German Pancakes or Puffy Pancakes

We made these this past week, as a kind of trial and they turned out so good we made them again this morning to enjoy with Dennis too. This time I took pictures :) Very easy, great for a school morning, they mix up in the blender and bake in muffin tins in 15 minutes. I got the initial recipe from the internet, but adjusted it to feed our family and added a little spice.

Recipe:

Preheat your oven to 400 while getting everything together

1 1/2 cups milk, warmed in microwave

3/4 stick of butter, melted in microwave

9 eggs (yes, 9! the bulk of this batter is eggs)

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. vanilla

dash salt

fresh grated nutmeg (or in the jar if you don't grate it fresh...you really should if you don't)

Put everything in the blender, beginning with the liquid, adding eggs. Blend to incorporate, then add the flour last. Blend till smooth. This doesn't take very long.
Pour into well-greased muffin tins almost full, but not quite. I first transferred the batter to an actual glass measuring cup which poured much better than my blender itself. You can see my mess from my first attempt at pouring directly from the blender. Mistake. This recipe filled up 24 muffin cups completely. There was actually about 1/4 cup left over, but I didn't cook it.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. They will puff up dramatically in the oven. When you take them out, they will shrink down almost immeidately, as in the below picture. If you greased your muffin pans well, they will come right out.

Serve on a plate with butter and your favorite toppings. We tried: cherry jam, confectioner's sugar, maple syrup, chocolate syrup, cinnamon sugar, peanut butter, honey, freshly sliced strawberries. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.
And, yes, they do reheat well for the next day or just a snack later in the day.

Cinnamon Buns

I made cinnamon rolls today....by far the best recipe I've come across for these. I won't attempt to duplicate the excellent photography where I found them. Instead, I'm going to hyperlink you to the site with the picture and the recipe. They turned out looking exactly like they do in the first picture. Note: I have tried several cinnamon bun recipes, and so far, they have all come out heavy as bricks. So we were all delighted by how these turned out. I hope you are too.

But I will give you a few thoughts on things I did in the process that are not in the original recipe. So, go look at the picture, read the recipe through from start to finish, then come back here to see how I made it happen. Cinnamon Buns

Bye...see you soon...

Okay, to start off with, I made up the dough and everything the entire day and 1/2 before. The rolls had risen completely and were in the fridge, ready to be taken out, brought to room temp and cooked in the morning. I am not an early riser, so to me, this is imperative.

For Saturday morning rolls, I mixed the dough in my mixer Thursday night. I mixed, kneaded as per the directions, placed in a buttered bowl, covered with saran wrap and put it in the fridge to finish the next day.

Friday, I immediately took the cold bowl out of the fridge and set it on the counter to come to room temperature. Then I left it on the counter to rise during the day (until it doubled in size per the recipe). Once it had risen. I continued with the recipe as instructed, except when the dough was ready to put onto the counter to roll, I was carefull NOT to deflate it (ie. punching it down). I just gently rolled it out onto the oiled counter. It rolled out nicely and kept it's light and airy loftiness.

Once the rolls were cut, I placed them in a parchment lined sheet pan (like used for large rectangular cakes) instead of on a cookie sheet. I wanted to be able to seal out any air with plastic wrap, and didnt' see how I could do that on a cookie sheet. Then I stuck them in the refrigerator, AGAIN. I left them there till right before bedtime (which for me on the weekend is usually close to 11 or 12. Then I took them out and set them on the counter. I figured since they were good and cold it would take them awhile to warm up. However, if it is late when you have gotten them totally prepared, I think I would refrigerate them overnight, and then make sure I got up a couple of hours early to take them out of the fridge to come to room temp. Otherwise, breakfast will be served at lunch time.

So, Saturday morning we came to the kitchen, turned on the oven at 8:00, popped them in, made up the cream cheese glaze, and had finished eating by 9:00. Delicious.

