Holidays 2010

Christmas is over for another year. I have been so busy and unmotivated that I have not been posting anything. I did make some great goodies this year that everyone loved. I am glad that I decided to go the food gift route this year because we had no money and no time for store-bought gifts.

This year I made Fruit Gelées from Not So Humble Pie. These were my great triumph this year as I had never made anything like it before. They came out perfect! I want to make them again and again because it was so easy and so awesome. I did take some photos with my phone so they are only ok.



By the way, do not do what I did and scatter extra sugar on the bottom of the container. Even though I *know* sugar sucks up moisture (after watching years of Good Eats how could I not know!) I added more to the bottom. Two days later when I was ready to make up my gifts there was a layer of goo at the bottom because the sugar and moisture in the air made a thick syrup. I salvaged as much as I could, not wanting to give my friends sticky candy, and only threw out about a third of what I made.

I am very excited to try making these again. I need to find a good place to buy pectin at a reasonable price because I don't think more than $5 a box is reasonable when I need two for the recipe.


My gifts this year had a yellow theme apparently. Also included in my gift boxes this year were these Lemon Burst Cookies. These cookies were delicious and delightfully fragrant. I do not own any fruit extracts so I made up the difference with extra zest and extra juice. The photo for these came out better than the candy photo.



Unfortunately I over baked one batch of these cookies. Fortunately it didn't make much of a difference in taste, they were just a bit darker. These were a big hit and I recommend anyone who enjoys lemon to make them. Also it is a good idea to chill the dough before rolling in the powdered sugar, it will be less sticky.

You have to have fudge for Christmas. I think it is a rule somewhere. I tried two fudge recipes. One failed and one surpassed my expectations. The first recipe I tried was Chocolate Philadelphia Fudge which sounded great. Why not replace the marshmallow creme with cream cheese, sounds delicious, right?

This did not come out right at all. If you click on the link and check out their photos, it looks like real fudge. Here is a photo of how mine looked.



It came out really light colored and did not set up at all. Furthermore it didn't taste very good which is odd because it is basically chocolate cream cheese frosting. I don't know what I did wrong but even freezing this fudge didn't help. I had to throw it out. If anyone decided to make this, please let me know the result.

My second fudge recipe came on the back of a baking bar that I bought to make the Philly fudge with. I do not remember the company but I think it was Tollhouse or Nestle. Here is the recipe for the fudge, it is very simple.

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, chopped*
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Combine condensed milk and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave on high for one minute**
Stir and microwave 15 seconds more if needed.
Stir in vanilla a pour into an 8X8 pan lined with foil***
Refrigerate at least 2 hours until firm.

*I used chocolate chips because that is what I had on hand
**Don't worry the chocolate won't burn
***The recipe calls for a loaf pan but I felt that would make really thick fudge so I used a larger pan

Sadly, I have no photos of the yummy fudge but it did come out excellent and is my new favorite recipe. I used it to make, not only regular fudge, but chocolate mint fudge as well by using the dark and mint chips from Nestle. They were very well received.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and great food!

Sam

Week of New Things

This past week my parents went on a cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. This left me and the boys (my husband and my brother) alone and me responsible for dinners. Feeling a little ambitious, I chose a menu comprised entirely of dishes I had never made before (except for pizza but that ended up not working so we had pasta.)

Some of these dishes came out better than others. Here are the dishes and my thoughts on each:

Stuffed Potato Pancakes-Great idea in theory but I must have done something wrong because they weren't that great. Aside from the fact that shredded potato oxidizes really quickly and turns kinda pink and then black after a while, this dish didn't really have any flavor. Also, the potato cakes soaked up all the oil used to fry them so they turned grey. I plan to try this again in the future, maybe asking some questions of the person who posted this dish first. No photos because they were too ugly.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars-These were amazing! I accidentally over-baked them a little and they were still delicious. These have great flavor because, unlike a standard cookie bar, they have a crust and this crust was basically brown sugar and butter (and of course, my ever-present Pumpkin Pie Spice.) All in all, very delicious and a recipe I will keep and most certainly make again. Here are some photos:



You can see how crispy the top got; do not over-bake!
I actually made these twice within one week, they were so good I had to make them again! The second time I used less chocolate because it was all I had left and I was careful not to over bake them. This resulted in a much chewier texture that was similar to pecan pie filling. I thought this was very interesting and delicious!


