Breakfast Feature: Magic Sausage Rolls

Don't laugh because I said "magic sausage." If you're laughing, you can't eat them, and that means you have to deal with your brutal hangover.

Yes, that is why they are magic; these breakfast rolls are the ultimate hangover relief food. They're composed of Jimmy Dean sausage, a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese, and a roll of Pillsbury Flaky Layers biscuits. The exact ingredients are important for these, so I don't bother with generic versions.

I like to get as far along in the preparation as possible the day before so the next morning when I'm glaring at my kitchen out of one bloodshot eye, I don't have to tackle a lot of prep. This usually includes browning the sausage and mixing it with the cream cheese, but this time I took it a step further an prepped the biscuits, too. It's crucial to get the Flaky Layers biscuits, because you need to peel each biscuit into 3 pieces, which isn't too hard if they're already flaky layers.

Several people that I've made these rolls for have been hesitant because of the sausage cream cheese mixture, but these are the only food that I make that has NO leftovers EVERY time; I think that says it all.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 roll Jimmy Dean Sausage (I prefer Maple flavor)

8oz Philadelphia cream cheese

1 roll Pillsbury Flaky Layer Grands Biscuits

Directions:

1) Brown the sausage and drain it very thoroughly (I put it on a layer of several paper towels and dab it to get it as drained as I can)

2) After the sausage cools, mix it with the brick of cream cheese

3) Peel each biscuit into 3 pieces to get a total of 24 thinner biscuits

4) Spoon the sausage mixture into the biscuits and pinch them closed so it looks like a little taco

5) Put in a baking dish and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes until the biscuits are brown

Baking Feature: Peach Pies

My sister and I took my nephew to Baugher’s farm/orchard in Westminster, MD where we picked our own peaches. I love the smell and taste of peaches and Jeff spent several years living in Georgia, so he has some fondness for them, as well. We don’t get them often even when we are in a big fruit kick because I do not like eating the fuzz and I don’t take the time to cut them up, and I guess Jeff just doesn’t think of it? I’m not sure why he doesn’t get them.

Whatever the reason, I got some while we were at the orchard and I needed to use them. I decided to make a peach pie, which would officially be the first pie I’ve ever made. I’ve heard stories from several people saying that making a pie crust is a pain and often doesn’t turn out, so I decided for my first pie to just buy a Pillsbury one and call it good. For the rest of the pie, I used a Crisco recipe out of a cookbook my sister had.

The book had a pie crust recipe in it that you were supposed to use, and it specified to skip baking the crust for any time before the pie is fully assembled, so I assumed that would be the same for my pie. It was not the same for my pie.

The Pillsbury crust definitely needed to bake a little as when I removed the pie from the oven, the filling was over baked and the crust was under baked. Harrumph.

We ended up throwing most of that pie away (though it looked SUPER cute with the little crust cutout shapes on it).

I was very upset at my complete failure at pie and was determined to try again, so Jeff and I returned to the orchard and got more peaches for take 2. Conveniently, the orchard had little recipe slips for a peach crumb pie, so I thought I’d try this one instead because they are really well known for all of their awesome baked goods.

Rather than a traditional crust, this one calls for a crumb mixture that you press into the pan to make a crust, and sprinkle on top of the filling for a topping. I liked this crumb mixture, but after eating some pie, I think it was too bland and I would take out some flour and add brown sugar to it. Also, when they say to butter the pan, they aren’t messing around; my pie doesn’t come out of the pan despite the buttering I gave it. It’s more of a peach cobbler crumble by the time you wrestle it onto a plate.

Overall, this pie turned out better than the first one, but it still isn’t very good. I’m starting to think that the main problem may be that I don’t actually like peach pie…

Immediately after taking a bite of the second pie, Jeff said “you should make it with blueberries.” I think I agree; the crumb part seems like it will work well with blueberries, but I would definitely sweeten it for that. I also think I would try the blueberry with the original pie recipe (with the Crisco crust) because I like the crumb topping on that one more. Perhaps there is a blueberry pie entry on the horizon…

Lefty's Chicken

I was grocery shopping a few days back, and saw a package of Lefty's chicken and fish mix on the shelf. For whatever reason I grabbed it, thinking "Fried chicken might be fun".  http://www.amazon.com/Leftys-Fish-n-Chicken-Mix/dp/B003ETO4E2

We don't own a deep fryer, but I had some thoughts to get around that. I basically followed the recipe instructions on the back, except where they mentioned a deep fryer.

I used some chicken breasts and thighs we had, cut into chicken nugget sizes, and it worked really well. I mixed a cup of lefty's and two cups of water into a bowl. Then I dunked each nugget in and coated it. Then I coated it in a loaf pan filled with dry lefty's mix. Then I dumped the remainder of our vegetable oil into a big frying pan and cranked the temp to max. Dropped each one in, and fairly quickly the down side would brown. Flip them over, and let that side brown. Then they are done. It took a bit of eyeballing when they were done, and the first few were darker than I wanted.

They turned out great, and I will definitively buy this again. I'll get some pics up later. I didn't think to take any during the in-between steps, but I got some finished product.

Warning, the oil will splatter up and burn you. It's the price you pay.

