Posts Tagged ‘baking’

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

By Brit

Yesterday (Friday) was Matt’s birthday. We spent the day doing pretty much nothing, other than him making me fall in love with Udon. UGH. It was amazing, maybe even more so than sushi. Holy crap, I didn’t just say that. Never mind.

Anyways, we went to dinner with Matt’s parents and since they were driving up from Toledo and since they were bringing 10 (yeah) 2-liters for Matt (because I forgot to buy them this week when they were on sale), I decided I’d be making his cake this year. I went through a few different cakes and finally decided on one that I had put into my MacGourmet a few weeks ago: Molten Marshmallow Cakes. It was amazing.

I’ll post the recipe in a few days, ok, maybe later today, but you’ll just have to believe me for now … These were amazing (amazing enough that I’ve been asked to make them AGAIN later today for his friends that are in town).

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This entry was posted on January 30th, 2010 under Food.

The Shortbread Experiment

By Brit

This morning I woke up and decided I wanted to make some bread. It’s not all that unusual, since over the summer I got really into making bread and it all turned out wonderfully. I had been looking through some of the recipes I had in my MacGourmet, and came across one for Rosemary Cheddar Shortbread. I decided that I’d make that before I even looked at the recipe. The picture was enough for me.

I hadn’t read the directions, so pretty much I fucked the bread up. I also did a good job making the biggest mess my kitchen has ever seen. I’m a very neat person in the kitchen, so when flour and butter started flying out of the mixer? I was freaking out.

There were crumbles EVERYWHERE. The biggest portion ended up on me, and then the floor. Lucy-dog pretty much loved this. She didn’t leave my side until Ginny showed up.

Today was also the first time I had used the mixer Ginny got for me. I’d been meaning to, but with all the healthy eating lately, bread doesn’t fit in so well. Sad day. I love the dough hooks, even though it didn’t work at all for the shortbread. Super suck.

The shortbread finished baking about 20 minutes after Ginny got to our house. It took about 2.5 times as long as it was supposed to cook.

It didn’t turn out too bad. I guess I’d never had a shortbread before, and making one was fairly difficult and I wasn’t in love with the recipe (Ginny went home with the pan of shortbread, she was STOKED), so I’m not going to post it. It does make me want to try this bread thing again tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’ll make something I’ve made before and know turns out amazingly.

Tomorrow also happens to be when The Pioneer Woman announces the winner of her Sunrise/Sunset Photo Assignment. My photo of the Eiffel Tower is one of the finalists, and I’m waiting with bated breath for the announcement. Thank god for sleeping pills or else I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Check out the rest of the finalists, all of the photographs are seriously amazing.

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This entry was posted on January 24th, 2010 under Food.

Sriracha Nuggets & Baked Potato Fries

By Brit

A few weeks ago, I found the website Life Ambrosia.com. I was feeling ridiculously sick when I found it and I still spent hours looking through the recipes when a recent one caught my eye: Sriracha Chicken Nuggets. My two favorite things. The recipe went right into my MacGourmet recipe bank. Last night was the perfect night for it (ok, any night would have been the perfect night for these). I decided to have another go at some baked fries, and they turned out to be the BEST FRIES I’VE EVER HAD, hands down.

Sriracha Nuggets

⅓ cup Sriracha chili sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
2 large chicken breasts
3 slices bread
1 tablespoon olive oil

Cut bread into pieces and bake at 300 degrees until they’re brown. Let cool and use a food processor to pulverize into breadcrumbs. (You can make extra and freeze in cup size portions for later on use).

In a bowl combine Sriracha, vinegar, olive oil and ginger. Cut chicken into chunks and marinate for 30-45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 415 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

Remove chicken from marinade, cover with breadcrumbs and put on baking sheet.

Bake for 20-24 minutes. Turn on broiler for last 4 minutes to brown nuggets.

Baked Potato Fries

4 potatoes
olive oil
Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
pepper

With oven preheated to 415, place a baking sheet in the oven and drizzle with olive oil to preheat pan.

Peel potatoes and slice into wedges. Put a pot on to boil water. Boil wedges for 5 minutes. Drain water and put wedges back into pot and stir until the water has evaporated. Place lid back on pot and carefully shake pot with wedges inside to rough them up.

Carefully put wedges onto baking pan and stir to coat in olive oil. Season with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and pepper.

Cook for 20 minutes and stir. (At this time, you would put the chicken nuggets in the oven also) Cook for another 20 minutes and broil for the last 4 minutes (along with the nuggets).