Comfort Food-Chicken Pot Pie

Last week, most everyone in our house was stricken with some type of cold or other respiratory discomfort. Typically we have homemade chicken soup, but nobody (at least not me) felt like having that. So I made some chicken pot pie. I do not have a recipe for this, but I can basically give the outline of how I make it.

I cut up some carrots, onions, celery and garlic and saute them in a bit of olive oil till slightly tender. Spices...whatever is on hand, thyme, marjoram, sage are all good. Then I add a bit of cooking wine (maybe 1/4 cup) for flavor. Once this cooks in a bit, I add flour for the base for the sauce. How much? Depends on how much broth I will add. For 2 cups of broth, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup flour. Then once this is mixed in well I add the broth. If it is still too thick, I will thin it with some more broth or milk. Then I add in my veggies (frozen mixed work great) and cut up chicken. I dump it all into a greased casserole.

Next I make up my topping. You can go two ways with this...pie crust or biscuit top. My family prefers biscuit, so I make up a biscuit recipe (basically flour, shortening, salt, baking soda and buttermilk) and drop/spread it over the chicken mixture. I bake at about 400 degrees till the biscuit is cooked. This usually makes a bubbly mess in my oven, so I put a cookie sheet under the casserole to protect my just-cleaned-oven!

Irish Soda Bread

Ever made this??? I hadn't. Once again, another well-loved hit born out of necessity. It was one of the mornings when we had NOTHING in the house for breakfast. So I found this recipe for Irish Soda Bread (which is nothing more than a gigantic biscuit). The entire loaf was gone by the end of the day. We sliced it up warm in the morning and had butter on it. We had some more at lunch and Dennis had some for a snack when he got home from work.

Full credit goes to Ina Garten from her book "Barefoot Contessa at Home".
4 cups flour, plus 1 extra tablespoon for raisins or currants
4 T. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
4 T. butter, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 3/4 cup buttermilk, or regular milk with 1 tsp. vinegar added to sour it
1 extra large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp. grated orange zest (or dried lemon rind as this was all I had) no oranges in the fridge in October!)
1 cup raisins or dried currants

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is mixed into the flour. A food processor works well for this too.
Witha fork, lightly beat the buttermilk, zest and egg. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Combine the raisins with 1 T. flour and mix into the dough. It will be very wet.
Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and knead it a few times until you can form it into a round loaf. Place the loaf on the prepared sheet pan and lightly cut an X into the top of the bread with a serrated knife. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. (Make sure you bake it long enough, the top middle tends to stay wet the longest). Cool on a baking rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

English Muffins...so easy!

One of my all time favorite shows to watch (when i happen upon it, very rarely) is Good Eats with Alton Brown. I like Paula Deen, Barefoot Contessa, and others, but the one who inspires me to get up and cook something new, every single time, is Alton Brown. There is something no-nonsense, scientific about the way he presents things. So Friday night while Dennis was out in his woodshop, I was folding laundry and watching Food Network. At 11:00 Good Eats came on, and at 11:30 I was in the kitchen :)

I am not going to retype his recipe here, because I followed it exactly. Only difference is I made up the dough, covered it, and put it in the refrigerator to slow rise overnight so I could make up the muffins in the morning for breakfast. In the morning, I got out the dough and let it sit on the counter to come to room temp for about 1 hour while I got everything else ready. I could have just as easily made up the dough in the morning, but I wanted to get in the kitchen right after seeing the show.

Anyways, the only special thing you need to have is 4 large biscuit cutters (metal rings) or as he uses, empty tuna cans with the bottoms cut out.

My family ate these for breakfast (all but one...that is the one in the picture) toasted with butter and jelly. I ate the last one for lunch. The recipe made 11. They were delicious and just as easy as pancakes. You should try them!

Delightful Surprise

Sometimes the best things come that way by surprise. Such is the case with these

Banana Cheesecake Bars. They are not really cheesecake at all (since I don't like cheesecake) but for some reason they are called that. Call them what you want, they are delicious. So delicious that I forgot to take a picture and this is literally the last one before it goes on the plate to be eaten! The recipe is from Kraft, but i altered it a bit just out of necessity because of lack of ingredients. If you haven't noticed, that happens to me quite frequently! So this tastes kind of like banana pudding in a cake.