Baking Feature: S'mores Cupcakes Mk II

A coworker requested S'mores cupcakes for her birthday, but we decided to change up the recipe this time. We kept the graham crust, but this time I made chocolate cupcakes and then whipped up a marshmallow buttercream icing (which she'd used a few weeks before and told me about).

First of all, the chocolate cake was outstanding. It was Betty Crocker's Triple Fudge box mix, and it is my new favorite chocolate cake mix ever. I was eating it out of the mixing bowl with a spoon after I topped all the crusts I'd made.

The Marshmallow buttercream was a Rachael Ray recipe and I definitely changed it because this recipe made me gag a little when I read it. It calls for 4 full sticks of butter, some powdered sugar, some marshmallow fluff, and so little vanilla that it's silly that it's even mentioned (but I put it in anyway). I cut the recipe down by a stick of butter and used a total of three 7oz jars of marshmallow fluff (the recipe having called for one 16oz tub... but my grocery store doesn't sell tubs that big).

I also used my new super decorator to pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes, and it was really fun to use. They were a pretty big hit and I didn't have any trouble getting rid of them. Actually I needed to hide one to bring it home to Jeff.

-Aly

Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
5 Tbsp butter
Chocolate cake mix (and ingredients needed by box)
3 sticks of butter (room temp)
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 7oz tubs of marshmallow fluff

Preheat oven to 350
Line muffin pans with paper liners
Mix graham cracker crumbs, granulated sugar, and butter in a bowl
Spoon into paper liners and pack down to make crusts
Bake crusts for 5 minutes
Make cake batter according to instructions
Pour into liners on top of crusts and bake according to directions
Beat butter for icing in a large bowl until creamy
Beat in one-forth of confectioner sugar until fluffy; repeat with remaining sugar
Beat in the vanilla, then stir in the marshmallow fluff until well blended
Frost cupcakes

FLOTUS Cookies

I was reading an article a week ago that was super pissed about a cookie recipe exchange/contest between Michelle O and Anne Romney. I thought it was a neat way to sort of "put politics aside" and just make some cookies, but apparently its demeaning for Big O's wife to make cookies because she is too important for that. Its an extremely liberal blog, so I doubt they cared if Anne wastes her time. They didn't seem outraged about that. Long story short, I failed to see the outrage, but I did get hungry. So I went home and made cookies.

Anne's recipe was for M&M cookies, which is neat but also kind of lame. Michelle went with a white/dark chocolate chip (you see what she did there?) and that sounded neat so I went to emulate that. We didn't have dark chocolate, so I went with milk.

I didn't think to go with whatever recipe Michelle posted, and instead googled one of my own and then changed a bunch based off feel (Aly hates when I do this, but she wasn't home yet). It was delicious. Aly had some left at her "Girls Night" and everyone complimented her on them.
No pictures for you because I always forget to take them, and they are blurry anyway. Aly typically takes them.

Ingredients

• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar (we only had light, but Aly tells me there is also a dark kind)
• 2 Eggs
• 2 3/4 Cups Flour (I skimped here and went closer to 2 1/4.)
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Butter
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Cup of Milk Chocolate Chips (plus some to finish the bag off)
• 1 Cup of White Chocolate Chips (ish)

Directions

1. Preheat Oven to 350. 
2. Mix sugar, and eggs until creamy
3. Melt butter (says to use a stovetop but I used a microwave) and add to mix along with vanilla
4. Mix in flour and baking soda 
5. It will be impossible to stir. Do it anyway. 
6. Add in chips
7. Grease cookie sheet.
8. Drop teaspoon fulls onto the sheet
9. Bake for 7 Min

I had to bake ours forever (more like 15 min), but it may be because I didn't follow the teaspoon sized dollops rule instead going with tennis ball sized balls I eyeballed with my hand and a wooden spoon. The important thing is it fit on one cookie sheet. Bad thing was most of them merged together and were weird shapes.

In the end they were amazing, super soft and really worth doing again.

* Four seconds of googling found her recipe. http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/ann-romney-and-michelle-obama-face-off-in-presiden
**I do not know why some of the lines are white. Maybe Aly will fix them.

Baking Feature: Tandy Cake Mini Cupcakes

This is a recipe that I've adapted down from a full cake into bite size pieces. Most of the things I bake need to be ready to travel somewhere and I want all of them to get eaten so I don't have to bring any home. The original recipe came from a Betty Crocker cookbook that my mother picked up one day. I have made it several times for various events and it's always a huge hit. However, when I took it to work, I ended up bringing a lot of it home with me and was astonished. A coworker told me, "It's really good, but you need a whole giant glass of milk with it, and our vending machine doesn't have any right now." So I took that to mean "reign it in, girl. If I eat that cake I'm going to fall asleep at my desk." That's when I decided to use the basic principles and create a smaller version that doesn't trigger "your 2:30 feeling." Because it's so rich, when I started scaling down the servings, I skipped right past the regular cupcake size and headed straight for mini-cupcakes.

These do turn out delicious and are a very good solution to the size:richness ratio problem, but they are some of the most time consuming baked goods I've ever bothered to finish, and I must say that I bitch the whole time, so only make these for someone you REALLY love, or someone you really need to impress (in this case, a coworker on my new team).

