Valentine's Baking

Since I had to stay up all night (in transition to work night shifts the next two nights) I decided to do a little baking for Valentine's Day.

My first project was to make something that I could take to work. I wanted it to be something to do with Valentines day without being all pink and having hearts all over. So... my inspiration was a chocolate covered strawberry. I started by mixing up a chocolate cake batter in one bowl, and then a strawberry cake batter in another bowl. I then used 3, 9-inch round pans and poured the batter in alternating rings so when the layers are stacked together it will look like a checkerboard pattern. It sounds confusing and I wish I would have remembered to take a picture, but really I just used a plastic separator/divider to create the circles of batter, and lifted them out once all the rings were filled. The chocolate recipe was just a basic one I have done before... I am pretty sure I have already posted at one time. The strawberry cake was a new recipe which I can say I really do like (I will post recipe later). Once I had the three layers assembled, I frosted them in chocolate frosting, and melted chocolate chips and butter to make a chocolate glaze that I poured over top (and later became a hard shell). I then made some chocolate covered strawberries, placed them on top, and sifted a touch of powdered sugar over the whole thing. Here is the end result:

The next cake that I tackled was a red velvet cake for Brandon to take to work. I have never made a red velvet cake before, so this was a new recipe too (obviously). It looked good, but I didn't try any of it, so hopefully it turned out ok. It felt a little dense, but oh well. The recipe for the frosting however, is probably my new favorite icing and I will definitely be using it again. It started with a milk and flour base that is heated and thickened on the stove top, and then combined with creamed butter, sugar, and vanilla. I have never made a frosting that way (and yes, it takes a little more time) but I think it tastes so much better than the normal powdered sugar/milk/butter combo that I knew as a kid. I will post the recipes for both of the cakes and frosting another day, but I just wanted to show off my pictures :) Hopefully I will get to take a pic of the insides of the cakes to se the layers... we shall see

I did have some leftover batter, so I made a few cupcakes. I frosted them with a little of the leftover frosting, put red tinted sugar on top, and then made piped/hardened chocolate hearts to decorate as well.

Peanut Butter Crunch French Toast

Here is one of my favorite breakfast recipes that I don't make nearly enough, but I always love it when I do.

1- Take 2 sliced of bread and spread peanut butter on each side, essentially makeing a peanut butter sandwich. Set asside
2- Next, crack a couple eggs in a shallow bowl and whisk. I like to add a touch of milk and cinnamon.
3- Take another bowl and crush up some type of "flaked" cereal. This can be something like Corn Flakes, Oat Bran Flakes, etc. I used a Whole Wheat Bran Flakes that we had on hand.
3- Dip the peanut butter sandwich in the  egg mixture, making sure to coat all sides. Then dip the sandwich in the crushed up cereal to coat with the "crunchy topping".
4- Put sandwich in a pan on the stove over medium heat and cook until nice and golden brown (or done).
5- The peanut butter will be nice and melty, and the crushed cereal will make a nice crunchy texture. I put a small drizzle of maple syrup on as well and drink with a cold glass of milk. Yum!!

Brandon's Birthday Dinner

Once again for Brandon's birthday, I let him pick out anything for supper and I made it for him/us. On the menu was Cajun/chipotle pork loin chops, steamed green beans, Southern fried cabbage, and a roasted garlic dinner roll. For dessert was angel food cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

 

And now for the recipes....

Cajun/Chipotle Crusted Pork Lion Chop

INGREDIENTS:
2 butterfly pork loin chops
4 T brown sugar
2 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp garlic powder
3 T Cajun seasoning
1 T ground chipotle chili pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1- Place all ingredients in a large ziplock bag and shake to coat meat. Let sit in bag for 20-30 minutes.
2-  If seasoning is too thick, brush some off before cooking, otherwise the flavor can get a little overpowering.
3- Cook on grill, bake in over, or saute in skillet. (I did it in the skillet just because it was too cold to grill)
4- Let stand for 5 minutes to let meat "rest" before cutting.


