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.