Recipe below.

Banana Pudding Cake ( my own name for it)

1 pkg. white cake mix

4 eggs

3 T. oil

2/3 cup sugar

3 bananas

1 pkg. (8oz) cream cheese

8 oz. sour cream

1/4 cup flour

2 T. lemon juice

1 1/2 cups milk

cool whip for topping if desired

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Set aside 1 cup of cake mix. Mix with fork remaining cake mix with egg, oil and 1/3 cup sugar. (mixture will be crumbly) Press onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of greased 9x13 baking pan.

Slice bananas and lay them out neatly on top of the crust.

Beat cream chese, sour cream and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in mixer till smooth. Add reserved 1 cup cake mix, flour, remaining 3 eggs and lemon juice. Beat 1 min. Blend in milk. (Batter will be thin). Pour into crust on top of bananas.

Bake 45-60 min. or until center is almost set. I increased the baking temp to 350 the last 15 min. to help speed this up. Serve warm or cooled in the fridge. Either way. Dollop with cool whip if desired.

Turkey Meatballs in Cream Sauce with Spinach Salad

Made this dinner last night...my friend Amy emailed me the recipe (at the bottom of the post)...it sounded delicious. I really think it was...the turkey meatballs were not so heavy in the stomach as ground beef and I really like turkey burgers anyways. However, NO ONE else in my family liked it. Dennis ate a polite amount and whispered behind his hand to me across the table, "don't ever make this again!" the kids tasted the sauce and ate the noodles only. no meatballs. darn. i really liked it. i guess that was the last time i'll get to eat it unless you try it, like it, and come to my house, i'll make it again for us and send my family out for pizza!
The base for the meatballs: 1 egg, 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, 1/2 cup parmesan, 1/3 cup milk, finely chopped onion and garlic, salt, pepper and basil (it called for parsley, but i didn't have any)
Meatballs in the oven...it made 37 smallish meatballs. Very squishy to make, but they came out solid.
Out of the oven after 30 minutes at 350 degrees and nicely browned. The recipe calls to boil them in the sauce, but i prefer my meatballs cooked in the oven, and then warmed in the sauce. I usually make up a batch of meatballs, use what i want and freeze the rest to take out and use in another recipe. In this case, i made the meatballs earlier in the day, refrigerated what i wanted for the night and heated them in the sauce when i made the sauce up right before eating.
The sauce, with about 15 meatballs simmering in it. Yummy!

I ended up taking the leftover sauce and meatballs to my parents...they will like it i'm sure!

The recipes:

TURKEY MEATBALLS AND PASTA IN CREAM SAUCE

3T olive oil
1 c. scallions, finely minced and divided
1 ¼ t. salt, divided
¾ t. freshly ground pepper
8 oz. white or shitake mushrooms, sliced (mine were finely chopped)
2T. all-p. flour
2 1/2 c. chicken broth
¼ cup fine, dry breadcrumbs
1/3 c. milk
1c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 large egg
1 pound of ground turkey
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 T. minced fresh flat-leaf parsley ( I used fresh basil)
2/3 c. half and half (the recipe calls for heavy cream, but this is just as nice)
1 lb. of dried pasta (I use bowtie, or corkscrew)


HEAT oil in a large skillet over med. Heat. Add ½ c. of scallions, ¼ c. of salt, ¼ t. of pepper, and mushrooms, and cook, stirring occasionally…5 minutes. Add flour, and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes more. Add broth; cover and simmer 10 minutes.

COMBINE breadcrumbs and milk in a small bowl, and let soak 10 minutes. Combine 1/2c. Parmesan, remaining ½ c. scallions, remaining 1.t. salt, remaining 1.2 t. pepper, and next 4 ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir in breadcrumb mixture, and form into 1 ½ inch meatballs.

