Sacre bleu cheese!

Delish.

I’ve been eating a lot of green salad lately (mostly Romaine, arugula, and baby spinach, for those of you keeping track at home), and thus a lot of salad dressing. My absolute favorite has always been Bleu Cheese. When I was a little girl, restaurants charged thirty-five cents extra for it, and my dad groused about paying it, but I wouldn’t budge. For me it was Bleu Cheese or no salad, end of discussion. So I’ve been going through a lot of Bleu Cheese dressing lately, and I figured I’d save myself some chemicals and maybe some money, too, and make my own. So I did! It’s super creamy (maybe even a little too much, but I don’t mind it thick) and really rich and delicious. I’m almost done with my first batch…I’m thinking I might add some bacon to batch two. Because why not?

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 15oz jar Hellman’s Light Mayonnaise
• 1/3 c. plain Greek yogurt (I used Chobani)
• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 2 tsp. roasted garlic rice wine vinegar
• 4 oz. crumbled bleu cheese

Whisk together mayo, yogurt, oil, and vinegar until thoroughly combined. Stir in bleu cheese. Top your salad!

O. M. G.*

* The “G” is for gumbo.

Yum. Just…yum.

Remember last week I told you about my Shrimp’n'Grits, and promised to tell you all about the gumbo I made later that evening with the shrimpy butter as the base for the roux? Well, here you go. I call this my “Kitchen Sink Gumbo” because, in direct violation of everything I read in my Louisiana cookbooks (specifically Donald Link’s Real Cajun and the Times-Picayune collection Cooking Up a Storm) it involves seafood, chicken, and andouille sausage all thrown in the pot together. And it’s goooood. I tasted it to see if it needed more salt/kick/whatever and said, “Oh, that’s good. [pause] OH. That’s goooooood.”

I’d never made a gumbo before, but there were things I knew I wanted (shrimp, chicken, andouille) and things I knew I didn’t (green peppers — I’m allergic). I ended up consulting all of the gumbo recipes in both of the aforementioned books and then making a bit of a mish-mosh of them all. I think the biggest deviation I made (aside from combining all the meat types) was the roux. All of the gumbo recipes I consulted called for an oil-based dark roux; I wanted to use my shrimpy butter so I ended up with a lighter roux. I think it came out just fine (where “just” = “damned”). I served it over rice, and found that a sweet cornbread makes a nice side.

Recipe

(loosely adapted from recipes found in Donald Link’s Real Cajun and the Times-Picayune collection Cooking Up a Storm)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c butter
• 3/4 c flour
• 1/4 c diced celery
• 1/4 c carrots, sliced into coins
• 1/4 c onions (I don’t really like onion a whole lot, and I especially hate chopping onion, so I used itty bitty pearl onions that I just cut in half and threw in.)
• 1 can Progresso red clam sauce
• 32 oz. chicken broth
• 1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 lb chicken, diced and cooked
• 1/2 lb andouille sausage, sliced into half circles
• 2-3 bay leaves, crushed
• Salt to taste
• Cayenne pepper to taste (1/2 tsp was just enough for me, but I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to spicy)

In the bottom of a large stockpot or dutch oven, melt butter. Add flour to make a roux, and cook until fairly dark (but be careful not to burn it). Add celery, carrots, and onions. Cook until soft. Add clam sauce, broth, and all meats. Boil for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Reduce heat, add bay leaves and simmer for 2hrs (give or take). Add salt and cayenne pepper just before removing from heat.

Things that make me say “y’all”

Been wondering what awesome looks like? This is it, right here.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but as a general rule I have not been fond of seafood. Fish and chips (it’s battered and fried — what’s not to like?), yes, but otherwise, not so much. As I’ve been cooking more, though, I’ve been reading recipes and descriptions of seafood that just sounds delicious. So over the past couple of years, I’ve been making an effort to try more seafood, both different types and different preparations. There was that salmon a while back, which was pretty tasty, but I don’t think I’m going to become a regular salmon eater. A few months ago, though, I discovered shrimp, in all its shrimpy goodness and glory, and now I find myself craving shrimp once or twice a week (at least).

Now, I do have very specific needs when it comes to shrimp: they must be warm, and they must be either small or cut up into bite-sized chunks. No Jumbo Shrimp for me, thankyouverymuch. But, as long as those conditions are met, I adore shrimp. I especially adore shrimp when they’re all Southern’ed up… barbecued, for instance. So I was pretty excited when Michael Ruhlman’s recipe for butter-poached shrimp served over bacon grits came across my interwebs.