Southern Fried Cabbage

INGREDIENTS:
4 strips of bacon
2 T vegetable or olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 head o f cabbage - chopped
1 heaping T minced garlic
1 onion - chopped
1 T sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1- heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add bacon and cook until cripsy, and break into bite-sized chunks
2- Add cabbage, garlic, onion, and season with salt, pepper, and sugar.
3- Saute until veggies are tender.


Green Beans
I washed and cut the ends off some fresh green beans, then put them in a steamer bag in the microwave for about 6 minutes. Served with a little butter. Done :)

Angel Food Cake
I cheated on dessert because Brandon originally said he wanted to be healthy and not have anything... I couldn't NOT have something sweet, so I just bought an Angel Food cake from HyVee and sliced strawberries with it and topped with whipped cream.

PS- The roasted garlic dinner rolls were also bought from HyVee. They have an awesome selection of homemade Baking Stone breads in the bakery. 

Spinach Souffle

Tonight's supper was spinach souffle, I got this recipe from my good friend Emily. The base recipe is below, and my notes/variations to follow.

 

INGREDIENTS:
1 T olive oil
5 oz baby spinach leaves (about 8 loosely packed cups)
6 eggs
6 T flour
2 cups cottage cheese
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or whatever kind you like)
2 T melted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2- Grease a glass baking dish (I used a 8 in square Pyrex dish)
3- Heat oil in a large skillet and add spinach. Saute just long enough for spinach to wilt, about 20-30 seconds. Set aside.
4- Lightly beat eggs in a large bowl. Add flour one tablespoon at a time, mixing between each addition.
5- Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Add spinach.
6- Pour into baking dish and bake for 1 hour, or until set and lightly browned.
7- Makes about 8 servings, easy to double the recipe and then use a 9x13 pan.

**AMY'S NOTES**
**For the seasonings, the recipe just calls for salt and pepper. I like to add a lot more pepper than what the original calls for (more like 1 tsp). I also omit the salt and use 3/4 to 1 tsp garlic salt instead. I also sprinkle dill weed on top before baking (did not mix in).

**When wilting the spinach, I did it in batches since my saute pan wasn't the biggest. This prevents the leaves at the bottom from getting over cooked and the ones on top from being undercooked. By only putting a thin layer in the pan at a time, it makes the spinach easier to stir and cooks more evenly. It really doesn't take that long anyways!

**The thing that I love about this recipe is that it is great as is, but there are so many variations you could do also. It would be great adding some sauteed veggies like bell peppers, mushrooms, onions etc. I think it would also be good with a 1/2 pound of cooked sausage... or bacon (gasp!)

**My point being: you can do a lot of different things with this recipe... come to think of it, you can do a lot with most recipes! Maybe that is one reason I love about cooking... you can tweak, add, subtract, substitute, EXPERIMENT and make food they way you/your family likes it. Make it your own! Obviously some things are more exact and can't be changed too drastically (think baking... that is more of a science) but I believe there is always a LITTLE wiggle room with any recipe. Enjoy and happy cooking :)

Steampot Supper

This last Sunday Brandon and I had a few of our good friends over and had a steampot supper (think like Joe's Crab Shack).
I did not use a recipe, nor have I ever done ANYTHING remotely like this before... so this was a huge experiment. I had looked up online how long to boil the meats, but other than that, it was just "dump and stir".

In the pot were 2 pounds of red potatoes, 2 large onions, 4 pounds of shrimp, a dozen baby ears of sweetcorn, 4 pounds of andouille sausage, and a whole bunch of crab (king and snow). For the liquid I used water, a couple cans of beer, and a TON of garlic and Old Bay seasoning. That is pretty much it.

Some of the pots I used to make everything in... to the right in red is an 18 quart roaster oven that I used as well.

 

The yummy food getting ready to be added to the pots

CRAB!!

