A Nagging Observation

Do you show people you care with food? I certainly do. We have friends over and I want to cook them dinner. Friend's having a hard day, I want to bring them cookies. But...I have this issue. Maybe issue is too strong a word, I am not bothered by it, merely curious. I love taking care of people (not the issue.) I love feeling like I am making someone else feel better. If you are my friend, and you are hurting, I just want to give you a big hug. I love knowing that people find comfort in the food I give them.

Here is the "issue": I love my female friends, I really do, but show me a male friend who is hurting and I am overcome with a wanting to make it all better. I'm like a mother hen. I want to hug them, give them cookies, anything to help. I don't know if this is because I am a heterosexual female, or something else. Is it some sort of biological need that I have? No idea. Is it an unconscious desire for affirmation that I am a good person? No idea, but if this was so, why would I not feel the same way when my female friends need comfort?

Or, is this a result of years of living and socializing with testosterone? I have two younger brothers, most of my friends are male (this is not new, in elementary school I had almost all male friends,) I spent over two years almost every day at a game store where most of the patrons were male, most of my roommates have been male. The first roommates I had (including my husband) I was fiercely protective of, they were my boys and it was my job to take care of them.

I know plenty of women, but more of them are acquaintances than friends. And I would do everything in my power to help them, or comfort them, but the interaction for me is different.

I am very interested to hear any and all thoughts on this...issue...observation...whatever it is.

Thanksgiving

I freaked out a little bit yesterday when I realized Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away! How did this happen? Somehow it is almost Christmas! I am really looking forward to the holidays this year because last year my dad was sick and in the hospital and our holidays kind of sucked. I told my mom we should go all out this year (at least with the decorations around the house) and she agreed! I am anticipating some fun days of decorating ahead.

For Thanksgiving this year we are most likely celebrating with some of my parents' friends and some of their family. This means that we will be making more food and my mom and I are going to be perfectionists in the kitchen. We are also having some non-traditional foods this year.

We are making a goose instead of a turkey and I am really excited to try goose as I have never had it before. Along with that we may be making some sort of fish as a second main course. We plan to roast vegetables and make traditional stuffing. Since the Cinnamon Pear Bruschetta was such a hit I am making that again for dinner. I knew when I made the Brownie Cheesecake that I wanted to make a pumpkin version for Thanksgiving and I found the exact recipe that I needed. Now that we are having dinner with others I have to get candy melts and decorate the cheesecake, but that is OK by me! For a second dessert I want to make these Apple Tarts. They are from Alton Brown so you know they will be good and easy to make.

I think we are going to end up with way too much food but I also think it is going to be a lot of fun. I only know these friends of my parents' in passing but they sound like good people. You can bet that I am going to be taking photos galore so there will be plenty to see in a few weeks.

On a slightly related note: this upcoming week KOST 103.5 should start their 'Month Long of Christmas Song'. I am of course more than ready to start listening to more Christmas music. Brandon is less than enthused. He knows that whenever we are in the car, whether in our car or in my mom's car, that station will be on and we will be singing along with Bing and Nat and everyone else. I <3 Christmas!

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

Cinnamon Pear Bruschetta

Some time ago, while browsing Tasty Kitchen, I came across this recipe for a pear bruschetta. It sounded delicious and I knew I had to make it.

I told my mom about the recipe and she was excited too so she agreed to buy the ingredients. I have never cooked or baked with mascarpone so I was looking forward to that.

This recipe is fairly easy and turned out a product I would be happy to serve to guests. I hope to make it again for Thanksgiving this year. I did have some difficulty getting the results I thought I should. In the directions for the recipe it says to allow the pears to slowly caramelize. Now I don't know if my pears were too ripe and therefore there was too much liquid and this did not allow for caramelization or what, but it didn't matter how long I cooked the pears, they just got softer and no caramelizing was in sight.

Next time I will buy my pears the day I want to make this and maybe use a different pear, we will see. I hope some of you will make this, it is so delicious and looks really pretty. I adjusted the recipe slightly with the bread  and spices and really liked the flavor I came away with.