Y’all. I cannot even tell you how mind-blowingly delicious this is. I did change it up just a skosh from Mr. Ruhlman’s recipe, namely by adding cheese to the grits and leaving out the onion. Also, since I added the cheese, it wasn’t necessary to add the butter from the poaching (don’t worry — it didn’t go to waste…I used it later when I needed to make a roux for my gumbo, which I will tell you all about in another post). I also adjusted the timing a little, and I halved the recipe (which ended up being about 2 servings for me). Here’s how I did it:

Recipe

(adapted from Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook’s Manifesto by Michael Ruhlman, as reprinted on publicradio.org)

Ingredients:

• 1 c water
• 1/4 c old fashioned grits (NOT instant. Seriously, y’all. If you’re gonna use instant grits you might as well just stop right now.)
• 1/2 c diced bacon, cooked
• 1/4 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 c butter
• 1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

In small saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add grits and stir, then cover and reduce heat to medium low. Let cook for at least 25 minutes, stirring frequently.

When the grits have about 5 minutes left, melt butter a couple of tablespoons at a time in a saucepan just large enough to hold your shrimp (I used a 3qt saucepan for the 1/2 lb), stirring constantly. When all of the butter is melted, add the shrimp and cook for about 5 minutes. Shrimp should be cooked through. Remove from heat.

While the shrimp are poaching, uncover the grits and and stir in the bacon, heating it through. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese until melted. Plate the grits, then spoon the shrimp over them.

We Have No Banana Today

It's so good I failed to take a picture until we'd already eaten most of it. I was busy stuffing my face.

Even Wikipedia doesn’t know why it’s called Monkey Bread. It’s not made of monkeys and doesn’t contain bananas or anything else monkey-related, but it’s definitely delicious. Also, it’s kinda fun to make and totally fun to eat. I used to not make it often, because it’s a yeast dough so it takes a couple hours to make the dough and then another hour or so to prep and bake the bread. And it’s really best fresh out of the oven. So it’s really not particularly convenient to have for breakfast, though it’ll do for second breakfast or elevenses, if you get up early enough. I discovered a few years ago, though, that you can actually bake it the day before, leave it in the pan, then heat it back up for 10 minutes or so (long enough to make the sugar gooey again) in the morning. Everybody wins! Except for the monkeys, because I’m not sharing.

Recipe

(adapted from AllRecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 3 c all-purpose flour
• 1-2 tsp ground cinnamon, to taste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 c white sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter, softened
• 1 c water
• 1/2 c butter
• 1 c packed brown sugar

Set bread machine to Dough. Put yeast, flour, cinnamon, salt, sugar, butter, and water in machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. When dough is complete, turn out onto well-floured board and knead 10-20 times.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter bundt pan. In a small saucepan, melt together butter and brown sugar. Cut dough into 1″ cubes. Dredge cubes in butter/sugar mixture (Yes, it’s hot. Be careful.) and drop evenly into prepared bundt pan. Bake at  375°F for 20-25 minutes (until golden brown).

To serve immediately, place a plate over the top of the pan and invert them together. You may need to give the bottom of the pan a thump after you’ve got them flipped.

To serve the next morning, leave in pan and reheat at 375°F for 10-15 minutes (until butter/sugar mixture is gooey again). Serve as directed above.

It Finally Happened

This is one of those posts I mentioned that’s been hanging around for awhile, just waiting to be finished. Here it is, finally, and you can look forward to a recipe (mostly) every Tuesday as part of a new feature called “Tasty Tuesdays”. I haven’t forgotten about Found It on the Internet Fridays — I’ve just gotten behind on taking pictures, but it will be coming back this week as well.

I have been wanting to make a turducken for years, and been wanting to eat one for even longer than that. This year was finally The Year of the Turbaducken (the “ba” is for “bacon”, obviously).

So much nom. Not shown: cranberry sauce, because I like it out of a can as opposed to homemade. Though it occurs to me that I would be just as happy with homemade raspberry jam, like with a Monte Cristo, so I might do that next time.

Let’s start with the easy/boring stuff: the green salad is just a bag of Romaine mixed with a bag of “spring greens” and topped with some grape tomatoes. I buy bagged salad because I hate making salad, and if I have to make it myself, it won’t get done. And really, I should eat more salad since it’s one of the few ways I actually like veggies. The bread sticks were easy but blah — I shan’t be making them again.