If the wedges are too greasy, you can pat them at the end with a paper towel.

Serves 4
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Sriracha Chicken Nuggets recipe modified from Life Ambrosia.
Baked Potato Fries recipe modified from Tasty Kitchen.

Matt loved this dinner. I had him try a nugget before I got to them and I forgot to tell them they were spicy, so there is a kick, but it’s not too bad. You definitely don’t need anything to dip the nuggets in. The fries were crispy (which is the only way I’ll have them), and I’ll never ever use another recipe to make fries. I can’t wait to try this with sweet potatoes!

I’m thinking I might make these again today for lunch. Seriously, it took awhile (a long while … someday I’ll remember to defrost chicken the night before), but it was totally worth it.

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This entry was posted on January 22nd, 2010 under Food.

Rotini & Cheese with Broccoli

By Brit

I was excited to make homemade rotini and cheese. I love pasta and cheese. It’s one of my favorite things. Ok, cheese is one of my favorite things, and pasta just helps to make it better like craaazy. Anyways, with my new need to make meal plans, I was kind of just searching for things that were easy to make and that I would most likely have already in the house.

Mac and cheese definitely met those requirements. Easy, fairly cheap, and I had all the stuff in the house to make it. Awesome. Then I started to look at the ingredients and well, it wasn’t looking too healthy. It wasn’t until I was about halfway through making it that I realized this though, so I didn’t get to have the fruits of my labor. I did have a bite and it was absolutely AMAZING. I’ll have to figure out a way to make it more figure friendly, but yeah, still freaking good.


I’ve had these measuring cups for awhile. I’m in love with them. There’s a whole set of 5 cups and they all have 2 measurements in them, which is really nice, and they look so cute too!

Rotini & Cheese with Broccoli

2 cups whole wheat rotini
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup broccoli florets
2 tablespoons flour

Cook noodles to directions on box. Heat broccoli, once heated, dice into small pieces.

Put small sauce pan on medium heat. But in butter, flour and salt and stir. Pour in milk and continue to stir until it is thick sauce. Turn off heat and stir in cheese until smooth. Drain noodles and mix cheese into it.

You can also make it ahead of time and bake it for about 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Serves 2. Ok really, it’s supposed to serve 4, but it’s so good you’ll want to have both servings.

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This entry was posted on January 6th, 2010 under Food.

Scalloped Potatoes

By Brit

One of my favorite things to eat when I’m at my parents’ house is my step-mom’s scalloped potatoes. They’re amazing. I could probably eat the whole damned thing if everyone else didn’t like them as much as I do. Ginny had some spare ham in her fridge on Sunday and I told her about the recipe and we went home with the ingredients. Have I mentioned how much I love Ginny? I don’t know anyone else in the world that when you say “mmm apple crisp” at 9pm on Saturday night she has all of the stuff in her house to make it. YUM.

This recipe is ridiculously rich, but has only 2, or so, tablespoons of butter. Cheap and very, very worth it!

Scalloped Potatoes

2-3 tablespoons of butter (or olive oil)
3 tablespoons of flour
milk to thin roux
5 potatoes, sliced
1 – 1 1/2 cups diced ham (sausage and bacon would work well too)
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Take the skin off the potatoes and slice fairly thinly, about a fourth centimeter each. Mix potatoes in oven-safe bowl with ham.

In a saucepan, make a roux by melting butter or heat oil and adding flour, stirring constantly. Thin with milk until desired thickness. I usually use about a half cup or so. I like the sauce a bit thicker. Season salt and pepper.

Stir the roux in with the potatoes and ham. Bake covered for at least an hour, until the potatoes are fork tender. It might take up to an hour and a half.

Serves 2-3, or one if you’re me.

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This entry was posted on December 22nd, 2009 under Food.

It’s Never Too Early

By Brit

To think about Christmas, right? I mean, I can always think of things I’d love to get for Christmas. Here’s my list so far.

091109olivetree

Yes, that is an olive tree. Through Nudo, you can adopt an olive tree in their grove for a year. What an awesome idea. The best part? In the spring and in the autumn, they’ll send you the olive oil from the respective harvests. It’s a bit spendy, but you get olive oil, from your own tree! I love everything to do with olives, so this is an obvious choice.

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091109mixer

A KITCHEN AID MIXER. Duh, it’s on every woman’s wish list. I just can’t decide if I want the cobalt blue or the tangerine. The blue is pretty, the orange is pretty, and it’s Matt’s favorite color – which will give me some bonus points (not that I need any though). I used my dad’s Kitchen-Aid last week when I was home, to make french bread. I couldn’t believe how easy it was! It’s probably the most extravagant thing to have in the kitchen, ok maybe not, but it’s something that I will have, someday.