Original recipe here

Ingredients:
1 loaf Baguette, sliced
1 T. butter
3 whole pears, chopped
1/4 t. salt
1/2 T. cinnamon
1/4 t. ginger
1/4 t. allspice
1/2 c. mascarpone
1 t. honey
1/2 t. sugar
1/4 t. nutmeg
2 T. balsamic vinegar

Heat the oven to 400°.
Place the baguette rounds on a baking sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes or until toasted and golden brown.
Heat a skillet over medium-low heat.
Add the butter. Add the pears and sprinkle with cinnamon, allspice, ginger and salt.
Allow to caramelize slowly for 10-15 minutes. Stir occasionally.
In a small bowl, combine mascarpone, honey, nutmeg and sugar.
Spread on baguette slices.
Once the pears caramelize, add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1-2 minutes more.*
Spoon pears over bread.
Serve warm or cold**


* I completely forgot to add the balsamic vinegar when I made this. It still tasted good!
** I recommend serving warm, it's kind of like eating a pear pie :)
By the way, make sure not to add the pears to the baguette while they are really hot, they will melt the mascarpone.

I took some nice photos and instead of showing you only one, I am going to show you all of the good ones!


The cinnamon stick was my mom's idea :)




I love how this looks against the fall tablecloth!


My mom thought it needed some green. It looks pretty good!


As always, thanks for reading!

Sam

Pear Cake

Remember this? I knew I wanted to bake a pear version of this cake and one day while I was out shopping I found a bag of bartlett pears for $0.97! They were smaller than the ones I usually bought but the bag had enough in it to make up for size. So I ate a few and let the rest ripen just for this cake recipe.

As I was gathering all of the ingredients for the cake I noticed that I probably did not have enough white sugar to fulfill the two cups needed. Luckily I did have an even one cup so I used brown sugar for the other cup.

What an amazing difference! This cake was waaaaay better than the peach version and the brown sugar was the only difference. This cake is so tasty and tastes just like fall. Perfect way to start the season.

I posted this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website, Tasty Kitchen, so I am going to make you go to that site for the actual recipe. I urge you all to make this cake and then serve it warm, perhaps with some vanilla ice cream. But for now you can see some photos of this lovely cake.

3-2-1 Birthday Cake

So the 5th was Brandon's birthday. Of course I had to make a cake and our friend, Justin, came out and we went out to lunch at Famous Dave's.  If you have not eaten there and you have a chance to, you really should. It is quite tasty, good Southern BBQ.

I usually use a cake mix (gasp!) and spend most of my time on the decorating but Brandon wanted specific flavors for his cake (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) and didn't care how it looked so I made a cake from scratch using my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (mine is the 1993 edition.)

The cake came out yummy and much more dense than the boxed cakes and the frosting (actually an icing) was just as delicious as the last time I made it. I used Wilton's Chocolate Fudge Icing, which would be divine on brownies, and warmed it until it could be poured.

Here is the recipe and following that are some photos:

Ingredients:

Cake-
3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 T. Baking Powder (hence the 3-2-1)
1 1/2 c. Milk
1/2 c. Butter, softened
1 1/2 t. Vanilla
2 Eggs

Icing-
2/3 c. Butter
1 1/3 c. Cocoa
2/3 c. Milk
6 c. Powdered Sugar
2 t. Vanilla***

For the cake:
Set the oven to 375°. Spray or grease 2 9inch cake pans.*
In a bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking powder.
Add milk, butter and vanilla. Beat on low speed until combined. Beat on high for 2 minutes.
Add eggs and beat for 2 more minutes.
Pour into pans. Bake 25-30 minutes** or until done.
Cool for about 10 minutes the remove cake from pans and continue to cool on a wire rack.

For the icing:
Melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the cocoa and heat just until boiling, stirring constantly until smooth.
Pour cocoa/butter mixture into a bowl and cool.
Alternately add powdered sugar and milk and beat to a spreading consistency.
Blend in vanilla.

*I used an angel food cake pan, which turned out looking like a doughnut!
**The baking time was about the same.
***I ran out of vanilla at this point but it still tasted good.

Here it is right out of the pan. Looks a little like a doughnut!


First stage of icing application. Now it really looks like a doughnut!


I added shredded coconut and ground chocolate to the top.


Justin was REALLY excited about the cake (because I told him to!)


Brandon, contemplating that first bite.


The fudge icing is really rich so if you use it, you might want to go easy on the amount. It would also be really tasty on cupcakes or cookies.

The cake was really good and I want to try substituting pineapple juice for the water at a later date. All in all: two great recipes that need to be made by all.

Sam

Fall!

I know it's not technically fall until September 21st but if you looked out my window you would feel as I do.

This summer has been oppressive, at least in my mind. This probably has more to do with the fact that I had been living 5 minutes from the ocean for 4 years and got used to the temperature there, and less to do with how hot this summer actually was.

Yesterday I awoke to a sky that was blissfully overcast and an outside temp much lower than it was the previous day. Today was much the same and my brain immediately went into "fall" mode. Instead of thinking of berries and peaches, I now want apples and pears and pumpkin pie. I am thinking of getting my long-sleeved shirts out of my closet.