Now on to the good stuff (recipes below): first up, let’s talk about the Mustard Glazed Green Beans and Potatoes.

Seriously, are those not the cutest little potatoes you ever saw?

I had this idea just last week to toss some beans and potatoes with butter and mustard, and it is the easiest, most deliciously appetizing way I’ve ever had green beans. Even Becky agrees that they are not the most inedible vegetable she has ever tried, which from her is high praise indeed. Trader Joe’s sells these wee little potatoes that work perfectly in this recipe, but you could use fingerlings or new potatoes as well — if you use larger potatoes, you might want to cut them into 1″-ish chunks before serving.

Next, the Mac’n'Cheese.

Yes, those are penne noodles. I forgot to get elbow mac at the store and sure as hell wasn't going Wednesday night when I remembered I needed them.

It’s a no-bake, which makes it a great recipe for a big dinner like this — anything you can put together on the stovetop makes it a little easier to coordinate things. When I got my first apartment, my Aunt Valda gave me one of my very first cookbooks: Best Recipes, which is a collection of label recipes. I made either Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner (it’s been more years than I care to say so memory’s a bit foggy there) in that apartment for myself and my boyfriend that year, almost entirely out of that cookbook. There were cornish game hens, stuffing, rolls, two types of pie, and this mac’n'cheese, which was really the only keeper in the bunch. It’s also how I learned to make a roux, long before I knew what a roux was. To this day, following the instructions given in this recipe is the only way I can successfully make a roux.

I'll admit, there's a lot more "pie" than "sweet potato" to these.

The Sweet Potato Pie was always on the table of the Thanksgivings of my childhood, courtesy of the aforementioned Aunt Valda. I’ve simplified the recipe a tad (and actually screwed it up this year, due to an epic inability to count to three), but it’s still the same rich delicious dish it’s always been.

The stuffing was one I found online…I needed a stuffing for the turducken, and I thought a cornbread stuffing would hold up best to a couple of hours of having meat juices soaking into it. I decided to add sausage to the stuffing because, well, I like sausage in my stuffing. I went with plain ol’ breakfast sausage patties instead of the more traditional Italian sausage because again, I like the one better than the other. I ended up with a bunch left over after putting the turbaducken together, so I decided to serve the extra as a “dry” stuffing on the side. Delish.

So yummy, both in and out of the bird(s).

A couple of quick notes on the recipe itself: the cornbread you will get out of this recipe is blah, so don’t get excited about using just that part of the recipe. The version below has my modifications; the original recipe calls for a bunch of veggies, which I left out, and I only ended up using maybe half of the broth called for. Definitely pay more attention to the moistness of your dish than the measurements called for in the recipe.

Finally, the pièce de résistance: The Mighty Mighty Turbaducken!

Aw, yeah.

A couple years ago I had this genius thought: what if I made a turducken only with just breasts, thus avoiding the whole poultry boning issue. (I boned a chicken once, because I figured I should know how. Now I know how, and I also know I’d like to avoid doing it again if possible.)  It turns out I am not the only person to have had this genius thought: there are quite a few recipes out there, which worked out well for me, as I was able to gather some ideas about how long and at what temp I should cook it (as for the temp you should cook it to, it’s the same as any other poultry: internal temp of 165°F, taken at the thickest point, which in this case is dead center).

I had also heard tell of people replacing the traditional stuffing between birds with bacon. Now, we all know I dig on bacon, but I figured why replace when you can add? Also, a lot of the breast-only turduckens had bacon just on the outside. In fact, the main recipe I referenced for construction/cook time suggested that after cooking, you should remove the bacon layer before serving (emphasis mine). What the –? Are these people insane?!?! I decided to go ahead with my breast-only plan, putting both bacon and stuffing between each layer, and wrapping the whole thing up with a bacon lattice.

Look! Weaving *and* bacon. Maybe next year I should knit it.

Issues I encountered: I spent A Good Long While(tm) searching for a duck breast (I was originally going to do this as a birthday present for myself. My birthday is in February. You do the math.) with no luck. Finally, I could wait no longer and decided to just buy a damn duck and filet the breasts off. I got two nice size filets that way, but even together they were much smaller than the mutant chicken breast I had.