Add meatballs to sauce; cover and simmer 20 minutes more. Add half and half, and return to a simmer. Add remaining ½ c. Parmesan, and stir until sauce is slightly thickened,
. Add drained cooked pasta and sauce to pot , and toss gently to combine. Serve with additional Parmesan.

INSALATA DI SPINACI (this is extremely easy)
Spinach salad with pine nuts

2/3c. of toasted pine nuts (I used slivered almonds because that is what i had on hand)
4 T. of red wine vinegar
Pinch of nutmeg
zest of one lemon
2 t. of salt
1. t. of pepper
½ c. of extra virgin olive oil
1 ½ pounds of baby spinach

**I also added 1 tomato and 1 avocado cut up***

In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar, nutmeg, lemon zest, salt, and pepper. When the salt has dissolved, whisk in the olive oil.
When ready to serve, whisk the dressing again. Toss with the spinach, top with the pine nuts and serve.

Successful Camping Meals

Despite the unsuccessful cake experience while camping, the rest of our meals are usually big hits. Nothing like spending the day biking to work up a good appetite! We do have some standbys that always go camping with us, so I thought I'd just share our meal plan for the week for inspiration for any of you campers out there! Nothing fancy, just what works for us.

Meal #1

Grilled Chicken and Foil Packet Veggies

cut up and refrigerate before you leave:

carrots and celery (diced)

chicken breasts into thin strips (cook faster on the grill) and put in marinade in ziploc bag, then freeze

When ready to eat, place veggies on 2 layers of heavy duty foil and dot with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fold up foil lengthwise, then fold up ends. Place on grill over hot coals for 30-40 minute or till veggies are tender. You may need to check them occasionally.

The chicken just needs to be slightly defrosted and then grilled till done. These cook up pretty fast since they're so small, so I usually cook the veggies till they're done, then do the chicken right before we're ready to eat. This is the only meal I took pictures of, but I will share the rest below.
Meal #2

Corn chowder and cheesy corn cakes.

I made ahead corn chowder and froze it in a ziploc bag. It heated up nicely in a large pot or you could use a crock pot if you have one. I mix up a box of Jiffy Corn Bread mix as directed (1 egg and 1/4 cup milk or water) and add in about 1 cup of shredded cheese. These I drop onto a hot oiled griddle over the fire and cook up like pancakes. They are delicious with a little butter or not on top.

Meal #3

Burgers and applesauce. Simple and yet delicious. We have a very limited number of courses in our camping meals, usually the main dish and one other thing.

Meal #4

Spaghetti. Sometimes I make this up ahead of time at home and freeze it, other times I boil the noodles at the campsite and dump sauce on them once cooked. Sometimes I will brown some ground beef or sausage at home and then freeze it and add to the spaghetti. I serve this with a bagged salad on the side. The best part of this meal is the bread, buttered and toasted over the fire. Don't forget the parmesan, i did!!!

Meal #5

Chili Mac

Make a box of Kraft or Velveeta Mac& Cheese (with the cheese in the foil pouch). Dump in a can of chili (we like it with NO beans). Mix up and eat. We ONLY eat this when camping, all other times it just doesn't sound good at all, but we love it when outside!

Dutch Oven Recipe Gone Bad!

We celebrated Dennis' birthday while we were camping and decided to try and make him a birthday cake in a dutch oven in the coals of the fire. I researched and found what seemed to be the best recipe for cooking a cake in a dutch oven over coals. Pretty much we mixed up the cake, poured it into a foil lined dutch oven, put on the lid and put it in the hot coals with coals heaped up on top (see above picture). The recipe said to keep it nice and hot and leave it in for an hour and then check it. I dont' know what size cake they were baking (it must have been monstrous!) because we took ours out after 45 min. because it was smoking. Good thing we did...the cast iron dutch oven was literally glowing red with heat. The cake inside was not only burnt to a crisp, but it had actually turned into hot red embers itself! I wish you could have seen it... I didn't take any more pictures because we were so worried the kids would come in contact with the cast iron. I think it could have cooked for 10 minutes and have been done!

Alas, no birthday cake for Dennis!

