So I turned in my Christmas paper today. I won't know for a few days what my grade is but I feel pretty good about my work. Hopefully in the next few days I will have a more interesting post for everyone.

Blogging and Baking

All of the baking I have been doing to keep this blog moving forward (as well as keep me happy) has really made me want to work in the food industry. The problem is, I don't want to work in a restaurant or a bakery or a grocery store.

What I really want to do is to be able to sell baked goods out of my home. Just a small business that I would be able to keep up with by myself.

I don't know if this is ever going to be something that I can achieve but it is a goal of mine.

Christmas Paper

Once again, a school paper is taking over my life. This time, though, it is my fault.

I am doing a directed studies program in Anthropology and chose to write a paper about the ways people view and celebrate Christmas. I wasn't able to finish it in the semester I started so I took an incomplete and thus gave myself another year to finish it.

Unfortunately, I want to go to UC Santa Cruz. While this in itself is not the problem, it is the transfer agreement program (TAG) that I am using to transfer. I need to have a 3.0 GPA to qualify for the TAG and as of last semester my GPA was 2.95. How irritating.

So now, instead of collecting data over the holiday season and having lots of time to finish, I need to finish this paper in the next few days so that it can be graded. Once the paper is graded it will bring my GPA up enough to qualify.

Here is the real problem. I was told I had until October 15 to send my application in and now I find out it is September 30! Two weeks lost. Now I have to scramble to get this somewhat together and decent. Here is what I think I am going to do:

Throw together something so that my teacher has something to grade. Get an OK grade (preferably a 'B'.) Redo the paper at a later date so that it is up to my standards and something worth keeping.


I have a couple of blog post ideas but, until this paper is done you will see none of them. Sorry.

Sam

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!