The duck is in the upper right hand corner (two breasts); the chicken is at the bottom right (a single breast). The turkey has been flattened and rolled up in this photo.

So I had to switch up the order a little there, but since it all gets rolled up like a jelly roll (in theory; keep reading), it’s really 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.  Also, the turkey I got was a “breast roast”. This apparently means large bits of it are dark meat, which I actually didn’t mind. What I did mind was that the whole thing was so lacerated by the string net they put around it to hold the different bits of meat together that it was practically falling apart.

See the scoring the arrow's pointing to (click to embiggen)? The whole damn turkey "breast roast" was like that.

This caused most of the lack of structural integrity you see in the final picture.  I will absolutely be doing this again, but I think next time I’ll consult with an actual butcher and see if I can get a whole turkey breast…or I could just filet it like I did the duck.

The biggest problem I had was that I couldn’t actually “roll” the whole thing once I got it together, in spite of having pounded all of the breasts to a 1/2″ thickness as directed. I just barely got it to fold in half.

I stuck some skewers into it to hold it together while I contemplated what to do next.

But I slapped some more bacon on it and maneuvered it onto the parchment, at which point I was able to roll that around the whole thing and hold it together.

"What to do next" = "more bacon" of course.

After that, I rolled it up in some foil, slapped it in a pan and threw it in the oven for a few hours (deets in the recipe).

Least exciting turbaducken pic EVAH.

Once it was within about five degrees of done, I ripped open the parchment/foil and let the bacon crisp up for half an hour or so (which was long enough to come all the way up to temp).

I cannot even begin to describe how delectable this smelled.

I let it rest for 20 minutes (It wasn’t long enough. Give it a little more time, hard as it is. Trust me.), then sliced me off a piece. And then I had a mouthgasm. Because O. M. G. So. Freaking. Good.

Turducken

(Based on the instructions here and here)

Ingredients:

• 1 Turkey breast
• 1 Duck breast
• 1 Chicken breast
• 2-3 lbs bacon
• 1-2 c Cornbread-sausage stuffing (see recipe, below)

Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line a 9×13 baking pan with foil, then parchment, leaving enough of both hanging over the sides to completely cover your meat. Pound breasts to 1/2″ thick (each, not total). On top of a piece of plastic wrap, make a lattice from strips of bacon (see above). Lay turkey breast on top of lattice. Cover with a thin layer of stuffing, then a layer of bacon strips (you do not need to lattice the interior bacon layers). Repeat layering with duck/stuffing/bacon, then chicken/stuffing/bacon (NB: I had a huge chicken breast and a relatively small duck breast, so I reversed this order. It’s okay to use common sense here.). Roll/fold everything up as tightly as possible: this is why I built my original lattice on plastic wrap — it’s a lot easier to maneuver everything into position when you have that outer layer that cover everything and keeps it in place. If necessary, add more bacon to cover exposed meat/stuffing. Skewer as needed for stability. Move into prepared pan and remove skewers. Close foil and paper, making sure turbaducken is completely enclosed. Bake for 1 1/2- 3 hours, until internal temperature reached 160°. Open foil/paper and bake for another 30-45 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165°. Let rest for 30-40 minutes. Slice and serve.

Cornbread-Sausage Stuffing

(adapted from Allrecipes.com Cornbread Stuffing Southern Style)

Ingredients:

• 2 (8.5 ounce) packages dry corn muffin mix
• 1 (8 ounce) can cream-style corn
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 c plain yogurt
• 1/4 c milk
• 8-10 sausage patties
• 1/2 c butter, melted
• 1 – 3 c chicken broth

Pre-heat oven to 400°. Grease a 9×13 baking pan. Combine muffin mix, corn, eggs, yogurt, and milk; stir just enough to moisten. Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly brown. While the cornbread is baking, brown and crumble the sausage patties. After cornbread cools, crumble it into a large bowl. Add sausage and butter, mix thoroughly. Add broth slowly, stopping when you have reached the desired texture. (NB: For layering in turducken, you want the stuffing to be pretty moist.)

At-Ease Macaroni & Cheese

(from Best Recipes)

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c milk
• 1 1/2 c shredded extra sharp cheddar
• 8 oz sour cream
• 2 c cooked macaroni (1 c uncooked)

In medium saucepan, melt butter. Blend flour and salt into butter. Stir in milk, then cheese. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring gently, until thick and smooth. Stir in sour cream and combine thoroughly. Add macaroni, toss until completely coated and heated through.

