hit tonight too!  It is really quick to throw together - and it has fresh cilantro.  You know how I feel about fresh cilantro.  Serve it with some Mexican rice and you have an excellent meal on your hands.  I highly recommend it.

Recipe:
from Annie's Eats, adapted from A Couple Cooks

Mexican Lasagna

Yield: about 6 servings

Ingredients:

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1½ cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
4-5 green onions, chopped
½ cup chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. garlic powder
¾ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. cumin
1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
9-12 no-boil lasagna noodles
8 oz. shredded Mexican blend cheese 

Directions

1)  Preheat the oven to 400˚ F. Have a 9 x 9-inch baking dish ready. In a large bowl, combine the black beans, corn, green onions, cilantro, oregano, garlic powder, cumin, and salt.

2) Spread a thin layer of tomatoes over the bottom of the baking dish (approximately one fifth of the total amount). Layer with a 3-4 lasagna noodles, breaking them as needed to fit the pan.

3) On top of the layer of noodles, spread about one third of the bean mixture. Layer evenly with about one quarter of the remaining tomatoes. Sprinkle with one quarter of the cheese.

4) Repeat the layering process two times more (noodles, beans, tomatoes, cheese, noodles, beans, tomatoes, cheese). The last layer will be noodles, tomatoes, and cheese. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Bake 35-45 minutes, or until noodles are tender and cooked through. Remove the foil from the top and bake 5 minutes more, until the cheese is melted. Remove from the oven and let stand at least 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

I feel like a real Frankenstein.  I have created a living thing! No, seriously: I made yogurt.  Greek yogurt, to be precise!

This morning I raced to the oven and was happy to see that it still felt warm in there (I still can't believe the light kept it toasty enough!).  When I took the lid off, voila: yogurt!  But I couldn't dig in yet, because it has to be strained to remove the whey (like as in curds and whey, Little Miss Muffet style).  I got home from work tonight a little too excited to check my creation, and it was perfect.  All the watery whey had strained out, and I was left with Greek yogurt!!!  I stirred in some vanilla extract, because I am not one to eat plain Greek yogurt.  Then it was time to work on my mix-ins!

I had frozen strawberries, so I decided to try making the sauce with those.  The recipe says to use peaches, raspberries, or blueberries, but it worked just fine with strawberries.  It is really easy and quick to make - probably takes less than 20 minutes.  I am now excitedly waiting for the sauce to cool so that I can stir some into my yogurt, and revolutionize my life.

Short post tonight...I barely slept last night... but I had to share my excitement.  More yogurt, and new mix-ins to attempt tomorrow :)

Recipe:
yogurt mix-ins

Breakfast Attempts

Good news: the bagels came out okay!  I was worried yesterday about them, since there was no time for the dough to rise.  Then today, they failed the proof test repeatedly (you're supposed to put them in a bowl of water, and see if they float... and in my other 3 batches that I've made, they float immediately... as for these guys, they sunk like a freaking stone!).  Finally I gave up on passing the test and just threw them into the pot of boiling water (without baking soda, mind you... another thing that made them different from my other recipe!)

I was near panicked, but I can gladly say they came out fine.  I still think the other recipe is better, because they were a bit puffier, but these have been devoured and we only have a few left!  Whew!  Still, I am sticking with my old recipe next time.  While it was nice to have an easier recipe with a million shortcuts, you get what you pay for.

Then tonight I was doing some brainstorming.  Saturday is our ALS 5K and walk, and we always invite the team to our house in the morning for pictures and to hand out our tee shirts.  I was thinking that it would be nice for us to have breakfast ready for the people who have volunteered their time for our favorite cause.  Kenzie pointed out that the runners won't want a big casserole or anything heavy, so I might still make something like that for the walkers, but the runners need good protein to keep them running without weighing them down... and thus we had the perfect opportunity for me to try out the idea that has been percolating in my head since I saw the recipe a couple weeks ago: Greek yogurt.  Yes, I am trying to make my own Greek yogurt. 

I know it sounds crazy, but you don't need any fancy ingredients or cooking supplies.  You need milk, and 2 teaspoons of yogurt (as the starter, so you can have the live cultures).  You boil the milk (to kill the dairy enzymes so they don't mess up aything), cool it down, incubate it for 12 hours, strain out the whey, and voila!  Yogurt!  It's incubating right now in the oven; that is the only tricky part, because you keep the oven off but you can't let the temperature go out of the 110-120 degree range, or it won't incubate.  Apparently if you preheat the oven for a couple minutes, shove the bowl in there wrapped with towels, and leave the light on, it will be okay.  Fingers crossed.  I will know tomorrow if it worked, and after school I can taste it.  I am pretty excited. 

Now, I am not one who loves Greek yogurt, but comments on this recipe said the yogurt was milder and less sour.  Also, the same blog (my beloved Annie's Eats) later posted recipes for 3 different fruit mix-ins, so if the yogurt works out, I will be trying those out later this week.  I also have an idea to try out my own granola.... but I should take this one step at a time! Fingers crossed that I actually have yogurt tomorrow morning!

Recipe:
Greek yogurt