They are a pain because you bake mini cupcakes, then frost them delicately with peanut butter, then put them in the freezer, then mix up chocolate frosting, then delicately frost them with that (but quickly, before the peanut butter gets warm and mixes with your frosting). No, it's not the most difficult series of steps ever involved in a dessert, but let's just say you really get sick of looking at 60+ tiny cupcakes all mocking you with their tininess.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
Yellow Cake Mix (I prefer Butter Recipe Yellow)
Whatever the cake mix calls for to make it cake
Creamy Peanut Butter (maybe 1/3 cup. Less than required for the original cake)
Tub of chocolate Frosting
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips (Semisweet or milk chocolate both work well)

Directions:
1. Line mini-muffin pans with mini baking cups (probably about 60-70 total)
2. Mix cake batter according to instructions and pour into mini-muffin pans
3. Bake according to instructions (Mine were done in about 12min on 350 w/ our slow oven)
4. Remove from muffin pans and let cool on wire rack for about 10 minutes
5. Put Peanut Butter in a bowl and microwave for about 20 seconds until smooth and spreadable. If not smooth, continue microwaving at 10sec intervals until smooth
6. Spread a small dollop of peanut butter on each mini cupcake being sure to stick to the middle and not go to the edges (going to the edges will make the chocolate step more difficult)
7. Put the mini cupcakes on a baking tray in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes so that the peanut butter sets
8. Mix butter and chocolate chips in a bowl and microwave for 20 seconds, then mix until smooth
9. In a bowl, combine chocolate tub frosting with butter/chip mixture
10. After cupcakes are done in freezer, spread chocolate frosting mixture on top of cupcakes being careful to spread gently without smearing peanut butter around. Be sure to frost edges. You may have a ton left over, but I haven't figured out how to beat this and still use tub frosting.
11. Go have a drink; you've earned it. Damn smug little cupcakes.

-Aly

God Bless 'Merrica Casserole

Honestly, I'm not sure what led to this. We were brainstorming what to have for dinners this week, and I think we were determined to use what we already had in the house. Incidentally, that wasn't very much.

We cooked elbow macaroni, fried some chicken pieces up in a skillet, and then put them in a bowl and melted some cheese over top. Unfortunately, we only had slices of American cheese. This made for the most white trash dish we have ever created.

We referred to it as "God Bless 'Merrica Casserole." I do not recommend ever trying to recreate this dish as Jeff felt very ill almost immediately after eating his portion. I tried adding some A1 (the truly 'Merrican thing to do), but it didn't really help. Also, if you don't eat it fast enough, the cheese solidifies and congeals in the most unpleasant way.

All around a "let us never speak of this again" kind of dinner.

Mango

I ate my first Mango today.

Hard to believe it hadn't been done, but it's true. In fact, I don't know if I had ever even seen one eaten and paid attention. I was at the grocery store today, and in a weird state so I bought a bunch of off-list stuff. Something I never do. One thing was a pair of Mangoes.

Takeaways:

• I like ripe mangoes. One of the ones I bought was ripe. 
• I do not like unripe mangoes. The other was not. 
• Red mangoes are riper than green. (regardless of whether or not I am correct on ripeness, I prefer red)
• The skin is not edible. 
• They have some sort of solid stringy mass at the center that is hard to cut through. Don't bother. Instead, carve chunks off. 
• Unripe (green) mangoes are really bitter and solid. Hard to cut. 
• Ripe (red) mangoes are really sweet and smushy. 

Fruit Adventures might be a regular feature. I think Aly took some great action shots of me trying to figure it out. I almost bought a (nonstandard) melon at the store, it was white with green stripes. You'll have to wait until next grocery trip to find out for sure.

Cream Stuffed Strawberries

Dinner night with T is usually a fancy affair, so lately I've been trying to keep up by having special desserts planned to complete our sophisticated meals.

Last week at our friend's house (after I gave him his awesome cookies) his stepdad was chatting with Jeff and said that their friend stuffs strawberries with cream cheese for dessert. It sounded simple and awesome, so I thought I'd go for that this week for fancy dessert night.

I mentioned it to my coworker who is an awesome chef (and baker) to see if she had any input, and she suggested I try stuffing the strawberries with that new chocolate cream cheese that Philadelphia put out. I completely agreed and picked some up on the way home from work.

I wanted to stuff the non-chocolate strawberries with something more than just cream cheese, so I added 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla and whipped it all together with an electric mixer before stuffing the strawberries. It was a sweet filling and it was very tasty. I didn't alter the chocolate at all because that would be sacrilege.

Both versions were pretty amazing, but the chocolate disappeared from the plate first. I would imagine that finding some way to dip these in chocolate to get a hard shell would be awesome, and I might experiment with that this summer.

-Aly

"Recipe"
Ingredients:
-Strawberries (enough for however many people you're feeding keeping in mind that they'll each want at least 2-3, or more in our case)
- Chocolate Cream Cheese
Cream Cheese Filling: (I halved these ingredients when I made it)
     -8 oz Plain Cream Cheese
     -1/2 cup Sugar
     -1 tsp Vanilla

Directions:
1. Rinse strawberries and cut off the tops with a paring knife in a cone shape to hollow them out (see pics above to see what they should look like)
2. Mix Plain Cream Cheese, Sugar, and Vanilla together with electric mixer until smooth and well blended.
3. Spoon the different fillings into the strawberries and place on a plate to serve.