Mustard Glazed Green Beans and Baby Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 pt snap beans
• 1 pt wee little potatoes (you can use new potatoes or fingerlings, but you should cut them into 1″ chunks before tossing)
• 1/4 c butter
• 2 Tbsp honey mustard

Bring 2 2qt saucepans of water to a boil. Cook potatoes in one for 7 minutes until fork tender

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:

 Er, I seem to have misplaced my only copy of this recipe, but I promise I’ll find it (or get it from Aunt Valda or my mom again) and post it up soon. But this has been hanging around too long and needs to be published already.

No…more…pie…

Yeah, pie.

Wait! Yes! More pie!

At our house, instead of milk and cookies, Santa* gets beer and last year, pie. This year, Zack wanted to bake cookies for Santa (He specified chocolate — we made Chewy Caramel Cookies without the caramel centers. Continuing my baking slump, I managed to leave out the baking soda. They still came out okay, but a little dense and oddly textured.), while Becky wanted to do pie again. I asked her what kind of pie, and she said cherry. Now, I am not a fan of fruit pie as a general rule, Kit doesn’t particularly care for cherry pie, and Zack would probably eat about half a slice. So I suggested that perhaps Mommy could ask Santa what kind of pie he might want and we could make that. After she recovered from the idea that Mommy has Santa’s phone number, she agreed that was a fine idea.

Amazingly enough, Santa chose the easiest pie Mommy knows how to make: 5-minute Pudding Pie. The first time I made this pie, I was extremely skeptical. These sorts of recipes are always either incredibly messy (making the easy recipe not worth the hellish clean-up), horrible to actually eat, or just flat-out lies. 5-minute Pudding Pie literally takes about 5 minutes (if you’re using a prepared crust — it takes about 10 if you make your own crust), it’s delicious and creamy, and you use a single bowl, a whisk, a spoon, and a measuring cup (so, easy cleanup).

I did, of course, manage to screw it up by buying two different flavors of pudding so it wasn’t as nommy as it could have been. But it was edible and really, at this point, that’s a win. Usually it’s really delicious and creamy and people will think you’ve spent hours making a mousse pie. Oh! And you can use sugar/fat free varieties of all the ingredients! WIN!

* As many of you know, I have some conflict about the whole Santa Claus thing, because really [SPOILER], it’s a big lie we tell the kids and I feel pretty strongly about not lying to the kids. Which is not to say that I insist on smacking them in the face with the truth, but just straight up lying really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I realized this year that if I could switch out “Daddy” (or “Mommy”) for “Santa” in the sentence, I can live with it. For everything else, I waffle between “I don’t know” and just outright changing the subject. So far, so good. Honestly, I’m kinda hoping my kids are smart enough to figure it out early and relieve me of this burden. I do plan to carry on the Santa tradition even after they’ve figured it out…”Santa” isn’t really about the fat guy in red velvet and fur to me, it’s about generosity and love and fun, and I’m totally un-conflicted about wanting my kids to have those things in their lives, always.

Recipe

(from the Jell-O Pudding box)

Ingredients:

• 1 crumb pie crust
• 1 1/4 skim milk, cold
• 2 3.5 oz pkgs instant pudding (whatever flavor you want your pie to be)
• 1 8oz tub whipped dessert topping, thawed

Combine milk, pudding, and half of whipped topping with whisk in a large bowl. Whisk for 1 minute (mixture will be thick). Spoon evenly into crust. Top with remaining whipped topping.

Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Where have I been? Where have YOU been?

Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Life’s been crazy (again) and I just got distracted, fell behind, had other things going on…you know, life. BUT, now I’m back, and I have all sorts of things to tell you about. Not the least of which is I have actually come up with a scheduling system that might actually work for me because it’s pen and paper rather than electronic and is in fact very similar to the only other system that has worked for me, which I used in college (“college” wasn’t as long ago for me as you might think — I didn’t go ’til I was 30).

So, hopefully life will un-crazy itself a little and combined with my new-old system there will be much bloggy goodness in the weeks and months to come.

First up, November’s Taste & Create. Yes, I know it’s December. I’m late. Again. See above re: life. This month, I was paired with Angry Asian Creations. She has a ton of delicious sounding dessert recipes, and I had settled on the Six Minute Chocolate Cake. Then I had Zack’s birthday weekend, wherein I baked four cakes, three of which were miserable failures (more on that in a later post). So yeah, not going to be baking cake for awhile. In fact, my kitchen has been full of fail for quite awhile now, with very few exceptions, so I really wanted something I couldn’t eff up too badly easy.