Marinated Tofu and Vegetable Stir Fry-I wasn't too impressed with this when I first made it, but after I was done eating I decided it was really good. The vegetables I used were bell peppers (red and yellow), broccoli, bok choy (yum!) and white onion. The only problem I really had with this dish is it needed something to go with it, probably rice. A nice bowl of sticky rice with the stir fry on top would have been awesome. No photos, I forgot. I made this twice as well. When my parents came home I made them dinner for their anniversary and this was part of their dinner. They both enjoyed it.

Crab and Cream Cheese Stuffed Wontons-This is possibly my favorite dish this week! This recipe is very easy although extremely time consuming, an assembly line would have been nice. The original recipe called for imitation lobster but I though crab would be good since I had eaten Crab Ragoon (basically the same thing only fried) before. I also left out the green onion because I don't like it. The original recipe called for 1/2 a teaspoon of sriracha in the filling, you can see in the original step-by-step photos that her cream cheese is still white. I added at least 1 whole teaspoon, if not more and my cream cheese was pink! We like spicy food though so it was good. We ate this for lunch because we were running out of days on our own and I really wanted to make it. Supposedly this should have made about 32 wontons but I ended up using the whole package of wrappers (42!) and still had filling left! I could have easily served my whole family this dish (with some rice and veggies) and my parents would have enjoyed it. Photos:



Serve with some soy and sriracha sauce. Mmmmm.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables-Yours truly has never roasted a chicken before. I know that sounds ridiculous since roast chicken is incredibly easy and very popular but somehow I have always ended up using my slow cooker instead. This week I was determined to roast a chicken like everyone else has. It came out very tasty! For my veggies I used leftover bok choy, leftover red and yellow bell peppers, new potatoes and zucchini. For my spices I chopped some rosemary and thyme, added some salt, black pepper, white pepper and garlic powder. After sprinkling the veggies with the spices I added the remainder to some soft butter and spread it over the chicken. The result was super crispy skin and slightly too oily veggies, but the chicken was very tender. The bok choy was my favorite veggie. Hooray for first tries!

To go along with the tofu stir fry I made for my parents I also made these Pork and Ginger Pot Stickers. I changed the recipe a bit. I did not want cabbage and other veggies inside so I made them with ground pork and ground beef. I did not have any sesame oil on hand and omitted the bouillon. They were superb! The recipe says to cook them for seven minutes but I found they did not need that long. I would say four minutes was plenty of time, all of the meat was thoroughly cooked by then. I had a bit of the filling left over and I cooked it up and added it to the left over stir fry for lunch the next day. It was yummy! Again, no photos but they looked pretty much the same as the other ones. I am now not afraid of making won tons and can't wait to make more!

Please check out these links and consider making some of them for your dinner.

Sam

Knock, Knock. Who's There? Banana. Banana Who?

My mom had bought a bunch of bananas for work and there were a few left over that just sat in our fruit bowl. I saw these spotty bananas the other day and knew I had to do something with them.

Banana bread wasn't really an option this time. I wanted something different. My brother ruled out Banana Cookies in favor of something more breakfast like. This muffin recipe sounded really good and had great reviews so I had to give it a try. I have found so many tasty things at Allrecipes.com and this recipe did not disappoint.

My only complaint? It didn't have enough banana flavor to me. Usually three bananas is one cup, which this recipe called for. I think the problem was that these bananas were smaller than the ones I usually buy. Other than that they were quite yummy! Recipe:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Flour
3/4 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice (optional)
1 Egg
1/4 cup Oil*
3/4 cup Plain Yogurt
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 cup Mashed Banana
3/4 cup Chocolate Chips or Chopped Chocolate**

Heat oven to 350°. Grease or line muffin tins.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and extract.
Stir the wet into the dry until just moistened.
Fold in the bananas and chocolate.
Fill the muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake for 22 minutes, or until done.
Yield: I got 17. Strange number. The original says 16. Oh well.