Part of my love for fall is the fact that it means that Christmas seems to be right around the corner, but I also love fall baking. Here are some things I am looking forward to this fall:

Changing my clocks back an hour
Using this Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe to make a Thanksgiving version of this
Making a pear version of this
Possibly whipping up a batch of Ginger Cookies or Pumpkin Fudge
Getting together with my family for Thanksgiving
Going to my friend Doug's family's pumpkin patch
A better chance of getting a job as retailers start hiring for the holiday season
Applying to UC Santa Cruz
The Premier of "The Walking Dead" on AMC (on Halloween!)
Lovely, cooler weather

What are YOU looking forward to this fall?

Sam

Brownie Cheesecake: Take One

My mom, being the lovely woman that she is, randomly will buy brownie mix for no reason. When I see this I get very excited. I love brownies and while I don't mind making them from scratch, the box makes pretty darn good brownies. I made brownies about a month ago so I wanted to try something different this time around.

After checking my usual food sites (Allrecipes.com, Tasty Kitchen, Food Network and Taste of Home,) I checked in with Food.com (formerly Recipezaar.) This is a newer site so the amount of tested recipes is lower than at Allrecipes. Still there were several brownie recipes that looked tempting.

The only problem I came across is the number of brownie recipes that are paired with peanut butter. If Brandon and I were still living on our own this would be no big deal. We love peanut butter and there are several recipes that I saved that I will be making one day. Unfortunately we are also living with my brother and he is allergic to peanuts. That ruled out an awful lot of brownie recipes.

Just when I was starting to think that I should just make regular brownies, I came across this recipe. The original called for cherry pie filling. While I am somewhat ok with apple pie filling from a can, I do not like cherries at all and the thought of pie filling did not sound good to me, so I just omitted it. One reviewer said that the pie filling starts to liquefy the cheesecake layer so I am glad I got rid of it all together.

Here is the recipe and my thoughts will follow:

Ingredients:
1 (19 1/2 ounce) box of brownie mix or a brownie recipe that fills a 13X9 inch pan
1/2 cup Oil
1/4 cup Water
2 Eggs

2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 egg
1 (14 ounce) can Sweetened Condensed Milk*
8 ounces Cream Cheese

Heat the oven to 350°. Grease a 13X9 inch pan
Combine the first four ingredients just until all of the dry mix is moistened.
Spread into the pan. Bake for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, beat the remaining ingredient until smooth and creamy.
Pour over the partially baked brownie.
Bake until topping is set, about 25 minutes.
Cool and refrigerate until cold**

*Condensed milk is ridiculously expensive. The only ingredients are milk and sugar. When I got back from the store I checked, and there is a recipe for homemade condensed milk. If any of you have done this, please let me know how it turn out. I plan to make this in the next few months so I will make a post about it.

**I ate the bars while they were still warm. Let them chill, it will taste more like cheesecake.

Let's look at some photos before we get to my thoughts on this recipe, shall we?


The far shot.


The close up.

Now for my thoughts:
I liked it. But. The cheesecake layer isn't as tasty as it could be. It is not sweet enough and just doesn't quite taste like cheesecake.

My plan? To make this again using a regular cheesecake recipe for the topping. I am going to have to cut it down by about a third but I think I can make it work.

My other plan? To bake this in a springform pan with either a pumpkin cheesecake or cinnamon cheesecake layer and serve it for Thanksgiving. I am very excited about this!

When brownie mix goes on sale I will buy several boxes and try to create a new recipe out of this. Stay tuned for "Brownie Cheesecake: Take Two!" (in like a month or two...)

The Fajitas, They Mock You

This recipe is for something that I randomly decided to try at some point last year. I thought it would be really good to braise meat in taco sauce.

Not just any sauce, mind you. Sauce from fast food taco restaurants (Taco Bell, Del Taco, those places.)

People at Seth's would always go to Taco Bell because it was just down the street and I started asking for their leftover sauce. I made it with chicken and it was quite good. I made it with chicken again, but this time, used the crock pot. Good, but not as good.

Right now Del Taco has regular crunchy or soft tacos for $0.39. Each. How awesome is that? I knew it was time to start stocking up on sauce. (don't tell Del Taco, but I took a lot of extra sauce each time I went. Shhhh...) Brandon and I both love the medium sauce at Del Taco. Del Scorcho, it's called.

I wanted to make a fajita-like dish, with peppers and onions. This dish came out really tasty and I will definitely be making it again. They are not traditional fajitas but they are awesome none-the-less.