Since I’m trying to get more veggies into my diet, Sugar Snap Peas with Lemon and Olive Oil seemed right up my alley. Except I don’t like lemon, so I went with lime instead. And they’re…okay. Very fresh, very crisp, very light. I think I’ll enjoy them more in the summer, when a cold crispy snack is exactly what I’m looking for.

Light and crispy!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag sugar snap peas (I got mine at Trader Joe’s)
• Juice of one lime
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Slice the peas thinly on the bias. Toss in a bowl with lime juice and olive oil.

Cake-tacular!

Cake shown with glaze and berries

It occurs to me that my practice of linking to online recipes rather than including them here is likely to backfire on me at some point, when  a recipe gets moved or the blog I found it on is gone, or any number of other things. So, from now on, I’ll be adding those recipes to the blog as well as linking to the source. The first one of these is a scrumptious, versatile, and just stupidly easy yogurt cake, which I discovered via the magic of Pinterest. (I’ve also added my go-to bread, blackberry cobbler, and lime cupcakes to the Recipes page, so those are there now.)

The recipe I found was modified from a recipe found on another site, but I went ahead and modified it even further. I’ve made this recipe twice now, and both times I used the 170ml size yogurt  that’s commonly available here in the US (I used Chobani both times, honey flavor the first time and strawberry the second). I also just used regular ol’ sugar, though the original recipe calls for caster sugar (which is much finer than regular granulated sugar). Finally, the biggest mod I made was, the first time, an accident.

Zacky and I were in the middle of throwing our ingredients into the bowl, and I popped open the fridge to grab the milk…which we were out of. We had already added both wet and dry ingredients, so stopping for a trip to the market wasn’t really an option. I asked myself: what do I have that’s liquid and non-alcoholic? The answer: apple juice. My biggest concern was for the texture of the cake, and I have to tell you, it came out incredibly moist. It was dense without being heavy, had a nice crumb while still being silky on the tongue. I so <3 this cake. That one got eaten without any glaze or anything.

This past weekend, we had another shindig to go to and I decided to bake another one of these cakes, only to take it a step further and go with OJ, which I also used for the liquid in the glaze. As noted above, I used strawberry yogurt this time and also put some lightly macerated berries between the layers and on top. So good. Oh — one more thing: the first time, I baked the cake in an angel food cake pan, and this time I baked two rounds. Both came out just fine.

I’m gonna make another one for the party we’re going to this weekend. I think I have finally found a go-to cake recipe, and I love that it’s so, so easy. Did I mention the best part? You use the yogurt cup for all your “cup” measurments, plus it’s a one bowl recipe. Love. It.

Recipe

(originally discovered on The Boys Made Me Do It, via Pinterest)

Ingredients:

 Note: YC = Yogurt Cup

• 1 YC yogurt
• 1 YC  all purpose flour
• 2 YC self rising flour (make your own)
• 2 YC sugar
• 1 YC juice (you pick the flavor!)
• 1 YC vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder

Pre-heat oven to 350°. Grease a bundt, angel food cake, or two 9″ round pans. Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 40-50 minutes (a toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center should come out clean). Allow to cool in pans, then remove and top as desired.

It’s Not Always About You

While skimming through posts to move over to this blog, I came across this pasta recipe that I posted over on the old blog. There is no accompanying post, but I know I posted it so I could find it again, because the pasta recipe in my Italian cookbook is kinda meh and doesn’t come together as nicely as this one. And then, of course, I promptly forgot I had done that. So, when I came across it today I thought, “Hey! I should totally put that on TD!” and so I am, because that seemed like a Really Good Idea(tm) to me, and also, will work out nicely when I put the meat sauce recipe up later this week (or possibly next week — we are still without power from the storm so I’m trying to cram getting everything done into the very limited daylight hours I have available to me). Mostly, I’m putting it over here so I can find it again (if I remember to look here instead of in a cookbook!), but you are welcome to share the fruits of my labors.