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091109crockpotA Smart Pot Crockpot. Set it and forget it! I’ve never had one, but I’ve always been intrigued by starting something in the morning and then magically, when it’s dinner time, it’s ready! That’s pretty awesome. Even better that now I’m working and Matt’s at home throughout the day. He doesn’t like to cook much, and well, I don’t like to ask him because I like to do the cooking. This solves all the problems. (It’s also now the correct crock pot, there was one I wanted specifically, but I couldn’t remember. Em helped <3)

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091109wiicard

A points card for the Nintendo Wii. Our Beatles Rock Band is coming tomorrow (WE CANNOT WAIT! SERIOUSLY), and we’ve already made a list of the songs we want to download. I think there are like 100 songs already. Awesome. Pat Benetar and No Doubt here we come!!!

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091109greys I love Grey’s Anatomy. LOVE LOVE LOVE. There’s really nothing else to say about it. I don’t have season five though. I used to spend hours every week watching Grey’s. I’m in love with it. I can’t wait to watch the episodes I haven’t seen in awhile again. At least we know that Meredith and Derek are together now and I don’t have to wait to find out what’s going to happen, right?

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091109pwIt’s the fricken Pioneer Woman. I’ve loved her website for years and now she has a cookbook! She makes the most amazing foods, and takes amazing pictures. Ginny and I have decided that there’s probably really like four of her running around that ranch and that it’s really in Utah and Marlbolo Man is  some kind of mormon with fifteen wives … seriously! How else can she keep four kids in homeschool, keep her house clean AND cook and take amazing pictures. Ok, maybe I’m jealous.

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091109bookcaseIKEA’s Expedit shelving unit. I’m in love with this. I’m planning on turning it on it’s side and then using as a quasi side-board. It’s really another thing for storage. We need a lot, a lot, a lot of storage, and this will fit the bill, at least for a little bit of storage. It’s so pretty and it’ll look great with my Fiesta dishes displayed.

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091109boxspringUm, we don’t currently have a box spring for our bed. We tried using the double sized box spring from Matt’s old bed under my queen mattress, you can imagine how well that went. It’d be nice to have one and not worry about ruining the mattress we have. Really, that’s about all I can say about that.

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091109cameraA Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H20. It’s a 10.1 megapixel camera with 10x optical zoom and super steady shot image stabilization. My camera takes shitty pictures. I’m not going to lie, they’re terrible, and grainy, and embarrassing. It wouldn’t hurt to have a 16GB memory stick for it too, right? This is the one thing that I really, really, really want for Christmas this year (hint, hint, MOM – I know you read this).

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091109ringI wouldn’t say no to this either :)

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This entry was posted on November 9th, 2009 under Other.

Blog Love: The Purple Foodie

By Brit

I randomly stumbled across The Purple Foodie tonight. Oh my gosh. I’m in love. Shaheen is in her 20s living in Mumbai, and she makes the most amazing looking food. I think living in Mumbai would be challenge enough making a food blog with recipes that aren’t necessarily Indian. I know it’s very difficult to find some ingredients in other parts of the world, but she works with what she’s able to access, and does it wonderfully.

091012foodie1Zucchini and Goats Cheese Pizza

091012foodie2Za’tar and Feta Cheese Pizza

091012foodie3Garlicky Herb Twists

091012foodie4Apple Chips (oh my!)

You can see she makes amazing looking food. I definitely need to find some Za’tar. I had it a few weeks ago and fell in love. Also, I can’t wait to try the apple chips now that Apples are in season! I’ll have to head over to our family’s orchard and steal some apples.

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This entry was posted on October 12th, 2009 under Other.

Spaghetti and French Bread with Sicilian Butter

By Brit

YUM. That’s all I really need to say about dinner. It was so freaking good!

091007breadbefore

I started at about 1:00 pm making the french bread. It’s the bread I previously made, but this time I halved the recipe because the loaves it made were HUGE and we didn’t eat it all, no matter how hard I tried to use it up. If you’ll notice in the picture above (minus the NASTY-ASS grainy-ness), my BRAND SPANKING NEW rolling pin! It was a birthday present from Matt’s parents, whom I adore (THANK YOUUU!)! I finally got to use it today, it’s amazing. Ginny also gave me the piece of marble that’s under the bread, which is ALSO the most amazing thing, ever. Previously, when I made bread, I kind of faked the rolling it out part and when it came to kneading the bread, UGH, it was terrible. I kneaded the bread on my cutting board because I could pick it up and wash it (which I couldn’t do with the counter, plus I was scared it would just be an awful mess). With the wooden cutting board, when I kneaded the bread it would pick up the cutting board and dust flour EVERYWHERE … let’s just say, I’ve made a huge leap in my bread making abilities.