Lamb: the King of Meat

So, we were hanging with T at our friend's house and the question of what the best meat was came up. I threw out lamb, because I'm Greek and that's the stereotype. Also it's delicious. It came out that I'm the only one who could remember eating it, and so we decided that's what we would be cooking this week. Lamb chops.

I recently installed a new app for my iPod, Ziplist. It's a grocery list/recipe organizer that seems neat. So I used it to find a recipe for Greek Grilled Lamb Chops which seemed straight forward and it was. It was also delicious and everyone (as far as I can tell) agreed. I was pretty pleased with the meal.

Step 1- Marinate the lamb chops (4) in a cup of olive oil, 6 minced garlic cloves and a half cup of oregano for an hour and a half. Again, apparently we are stereotypical Greeks (neither Aly nor T are Greek). I cut the oregano down to an eighth cup and it was still tons, but didn't hurt the taste. I also forgot to marinate before T got there, so we only did that for 40ish min while we made the side dishes.

Step 2 - Grill on high for 6 min each side.

Step 3 - ????

Step 4 - Profit!

It was great. The recipe called for us to squeeze a quarter slice of lemon on each one but I tried it before doing that and preferred it that way. I think everyone else used less lemon.

We also found the mother -in-law's "biggest loser" cookbook and it had a sweet potato fry recipe in it. I clarify that it wasn't my book because after reading the rest of the recipes, it didn't have any others that were good, and this was just OK.

For the fries we sliced two sweet potatoes into fry shapes. I went short fries and cut the first potato in half, but T was offended, and so we did the other one really long. From here, we tossed them in 1 tbs of olive oil, some amount of garlic salt and very little Parmesan cheese. (And a pinch of cayenne pepper?). Then baked 8 min, flipped them and baked 12. End of the day, I'd bake them longer, and add more garlic salt/cheese. They were sort of bland, and not super hot like I'd like.

Aly made some horseradish and something or other dip to go with them. I think everyone agreed it was not bad, but weird with the fries. Like, I'd put this on a burger, but not my sweet potato fries. Maybe even normal fries.

Also what is "A pinch"? I just pinched the pile of spice and threw what I got into the pot, and it was very little. Is that correct?

-Jeff

--
New feature in the future: that mystery friend has expressed interest in doing a featured blog post every so often. Keep an eye out for a new author. (not T)

Baking Feature: Coconut Rum Raisinet Cookies

Today is our friend's birthday, and I believe that old saying "the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach" was written about him, so I am making him food for his present.
I found this recipe a few months ago when I was eating Raisinets and said to Google, "these are amazing and I love them utterly. Can I put them in other sweet foods I love to make them better?" Google said yes...kind of. Google honestly said "here's a blog entry from someone who put coconut, rum, raisins, and chocolate into a cookie, but used 'raisinet' in the name, so I thought I'd mention it."
That's why I keep you around, Google.

The blogmaster over at Oatmeal Cookie Blog created these cookies and posted the recipe, and they look like something our friend would really love. As an awesome bonus, I actually already had all of the ingredients at home.

First I started soaking the raisins in rum; already I liked this recipe. My personal favorite liquor is Malibu Coconut Rum, so I had to take this opportunity to soak half of the raisins in that, and I soaked the other half in (what I assume is "regular") Bacardi which I found upstairs. There are pictures in the slideshow if you have no idea what I'm talking about. The recipe said to soak them for 30-45 minutes (or more if you can) but since I had a little "incident" with the coconut (keep reading) I soaked them longer.

I used the method mentioned at Oatmeal Cookie blog to toast the coconut by putting it in a skillet in the oven. I then got distracted seeing if I could set Firefox up to open with multiple homepages in tabs and then starting this entry, and I burned the hell out of my coconut.

NEVER BAKE AND BLOG

But my second try was a success and it smelled WONDERFUL. At this point, I had a bowl of toasted coconut, and two bowls of raisins soaked in rum. I was tempted to stop there and call this recipe a success. But I pressed on...

I followed the recipe for the most part from here on, except that I waited to add the raisins until last and separated the batter into two equal parts so I could keep the Bacardi and the Malibu raisins separate. I must mention that this cookie batter was probably the MOST delicious cookie batter I've ever tasted in my life, and I think it's the dark brown sugar that did it. I also used spiced rum for the batter itself, because I saw a picture on Oatmeal Cookie Blog of the wet ingredients and noticed that it included Spiced rum

Overall, the cookies were AMAZING and I will definitely have to keep this recipe. They're not very pretty, but the golden rule of Aly's baking is that the uglier it is, the better it tastes. I don't really taste a difference between the Malibu and the Bacardi raisins, so I don't know that it matters (but I think I'll stick with Malibu... just to be sure).


-Aly

Recipe from Oatmeal Cookie Blog:

Ingredients:
Creamables:
1 stick butter
1 cup + 2 Tbsp dark brown sugar

Wet Ingredients:
3/4 cup raisins soaked in 3/4 cup rum, drained (I split these in half between Malibu and Bacardi)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp rum (I used spiced rum)
1tsp coconut extract

Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup Oatmeal
1 Cup coconut, toasted
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Soak the raisins in 3/4 cup rum to plump for 30-45 min
2. Toast the coconut (See directions on Oatmeal Cookie Blog)
3. Preheat oven to 350
4. In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
5. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Whisk together until smooth.
6. Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
7. Strain the raisins, discarding the remaining rum. Add the plumped raisins to the combined wet ingredients and creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
8. In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.
9. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
10. Shape dough into balls - about Tbsp each
11. Place the dough balls about 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets
12. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.