The next night I tried out a brownie mix and left it in for about 20 minutes and did not put it in coals that were any where near as hot, and it still came out burnt on the bottom. Either cakes in a dutch oven are lousy, or we are doing something wrong. Anyways, it was fun experiementing!

Best Chicken Wings Ever!

This post is in honor of my good friend Sarah who shared a recipe on her blog for grilled chicken wings. When I went to visit her one time, her husband cooked them and since then Dennis & I have been hooked. They are super easy and so much better (I think) than the frozen Tyson wings I used to get and heat in the oven. If you don't like wings anyways, I don't know what's wrong with you...try this recipe!!

Grilled Chicken Wings

1.Buy a package of wings-fresh or frozen- and sprinkle with salt.

2.Grill on both sides, turning often (they like to catch on fire) until cooked through and the skin is browned and crispy (not burnt).

3.Place with tongs into a large bowl that has a cover.

4.Pour your favorite sauce over the wings (hot sauce, bbq, teriyaki, etc) and put the lid on.

5.Shake, turn, flip and generally move the bowl around so as to coat the wings.

6.Eat and have plenty of paper towels on hand.

What do you pair with wings for dinner besides pizza? Freshly sliced tomatoes of course!

Tortellini and Veggies

Tonight was a typical Sunday evening...not much going on, pretty tired after all of the weekend activities, and I certainly did not feel like slaving in the kitchen for long. It is usually our pizza night, but we had pizza last night after getting back from sailing, so that was not an option. So I opened my pantry to see what I could throw together. If you are not much of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type cook, then this may be difficult for you. However I am, and most of my meals are put together with what I have on hand. Rarely do I follow recipes, and if I do, I usually change them :) Anyways, here is my thought process for tonight, but please, substitute for what you have on hand, don't go out and buy exactly what I used or I think you totally miss the point.

5:15 pm Hmmmm, I guess I'd better put together some dinner. What's in the pantry? Pasta, good, fast, yummy. I have angel hair and dried tortellini. Tortellini sound good. I have some veggies from the garden that I can put with it.

5:25 pm Water is boiling and tortellini are in for 8 minutes. I have now concocted a plan: boil the pasta, but not all the way done because i am going to stir fry some zuchini to go with them, and then toss them in once the zukes have cooked a bit. Now I am slicing and quartering zuchini, smaller bites are better for the young set around here.

5:32 pm I take the pasta out early because they are starting to look done, and I dont' want them to be done all the way. I heat up the wok with some olive oil to stir fry the zuchini. Once hot, I toss them in (I used two small ones, but I think cherry tomatoes would have been delicious in retrospect instead.. Like i said, anything you have on hand). I sprinkle liberally with garlic salt and some fresh ground black pepper. Just for a few minutes, then i dump in the drained tortellini and toss. They start to stick, and I add half a stick of butter ( i already had it out just in case). Once that is all mixed in, I think they might get a little dry, so I pour in a bit of cream, just enough to moisten them all and leave a little in the bottom of the pan.

5:40 pm I realize that I have spices growing outside my front door, so i run out and grab a handful of basil. I could have grabbed thyme or even sage, but it's summer, so basil fit best. I quickly chopped it up and added it to the mix, along with some fresh grated parmesan, LOTS. I covered it up till the crew was ready to eat.

6:00 pm Everyone is ready to eat and we gobbled it all up! Every kid ate every bite and the zucchini too, amazing ;)

I hope you are inspired to throw together your own summer dish with whatever you have on hand. I'd love to hear what combination turned out most delicous for you!

Cooking Tip of the Day-

Potato Ricer

Okay, so I had some great photos to go with this tip and they got deleted. Now the potatoes are all put away and I have no photos. Yuck, so try to imagine as best you can and I'll do better next time!