091007breadok

This is how it turned out. Looks amazing right? Yeah, that’s because IT IS AMAZING. I’m way too proud of myself for making things like this, but I’m ok with it.

091007breadwoah

This is the other side of the bread. I’m not sure what the hell happened to it, but it looks pretty freaking coooool (and it tastes just the same, and that’s what REALLY matters).

091007herbs

I made homemade spaghetti sauce. It was AWESOME. Sausage, green peppers, GARLIC, and sriracha (duh). Oh, and herbs, dried herbs because well, my farming skills didn’t turn out to be as good as I would have hoped they would be. It turns out this year, I was not a mother-fuckin’ farmer. I can always hope for better next year.

091007sketti

This is dinnah. Yummy, yummy dinnah. The best part? I have 4! bags of spaghetti sauce in the freezer for when I don’t feel like cooking, or (as it is now) we don’t have any food in the house.

091007dip

Oh, and I made Sicilian Butter for the french bread! I found it on Cooking Ventures, well, a variant of it. I put it into a food processor because, well, I buy a big ass jar of garlic and I can’t mince it small enough. It turned out good, but was missing a little something, so I added a touch of lemon juice. AMAZING. Matt hated it, and I’m sure a lot of people would, but I LOVE GARLIC … and everything to do with garlic. Yum.

You really do need to check out Vince’s Blog, he’s an awesome cook.

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This entry was posted on October 7th, 2009 under Food.

Birthday Cookies

By Brit

Ok, so technically I made them on Wednesday, but they’ve been chillin’ in my refrigerator since then. We’re bringing them to the cottage today for family (and birthday) fun.
091004cookies

I got the recipe of these awesome Figure-Friendly No-Bake Cookies from Cooking Ventures, otherwise known as one of my favorite contributers to Tasty Kitchen. Ah yes. Cookies. I randomly decided to make these after they popped up in my reader Wednesday morning before I had to go to work. I didn’t have the strawberry preserves that his recipe called for, so I went to my ABSOLUTELY FAVORITEST jam in the whole world:

091004jam

I had it first on a layover in Canada somewhere, I think it was, um, Edmonton. Yeah, that sounds about right, Edmonton. Either way, I was up wayyyy before pick up so I went down for breakfast in the hotel restaurant and had this amazing jam. Seriously, when I run out, we’re going to make a run to Canada to get some (hey, it’s not that far, only like 45 minutes). The raspberry is the best. It’s so freaking full of flavor and UGH! It really makes me want a peanut butter and jelly sammich AT THIS SECOND. So, if you’re in Canada, try it. If not, get your boyfriend to bring you some home when he’s away on a work trip … and if that doesn’t work, try Craigslist. Craigslist works for EVERYTHING right? Well, it should work for this too.

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This entry was posted on October 4th, 2009 under Food.

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

By Brit

Ginny gave me a can of pop and go biscuits and a bag of cheese awhile ago, along with her recipe for cheese biscuits. I must have been so excited about the prospect of cheese biscuits I didn’t really listen to the recipe, so I made it my own way. Last week she came by with a few extra of her cheese biscuits and well, they were absolutely not what I made.

For my biscuits, I squished the 8 biscuits into a smaller baking dish and made sure there were no spaces in between them. I dumped the 2 cups of cheese on top and baked it. They were amazing. Ginny on the other hand, placed the biscuits on a baking sheet and topped each with cheese. Both biscuits were equally amazing, hers maybe better.

This morning I decided since I had a can of biscuits I’d make some of mine, but with a twist.

090926biscuits

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

1 can pop open biscuits
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons minced garlic

Preheat oven to whatever the can of biscuits says.
Place all 8 biscuits in a rectangular 9×13 baking dish and use fingers to smush them together leaving no holes at the bottom of the dish.
Sprinkle the seasonings on the layer of biscuits.
Sprinkle the cheese on top making sure all traces of biscuit are covered.

Cook the biscuits to the directions on the can. It may take up to 5 minutes more for the biscuits to cook with the cheese on top.

So, there. They are amazing.

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This entry was posted on September 26th, 2009 under Food.