Cooking Lull

Sorry for the lack of entries. Jeff's work schedule has become less predictable (and usually less convenient again) so we're often back to the old dinner style of me eating a bowl of cereal while talking to him on Instant Messenger; on the nights that he is home we're falling back a lot on repeat recipes or "let's cook eggs" which doesn't make for very intriguing entries.
Once his work settles down again we'll resume the more adventurous meals and post again.

Brown Sugar Pancakes

The night we made crepes, we were originally going to make pancakes and Jeff found a recipe for these brown sugar pancakes. They sounded good, so we thought we'd give them a try,

There really isn't much to them. It's a basic pancake process with quick oats and partial wheat flour. The batter came out pretty thick and lumpy compared to what I'm used to, but they cooked up like regular pancakes.

I'd say that they were just nothing special. They didn't taste very different than regular pancakes. We didn't keep our printout of the recipe.

Recipe from All recipes

-Aly

Beef Wellington

T has been watching some of the Ramsey shows. Hell's Kitchen and if he has some other shows them as well. I haven't seen them, so I'm not sure how accurate this is, but apparently Ramsey always makes them make Beef Wellington. Its always wrong, and he always yells about it. Its supposed to be really hard, and T got it in his head we should try. He googled a recipe and sent it my way. I bought ingredients and we went at it.

While making it we hit a few hitches. The major being that neither of us knew what it was supposed to look like or what was involved. We had a surprise guest, Aly's sister showed up, which only added to the pressure of cooking with an audience. We could basically feel Ramsey there.

 We learned a lot about cooking on this project. Like that you can mush pastry cracks back together with milk/water before you cook them and they pretty much mesh back together. We also improvised an hour d'oeuvre. Steamed broccoli, then we layered swiss cheese and diced ham on top of it, then threw it in the oven till it melted. It was basically like nachos and awesome. We made that up on the fly. We also made a dessert, parfaits. We bought yogurt, and added strawberries, granola, and some sugar to them. Also great, and a nice healthy light dessert. You will probably see both of those sides in a future  meal.

In the end, the food came out undercooked once we sliced it.Which per T, is exactly what happens on the show. We went ahead and cut the rest, and put it back in for "a bit". It turned out alright after that. The sauce was really good, but there was so little of it that I don't think most people bothered.

Now we know for next time.

-Jeff

Baking Feature: S'mores Cupcakes

This idea started in the grocery store seeing a new product that sounded tasty, and it grew from there. Our grocery store had this new Duncan Hines plain frosting base that you add a flavor mix packet to in order to make a flavored frosting. I suppose the idea would be that you could keep packets at home and just need one tub on hand to have whatever you need for whatever you make rather than buying one of every flavor tub to be sure you have one in advance.

I don’t tend to stock icing in general. I buy the one I want when I buy the rest of the ingredients for whatever I have planned to make. However, this product has mix packets for flavors that aren’t available in regular tubs, so it’s still a neat option. The one that particularly caught my eye was “chocolate marshmallow” because that sounds awesome. From there, I thought “I bet I could make s’mores cupcakes” and that was about it. I bought graham crackers and a yellow cake mix thinking that would be a good combination, and I went home stirring some plans around in my head.

Before I actually started baking, I googled “s’mores cupcakes” for ideas on how to incorporate the graham crackers. I thought I could either crumple them at the bottom, or mix them in the cake batter. I found recipes that did either, but I liked the look of the ones that had the graham crust bottom best. However, all of these recipes used a chocolate cake and a marshmallow-based frosting. I didn’t have any chocolate cake mix or the necessary almond milk to make the one from scratch (according to the recipe), and on top of that I didn’t feel like making a marshmallow buttercream frosting; that sounded very messy and it was a work night. I opted to use the graham crust, and then kind of wing it from there.

The crusts turned out fine. Next time I might press them a little more because these crumbled when you ate them. Before baking them, I chopped up some semisweet chocolate chips and sprinkled them on top of the crusts because the one recipe used bittersweet bits in this way, but I didn’t have any bittersweet chocolate. I then spooned the batter in and put them in the oven. While they were baking, I remembered an article I had seen on Lifehacker about using a marshmallow as an alternative to icing. Evidently you put a marshmallow into each cupcake at about 5 minutes before the end of baking, and it melts down and makes an icing-like cap. I already had an icing in mind for these, but I thought that an opportunity to test this as well as get more s’mores elements into the cupcakes was too good to pass up. I stuck three mini marshmallows into each because one regular-sized one seemed too big. They made it difficult to determine when the cupcakes were done because they slimed a little and made the cake seem like it was still batter, and I had to dodge them to test with a toothpick. Still, the cupcakes turned out alright. The marshmallows just sort of sank in and got melty- they didn’t spread at all like I’d thought they might.

I then mixed the flavor packet into the frosting base which was probably the easiest step up until now. From there, it was just frosting cupcakes as usual. I found that the icing did seem thin compared to most tubs, but it tasted awesome. There also seemed to be plenty left in the tub, so Jeff and I started smearing it on extra graham crackers and sandwiching them together, which was a delicious unhealthy snack.