If you detest preparing potatoes for mashed potatoes as much as I do, you will love and appreciate this tip! Do you have a ricer? Never heard of one? It looks kind of like an overgrown lemon juicer. It pushes cooked potatoes through the little holes and they come out like long pieces of rice, hence, the name, "ricer". Anyways, I used to always peel my potatoes before putting through the ricer...sometimes before I cooked them, sometimes burning my fingers after they were cooked. Either way, NO FUN. All has changed! Just put the potato (cooked in it's skin, sliced neatly in half) skin side UP into the ricer. Press/squeeze, out comes beautiful potato. Lift the handle and the skin has stuck to the ricer press. Amazing. Pull off the skin and repeat.

Then just mix the potatoes with whatever yummies you like, butter, milk, sour cream, roasted garlic....etc. and enjoy. No mixer, no smasher, easy.

Tiramisu

Recently my mother and I took a cooking class at our local gourmet cooking store. They bring in local chefs and other cooks and cook based on a theme. We watch, help cook, and then enjoy the yummies. If you have never gone to a cooking class, GO! It is a lot of fun, and much better than what you see on Food Network. The one we just attended was by a local Italian chef named Vincenzo. He taught us how to make an artichoke salad, home made gnocci in carrot sauce, and tiramisu. Delicious and I learned a lot, like how to prepare fresh artichokes, which I have always been afraid of. Look for a tutorial one day when I find artichokes on sale!

Anyways, the tiramisu was so simple and so delicious. I am not afraid to share since he really didn't give us a recipe, just an ingredients list, and I made it from memory yesterday after watching him at the class. Make it the day before you will eat it and the flavors blend.

Recipe

500 gr mascarpone cheese (At BJ's this was relatively inexpensive. At the local gourmet supermarket, much smaller container and much more expensive. I hope you have a BJ's!)

4 fresh eggs, separated (if you are shy about using raw eggs, sorry. they will not be cooked. get them as fresh as possible)

2 packages of ladyfingers (these were sold at our local wal-mart, so i think they're pretty easy to find)

4 T. sugar

2 t. sugar

6 cups espresso coffee...or even a little more. don't skimp on the coffee (Lavazza is the best according to the Italian chef and I agree), made extra strong, or if you don't have a way to make espresso, make some regular coffee, just pretty strong.

bitter cocoa powder (hershey's or bakers is fine) for dusting



Brew the coffee and mix with 2 t. sugar. Set aside to cool.



In a mixer with the wisk attachment, beat the egg yolks with the 4 T. sugar until the yolks turn light yellow and thicken. This will take several minutes. You will notice a big difference in the color from the dark yellow they were when they started out. Mix in the mascarpone cheese and wisk till smooth.



In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff peaks form. If you have never done this, make sure the bowl is clean and free from all grease or anything else. If not, they will not form peaks. This happened to me the first time. I tried to beat them in the same bowl as the cheese and yolks and they did nothing. Once you have stiff peaks, gently fold them into the cheese and yolk mixture till fully incorporated. Set this yummy and totally edible at this point on anything else mixture aside!



Now get out your rectangular baking pan. The higher the sides the better. I used a pampered chef stoneware. Put the coffee into a loaf pan or other rectangular type pan. Set up an area for your stations...ladyfingers, coffee, baking pan. Here is the only tricky part. You must be quick or the ladyfingers will fall apart. You are going to lay the ladyfinger in the coffee and then quickly turn it over and quickly lift it out, letting excess coffee drain. Quickly lay the ladyfingers in the bottom of your baking pan to cover the bottom. Once the ladyfingers absorb the coffee, they quickly break down as they absorb the liquid. Don't let them sit in the coffee for more than a second or 2 per side.


Once you have a layer of ladyfingers, carefully spread half of the cheese mixture over this with a spatula. Then repeat with the ladyfingers dipped in coffee for the second layer. Then repeat with the rest of the cheese mixture.



Lastly, pour some cocoa powder into a sifter and sift/shake to cover the whole thing with a nice thick layer of cocoa. As it sits in the fridge, some of the cocoa will be absorbed, so don't be sparing!



Cover with something (foil, plastic wrap) and refrigerate. Minimum 1 hour, best...overnight. Cut into squares and serve!