The table of food

Yes, everyone has their own little dish of melted butter to dip in :)

Other side included whole wheat dinner rolls, southwest ranch coleslaw/salad, mixed seasoned veggies, and there were brownies for dessert. We also had fresh-cut lemons and little dishes of butter for everyone's enjoyment. Of course a few adult beverages were served as well. At first I had wanted to just line the table with a bunch of paper and pour everything in the middle and just have everybody dig in... but then with the different side dishes it was going to be too hard to do that. We did end up using plates and silverware (and bought some crab leg splitters from Joe's Crab Shack), but we still dumped all the crab in the middle of the table.

 After supper, we played a board game that one of our friends brought over called Settlers of Catan. It took a little while to get used to, but once we got the hang of it, the game was SO much fun! I would say a very short description would be a strategy game where you collect various cards and trade them in to build roads and towns to get points and then win the game. Kind of like a combination of Pit and Monopoly.... maybe... sounds strange but it was fun :)

All in all, the night went very well and everything turned out SO yummy! I definitely want to do this again sometime. Thanks to those that came and made the night so much fun!!

Christmas Gifts

Ok this is a little late, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise of anyone... but anyway... I made spiced sugar body scrubs (thanks Pinterest) and gave them to several people as homemade Christmas gifts. I don't remember the exact recipe, and I know I tweaked it anyway so it really doesn't matter what the original recipe is. 

The main ingredients are:

Brown sugar

White sugar

Spices (nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon)

Coconut oil

Olive oil

 Pretty much all I did was mix the ingredients together until I was happy with the consistency.  The only downfall was that it took a LOT more oil than I was expecting, and the coconut oil was a little pricy. It also is solid at room temp, so I needed to run the jar under hot water to get it into a liquid.

Lastly, I made little labels and put them on the jars and gave them to a few people. I meant to give them to more people than I did, but I ran out of the coconut oil and it was too expensive to buy more.  Sorry!

 

It was a fun, quick project, to help soften skin and help others relax a little ... plus it smelled wonderful! I also think this could work well with all white sugar and using a peppermint extract or lemon extract. Really, I am sure you could use about any essential oils that you liked. I might have to make more of these in various scents.

Peppermint Meringues

Tonight I had the burning urge to wash a bunch of dishes, so I decided to open my cookbook and try out a new recipe. I ended up going with a batch of peppermint meringues. They were time consuming, a little tedious, and yes... messy. Goal complete. On the up side they turned out really cute and filled with Christmasy-minty-airy goodness :)

Ingredients
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp peppermint extract  **see note**
Red and Green food coloring

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 225 degrees, and line cookie sheets with wax paper
2) In a large bowl, whisk/beat egg whites and cream of tartar at high speed until soft peaks form when beaters are lifted.
3) Gradually add the powdered sugar and extract, then continue to beat until meringue stands in stiff glossy peaks
4) Here comes the fun part... half the meringue and transfer into two bowls. Use the food coloring to tint one of the bowls a pale red and the other a pale green.
5) Spoon each of the colored meringues into separate ziplock bags and cut off the tip of one corner on each bag.
6) Fit a large decorating/piping bag with a large round tip. Then place the bag in a glass and fold the bag over the edge of the glass to stabalize.
7) Simultaneously squeeze the red and green filled bags into the decorating/piping bag to fill.
8) Pipe 2inch round meringues onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving about an inch between each one.
9) Bake at 225 for 2 hours, then shut off oven and leave meringues in oven for another half hour to dry. If you have more meringue to bake, turn oven back up to 225 and repeat process.
10) Cool completely before taking off pan. They should be dry, light, airy, and crispy.

**Note- make sure you use a peppermint extract that does not contain oil, or it will flatten/deflate the meringue.

Decorating/piping bag folded over a cup with the 2 colors of meringue filling the inside.

piped meringues ready to bake

finished product :)