Overall I liked how the cupcakes came out, but I think the flavors could have blended together a little more. I wanted to bite into it and pause and say “oh my god, that’s amazing,” but it didn’t happen. Still, they were very popular at work and only 3 came home with me (a new record) since people found ways to transport some home for later. Several people also stopped me or emailed me to tell me they were delicious, which is also very rare, so perhaps I am just too hard on them.

Thin Pancakes

Tonight we were totally at a loss for anything to make. We were going to do pancakes, but at the last minute I threw out crepes as an alternative. I had made them once before in high school and remembered them being good. We found a recipe on all recipes.com and ran with it. Aly sliced some strawberries, and we added powdered sugar on top. They were pretty good and a lot more filling than I remember or would expect. Not quite pancake stuffed, but not hungry. It took all of 15 minutes to make which was also a nice plus. One thing I'd note for next time would be to try getting the crepes thinner. These seemed too thick based off what I remember, and I think that made them almost pancake like.I think the batter worked fine, and we should find some way to physically spread them thinner on the pan.

Our strawberries were a little grody, and I spent like 20 minutes at the store today picking the freshest they had. I don't know seasons, and I guess they are out of season? We got enough good ones it wasn't a total waste, but we did throw some away, which was a shame.

-Jeff

Recipe from All recipes.com


Note from Aly: Though it makes me sound like a nagging bitch, I'm going to enter this little sub-entry anyway. When I first came into the kitchen and saw Jeff working on dinner, I noticed that the butter was in a block in the middle of the bowl (pictured in the slideshow) and that the recipe listed "2 Tbsp butter, melted." I mentioned it to Jeff, but he declared that "it'll melt... when it gets warm... from the room," and I realized that we'd hit that point where I couldn't say or do anything that would result in him removing the butter to melt it. Luckily, apparently when he started trying to mix the batter he realized the problem because I noticed not long afterwards that he fished it out of the bowl and put it in a little dish in the microwave. So, it's important to follow the recipe. Just saying.

-Aly

Sloppy Joe Casserole

A coworker gave me this recipe when I told her that we didn't have a lot of dinner ideas, and I hesitated to make it because it sounded so undeniably white trash, but then I remembered that white trash people eat the tastiest food (like carnival food, which is sent by the delicious calorie gods, may they be praised).

Anyway, I finally made the recipe and it was all at once a monumental achievement in the culinary world and an abomination to the gourmet. It's just crescent rolls, sloppy joe, and cheese. I will let you recover from that sentence because I know your mind has been blown and you may need a drool cloth.

The first time I made the Sloppy Joe Casserole, I followed the recipe given by my coworker and it only called for 1 lb of ground beef (and one can of sloppy joe mix). The final product was unarguably amazing, but it seemed lacking and Jeff and I both agreed to use more sloppy joe next time. Having doubled it this time, I think that was a great improvement because it made it thicker and heartier. However, this did leave us with too little cheese since we stuck with the initial measurement, and next time I would at least do half another bag more if not two.

We did run into a hiccup early on when I was getting out the ingredients. I didn't notice that Jeff put my cans of crescent rolls in the freezer instead of the fridge when we got home from the store, so they were frozen when I started cooking. This hurt the meal in a few ways:
     1.) Opening the cans was worse than usual because they were frozen shut and unwilling to pop
     2.) Unrolling crescent roll dough that is frozen both to itself and in its current shape is next to impossible
     3.) Cook times were thrown off in ways I did not correctly predict so the rolls were not cooked through

In the end, it was still delicious, but had room for improvements. Like I said, the rolls did not cook thoroughly, so the top crust was nicely browned and crispy, and the bottom one was still Pillsbury squish. This probably also happened because I'd recently been experimenting with where the oven rack sits and I'd shifted it up one position. I've since moved it back down. Also, I would add another half or whole bag of shredded cheese since it was a little off without it. This is still one of my favorites and I see it being a staple in the house when we're in a hurry and there's kids to feed.

-Aly

Recipe (ideal version)
Ingredients
-2 cans crescent rolls
-2 lbs ground beef
-2 can Manwich mix
-3-4 cups shredded cheese (I prefer the Mexican mix)

Directions
-Preheat oven to 375
-Brown ground beef and drain well when finished
-Unroll one can of crescent rolls and lay in the bottom of a 13" x 9" pan, pressing the seams together
-Add Manwich mix to beef and cook on medium-high heat for 5 min
-Place sloppy joe mix in pan on top of crescent rolls
-Top with shredded cheese
-Unroll second can of crescent rolls and lay across top of cheese, pressing seams together as possible
-Bake for 20-30 min until top crust is lightly browned

Omelette du Fromage

Tonight we made omelettes. Pretty basic, quick and tastes great. I did a lot of egg cooking when I worked nights, and had mornings to myself, and discovered the easiest way for omelettes (and probably official way) is to scramble the eggs in a bowl. While doing that, get the pan heating on the highest temp. You want it very hot. Pour some olive oil even if its non stick, so there is little to no chance. Pour the egg on, and let it sit until it cooks the one side. Add ingredients, and fold in half. Let that sit a min, and then flip over. Total cook time is about 5 min, at the most.

Ingredient wise, I like mushrooms and swiss, this time I added turkey as well. I also enjoy doing a Mexican blend with it, but not this time. Aly went with Brie and turkey.