This post is my attempt to come up with some sort of repeatable recipe. I hope it works. Here you are:

Ingredients:
1 lb. meat (I used some cut of beef whose name eludes me) sliced or cubed
2 bell peppers
1 med. onion
1 c. taco sauce (mild, med, or hot or any combination thereof)
Olive Oil, for the pan
Spices for the veggies (i used ground cumin, white pepper and salt
Tortillas
Sour Cream, to serve

Heat the oven to 250°. Spray an 8X8 baking dish.
Place the meat in the dish. Pour sauce over the meat. Stir so that all of the meat is coated.
Cover with tin foil and bake for 60-70 minutes. Uncover and bake for about 15 more minutes.
When the meat is almost done, chop the veggies.
Drizzle olive oil into a large pan and heat. Add spices.
When the pan is hot, add the veggies.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp tender, about 5-7 minutes.
Warm tortillas and then pile on the goodness!

As I was cooking the peppers and onion, I knew I had to get some photos of the finished product, the veggies alone were so beautiful! Burrito sized tortillas were all we had so I wrapped up some fajita burritos and man, were they good! Served with a side or two and in smaller tortillas, this dish could easily serve 6 people (I fed three with leftovers. We are going to make breakfast burritos with the rest!)

Dinner was fantastic and for dessert we had these. What a great way to end a crazy day. Here are some lovely photos:


Pre-Sour Cream.


Deliciousness zoom!


Mmmm...look at the sauce!

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!

Just Peachy

The fruit crisp was devoured in a matter of days so I knew I had to come up with another recipe soon.

Every week when I go to the farmer's market, the peaches always smell so delicious, I knew I had to buy some and make something fabulous.

After much searching I found this. Cake sounded like a good idea so I went ahead with it. I adapted the recipe slightly, adding more fruit because some reviewers had felt it wasn't flavorful enough.

The result was quite good. In the original recipe, it calls for the cake to be baked in a 10inch tube pan. We do not have one of these so I baked it in two loaf pans. We ate one and I froze the other. It will be a nice reminder of summer in the months to come.

Peach Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1 c. butter, softened
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
3 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 c. chopped peaches
1 c. mashed peaches
1 t. pumpkin pie spice

Heat the oven to 325°. Spray 2 glass loaf pans.
Cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the vanilla and pumpkin pie spice to the mashed peaches. Beat into the butter/sugar.
Reserve 1/4 c. of the flour. Sift the rest with the salt and baking powder. Stir into batter.
Use reserved flour to coat the chopped peaches. Fold peaches into batter.
Divide batter into the loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve with sliced peaches and whipped cream.

I used a combination of white and yellow peaches but it would be just as good with all white or all yellow or, even another fruit. Pears would be divine and now I think I have to try that!


In other news, school has started again. I am taking three classes this semester while waiting to get into a university. UC Santa Cruz has guaranteed acceptance with the Transfer Agreement Program but I wouldn't be able to go until next fall so to bring up my GPA and to keep my student loans at bay, I am staying in school. This semester I am taking Mysteries of the Ancient Maya, Sociology and Logic. Should be a fun semester!

Spring!

Spring is finally here! In the middle of winter I was lamenting that I was sick of citrus and was craving fresh berries. The only blueberries that were available were from South America. Don't get me wrong, they were good, but I knew the berries from the Farmer's Market would be better. And don't get me started on the horrible strawberry prices! Who wants to pay $5 for a pack of unripe berries? Not me!

Saturday I went to our Farmer's Market and the strawberries smelled so good! I know their season really doesn't start until April but they were so tasty now and I couldn't resist!

The little old lady with the best prices on produce at the market had 6 ounces of blueberries for $3.50. I could of course get them at the grocery store for less but they might not taste as yummy and I would not be supporting my community.

Here are some photos of my beautiful spring produce:


Just look at how lovely they are!


The strawberries are finally ripe!


I love the market stand carrots! They are so sweet.


OK, so maybe theses aren't very spring-like, but they are the best shitake mushrooms that I have ever had!


In other, related news: You know how everyone keeps saying, "Buy meat from your farmer's market. It will taste better." I have always been annoyed at this statement because my market never had any meat beyond sausages (very expensive, DELICIOUS sausage.) This past Wednesday I went to the market and lo and behold, there was a gentleman selling all sorts of cuts of beef! I thought, "Finally, I can join the masses in buying local meats!" I purchased a breakfast steak as the prices were a bit out of my price range. When we eat it I will do a review of the taste and such.

I guess that about wraps up today's post. Hopefully more yummy foods will start appearing at the market and I can get some healthy, delicious cooking in!

Sam

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