*All I had was olive oil so that is what I used. They came out fine.
**I chopped chocolate rather than spend the money on chips. Half was milk and half was dark.

Here are some lovely photos:





Please make these. They are so good!

An Ode to Biscuits From a Tube

Our Albertson's has store-brand biscuits for $0.50. As someone on a serious budget that is a price I could not ignore. Last night I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I had to cook out of the freezer because we have so much food in there it is a waste not to. I thought of the biscuits and remembered that we enjoyed the crescent rolls filled with meat and cheese. I thought, "Perhaps I could make some sort of cup out of biscuit dough and fill it with meat and cheese." Thus the recipe was born.

I started cooking the meat and saw the rosemary I had sitting next to stove in water. Light bulb! I snipped a few springs of the rosemary and added it to the pan while the meat cooked. While cooking I recalled the bag of bell pepper slices that might still be in the freezer. We are big pepper fans so I thought it would be a good way to get some veggies into dinner. Luckily there was about a quarter of the bag left which ended up being just enough. Fresh pepper would work just fine as I defrosted them before use. Here is the recipe:

Rosemary Ground Beef and Bell Pepper Biscuit Cups
Ingredients:
1lb ground beef (I used just under that much)
Two or three 2inch sprigs of rosemary (basically, to taste)
About 1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers, frozen or fresh, any color
Two 10-count tubes of biscuits*
4oz shredded cheddar cheese (maybe 1 1/2 cups?)
BBQ or ketchup for dipping

Heat the oven to 400°. Cook the rosemary and ground beef in a pan until the meat is no longer pink.
Drain the beef and discard the rosemary. Transfer to a plate to cool.
Spray two six-count muffin tins with pan spray.
Open biscuits per directions on packaging. Take each biscuit, one by one, and flatten/stretch to about 2 or 3 inches (do not let them tear!)
Place flattened biscuits into muffin tins, pressing sides of dough up and against sides of the pan.
Place a few pieces (4 or 5 depending on size) of pepper in the bottom of each cup.
Spoon two (regular sized) spoonfulls of ground beef on top.
Place in the oven and bake for 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes, sprinkle them with the cheese and return to the oven for 6 minutes**.
Remove and enjoy!!
Makes 12
*I used Albertson's brand biscuits, this recipe is NOT sized for Pillsbury grands, the store brand are much smaller!
**This is to ensure the biscuits are done, if you use a brand with a different baking time, adjust!

These are super delicious and relatively healthy. If all goes well they should come out looking something like this:

                                                     

You may notice that the recipe called for two 10-count tubes of dough and I only make 12 dinner cups. This is because as I was making them I was also thinking of dessert!

I recently bought some Lemon Curd from Trader Joe's. It is so lemony good I have been looking for excuses to eat it (besides out of the jar!) A while back chocolate chips were on sale and lemon and chocolate are yummy so I improvised a  dessert to go with the improvised dinner.

Chocolate Chip Lemon Dessert Cups
Ingredients:
A handful of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 teaspoons lemon curd*
8 store brand biscuits
Powdered sugar for dusting**

Preheat oven to 400°. Spray a six-count muffin tin with pan spray.
As before stretch/flatten the biscuit dough into 2-3 inch disks and drop into muffin tin.
You will have 2 biscuits left over. Place them on a tray as per package instructions and push some mini chips on them.
Spoon a teaspoon of lemon curd into 4 of the cups. Sprinkle two of the lemon cups with mini chips.
Add some mini chips to the two remaining cups.
Bake 10-12 minutes rotating halfway.
Remove from the oven and dust with powdered sugar.
Makes 8
*My husband does not like lemon as much as I do so I only made 4 with the lemon curd. Use about 1 teaspoon per cup.
**I wish I had thought of this when I made them. The chocolate chip only ones would have really benefited from this.

Below is a close-up of the lemon and chocolate cup. They were so delicious!



If you do not like lemon these could of course be made with any type of jam (I do not recommend jelly, too fluid) or even a custard. I am considering making another batch of these soon and trying them with melted butter and sugar brushed on before baking. Will it burn? No idea.

I hope you enjoy!

Sam