-Jeff

Baking Feature: Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars

Since we had company coming over, I decided to make a dessert that would work with our Mexican feast we'd planned. I first thought of Flan, but frankly, the Flan I've eaten was unspectacular, so I didn't want to force it on my guests simply in the name of authenticity. Therefore, I had to come up with another option.

A year or so ago a coworker of mine who lives in Texas (whom I therefore take to be an authority on at least Tex-Mex desserts) gave me a recipe for Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars saying that they were her favorite and I would LOVE them. The recipe never made it out of my inbox and I kind of forgot about it until I sat down this past week and really racked my brain trying to come up with a Mexican-style dessert that was within my skill level and worked with my time constraints. If possible, I wanted to make it after I got home from work and before our guests came on the day of, because I really don't like making baked goodies 24+ hours in advance if I can avoid it. I don't know if it's a justified quirk, but it is a quirk I must live with nonetheless.

These cheesecake bars sounded really tasty, and the dough crusted with cinnamon sugar sounded like the Mexican flair I was looking for. I looked the recipe over and it seemed really easy, so I decided I had a winner.

The bars are very easy to make, particularly because the crust is pre-made crescent roll dough laid in a 13x9" pan. Pillsbury has even made this easier by making a version of the crescent roll dough sheet that doesn't have seams on it for just such occasions. They haven't made the cans any easier to open, though, and I still flinch as I pull at the label waiting for it to pop, and then when it doesn't, jab a spoon into it only enough to break the airtight seal and have depressurizing dough come squirting out of the hole. One of my goals in life is to successfully open a can of these damn things the way Pillsbury intended.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I was perplexed at the start to find that I melt a whole stick of butter, then leave it alone. I laid dough in the pain, I mixed filling, I laid more dough, yet the butter sat there looking at me. Finally, at the last phase before baking, you're supposed to dump an entire liquified stick of butter on top of the crust and then cover it in cinnamon sugar. Try as I might, I couldn't justify the entire stick. I poured more onto the surface than I wanted to and still had about a quarter of the stick left, so I trashed it. In the future I think I could probably use only 1/2 or 2/3 a stick and be quite alright. I also ditched the nuts and fruit from the recipe because they seemed out of place and tacked-on to me, like whoever made this recipe with a Mexican-style dish in mind got confused somewhere. Also, Jeff doesn't like cranberries.

I baked these for 25 minutes (since the cinnamon sugar made it difficult to tell how cooked the dough was) and they turned out great. We let them chill for a few hours and when I cut into them, they were spectacular. Really, there's no reason why gobs of sweetened cream cheese covered in cinnamon sugar dough shouldn't be. In the future, if I put the fruit or nuts back into them, I think I'd probably use pecans because they go really well with cinnamon sugar, and I would probably use apricots or another delicate flavor fruit to mingle with the cream cheese taste. I feel like dried cherries or cranberries would cut into it too harshly.

-Aly

Recipe:
2 cans crescent rolls
2  8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese
1 T vanilla (I used one tsp, not one Tbs. The Tbs just looked so big)
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar, divided
2 t cinnamon
dried cherries or cranberries
chopped pecans or slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray bottom and sides of 9 x 13 baking dish with Pam.
Melt the stick of butter in a separate bowl in microwave.  Set aside.
Press first can of rolls into bottom of baking dish.  Press seams together.
Mix together one and one half cups sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese. (I added a tsp of cinnamon to this)
Spread mix over crescent rolls
Over cream cheese, sprinkle the dried fruit and nuts.
Smooth out second can of rolls to lay atop that.
Pour melted butter on top of rolls and sprinkle remaining half cup of sugar and cinnamon on top.
Bake for 20-25 mins. and let cool slightly.  Stick in fridge and let chill for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares.

Chicken Tortilla Soup and Cornbread

Since we had friends coming over, I wanted to make a side dish to go with the Chicken Tortilla soup we'd already planned to be sure no one went hungry. I thought cornbread would be a nice choice since the flavors go really well together. I looked up several recipes and at first I wanted to try to stick with a more authentic Mexican style cornbread and possibly use one that still had pieces of corn in it, but I knew I wouldn't have a lot of prep/cook time between getting home from work and people wanting to eat, so I had to opt out of most of these recipes because of time constraints. I instead went for a more southern, country style cornbread recipe from All Recipes.com that had a 5-star rating. It was called "Grandmother's Buttermilik Cornbread." The Buttermilk is what caught my attention as I figured it probably meant a moister, more succulent bread and I definitely wanted that.
Preparation went off without a hitch except that Jeff and I were sharing stovetop space between two large skillets for the first time ever, so we had to be careful to coordinate and not make a huge mess (because we'd JUST cleaned that kitchen!). The bread was basically just mixing the ingredients into the skillet at different stages, then making sure they combined, putting them in an 8x8 pan, and baking it.

I was worried about the cornbread when I first took it out of the oven because, even though I'd used the minimum bake time, the edges were darker brown than I wanted. It turns out my fears were ungrounded, though, as the cornbread turned out perfect and delicious. And yes, it was very moist, so I would definitely recommend this recipe and will probably use it as a default because it was so easy. Jeff and I have already considered using it as a jumping off point and adding cheese or jalapenos.