Without further ado, here is my go-to pasta recipe:

Recipe

(adapted from Tyler Florence’s Pasta Dough for Ravioli)

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/4 c grated pecorino romano cheese
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs, plus 1 for egg wash
• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbsp water

Combine flour, cheese, and salt in mixer w/ dough hook. Add one egg at a time, mixing continually. Add oil. Continue mixing until dough forms a ball.

Dust work surface with flour. Turn dough out onto surface and work for 5-10 minutes, until dough is elastic. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Divide dough in half and rewrap one half (to avoid drying). Form other half into a rectangle and run through pasta machine on widest setting 2-3 times. Run through middle setting 1-2 times, flouring as necessary. Lay rectangle out on floured work surface. Brush with egg wash (made by beating one egg w/ 1 Tbsp water).

For raviolis:
Dot with filling app. 1″ apart 1/4 – 1/2″ from one long edge of pasta. Fold strip over to enclose filling. Press air out around filling. Cut apart with sharp knife. Crimp edges with fork tine. Boil for 4 minutes in well salted water.

Taste&Create Two-fer

Preview of the noms

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been a bit under the weather…it’s a chronic problem we’re still trying to diagnose, yadda yadda yadda. But I was finally starting to feel better and damned if I didn’t get a nasty virus that laid me up for about a week. Now I finally seem to have beaten that down, so I’m going to blog about a whole buncha stuff and hopefully get a nice backlog of content ready to go.

First and foremost, though, I still owe my Taste&Create for September. I feel so bad about how late it is (almost a month!) — and also I had so much trouble picking just one recipe from The Bad Girl’s Kitchen — that I decided to make two of them: a pear crumb pie, and peanut butter cookies.

First up, the pear pie. This came out delicious…the crumb is outstanding, and I’ll probably substitute it for the crumb on my apple pies in the future, which is decent but not quite as nommy. Instead of the crust recipe included, I used my standard go-to butter pie crust, with the addition of some cinnamon and nutmeg. (This is one of my favorite things about making pie…customizing the pie crust so it accents the flavors in the pie.) I think I’ll try the included recipe next time, but I was getting a little fuzzy around the edges from meds, so decided to stick with what I know this time.

Mmmmmm...pie

The crust recipe I used (note: I made a double batch because I was also making a pecan pie. For a single crust, halve everything.):

• 1 c. butter
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 7-8 Tbsp ice cold water/vodka/rum (this time I used rum, for the flavor)
• Any additional desired spices/flavoring

When you’re making pie crust, the colder everything can be, the better. I generally just use refrigerated butter, but in deep summer I do throw  it in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Also, pre-measure your flour and toss in the freezer for 15 minutes as well.

Cube the butter (remember to keep your fingers off it…body heat from your fingers’ll warm it right up). Add to flour (plus additional flavoring if desired — this time I used about 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg) and combine, either in food processor or with a fork or pie crust tool (I used to do everything by hand, but the food processor is soooo much easier, not to mention faster. If you’re using one, though, be extra careful to work the flour as little as possible). Now begin adding the water or booze (the alcohol will cook out, don’t worry). Start with about 4-5 Tbsp, then leave the processor going (or combine fully) and continue to add 1 Tbsp at a time until you have the correct consistency. In the food processor, that will look like this:

Stop it as it just comes together. If you keep it going, you'll end up with a ball of dough rather than the rather crumby mass you see here, but it completely overworks the dough and will make it very tough)

Grab about half and wrap it in plastic wrap, gently forming a disc. Repeat with remaining dough. Refrigerate for about 1/2 an hour, then roll out on a floured surface or a Magic Dough Pastry Mat (I cannot tell you how much I love this thing). You can refrigerate for longer, but I personally find the dough very difficult to roll out if it gets fully chilled so I prefer to roll at the 30 minute mark, then fold in quarters and re-wrap/re-refrigerate if I’m not ready to make my pie yet.

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Next, the cookies. These are AMAZING, but sadly only made about 2 dozen (so next time, I double the batch ). I forgot to fork the last batch (to make the traditional cross-hatch pattern on the top), but it turns out I actually liked those better, because the granulated sugar remained on  more of the surface. I did flatten them after removing from the oven, but I think they would have naturally flattened as they cooled anyhow. I think I might try these with non-nut butters one of these days for my nutter (allergic to nuts — thanks, CarolAnne!) friends.

COOOOOKIEEEEEEE!

Huge, huge apologies to Min, the coordinator of Taste&Create for my tardiness on this — it won’t happen again, I promise! This whole thing is just way too much fun.