Recipe from All Recipes.com

-Aly


Chicken Tortilla Soup

Aly filled you in on the background for what we did this time, so I can skip straight to the meal. I made a chicken tortilla soup, and it was pretty good. Black beans, corn, chicken broth, chicken, some spices I don't recall, diced tomatoes and lime juice. You will notice an important ingredient missing, and I caught it the day of. Tortillas. So really it was more of a "Chicken Soup". While cooking, it was fairly straight forward. Cook the chicken, dump everything into the pot and boil for a bit, then simmer.

Interesting notes from this meal. I forgot tortillas. I also realized like an hour before the guests came over that I should probably cook it. So instead of the 2 hour simmer time, I went with 45 min + however long they hung out before eating. That also meant that the chicken was basically frozen. I broke out my old trick of putting the chicken in a bowl of really hot water to thaw quickly, and it mostly thawed it. Then I diced the semi-frozen chicken and cooked anyway on a skillet. While cooking the chicken I realized the black beans should be cooked (Per the recipe) and that I don't know how.  I figured "Microwave it for like 2 min" would work, and it seemed to. The recipe called for 2 cups of cubed chicken, and that's both an awkward measurement and not enough, so I went with 3 breasts. I thought it could still use more in the final product.

The whole time it cooked it smelled great, and it tasted great too so I take that as success. I think if it simmered longer it would bake the flavors into the peppers and stuff a little more. I even had leftovers to take to work for lunch.

-Jeff

Burgers Mk II

Another attempt. T came over with some ground beef for burgers last night. He went to a butcher this time for the beef, and we did the patties ourselves. He asked what they recommended and got 92-8 beef. It was nice, and being from a butcher was generally better than what we normally get. We don't have one near us, and do the frozen ground stuff from the grocery store. Just in working with them to make the patties you could tell it was totally different.

Using the grill was good this time. Propane built up and singed the hair off my right arm when it lit. After that, we did the grilling as you'd expect. One thing we tried that was different was putting the rolls on the grill. It worked, and was a neat idea. Next time we might butter them first. We also tried something that didn't do a whole lot. We put a mushroom slice on two of them, just to see what would happen. What happens is that the mushroom gets sort of warm, and the meat underneath stays pink. We will stick to putting them on afterwards.

I also did the thing where I don't cook the burgers long enough on the grill. Most were done, but a few had some pinkish spots.

-Jeff

Tacos

Tonight was taco night. I was tired of trying a bunch of new things and wanted to fall back on an old favorite. Tacos. I've got a recipe for the mix that I'm sure I found somewhere, but through tweaks and tweaks I can probably call it my own. Works great for Chicken or Beef Tacos, but as I said, we were going for an old favorite. So beef it is. This is the meal that got us on the 93/7 ratio beef. When using a fattier ratio, Aly mentioned it tasting off, and so I switched over. Didn't change the mix and next time she pointed out how it tasted better.

Step 1 is brown the meat. Pretty standard and not a lot going on. While thats going, I mix everything up in a glass bowl, once browned I dump it in with a bit of water. Mix it up, and let it cook till water is mostly boiled off and you are good to go. It takes about 10 min total to make which is really nice.

What I like about the taco mix is that the whole time you are cooking with it, you get that "Taco" smell. Gets you raring to go. Then when you eat it, its got a little kick to it, but not too much that Aly won't eat it. To up the kick add more chili powder. I'm also thinking that next time I might reduce the salt and pepper. I think they get thrown in a lot of recipes simply because "Well you can't cook without them" and I'd rather let people add it themselves if they want.

For this meal in particular, we forgot to start the refried beans which Aly loves. Thats just out of a can though, and took 2 min to cook up in the microwave. We also had some Mexican cheese mix, sour cream, salsa and I found some jalapeños from a previous meal. I thought about chopping onions but didn't feel like it.

-Mix-
1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 Teaspoon Dried Oregano
1/2 Teaspoon Paprika
1 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Pepper

-Jeff

Chicken Marsala

Last night T came over. We had decided on chicken marsala because it sounded neat and why not. Had to go get cooking sherry and marsala wine, which really upped the price of this meal. We used so little that we will have plenty if we need it again.

It was a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be. Melt some butter and oil, coat the chicken in flour, cook it, and then simmer in the booze. I thought it turned out pretty good, and Aly, who said she doesn't like chicken marsala, said she liked it. Apparently Romano's Macaroni Grille just does it wrong.

At the last min, T mentioned that its supposed to be served over pasta, which is probably true. We happened to have some spaghetti in the pantry, and made that. I can never make spaghetti for whatever reason so that was a little bit of an adventure. I always make it soggy, or hard. We got the water boiling, threw it in, and as we were guessing time to cook for, Aly came by and told us 10 min. We estimated remaining time, and it turned out pretty good. One thing to note, the marsala sauce makes the spaghetti impossible to eat with a fork unless you are Italian like T.

Chicken recipe from all recipes. Spaghetti is just noodles, olive oil, and water.


- Jeff

French Toast

I'm kind of running out of ideas for breakfast night. Once we did waffles and pancakes, I figured I'll also do French Toast, and then I may have to get creative...

Anyway, I just looked up a quick recipe online. I went through a few because I know I had a friend who claimed to make the best french toast and said "the secret is using vanilla!" I didn't think it was such a big secret, but we were both drunk and making breakfast at about 2 am, so what did I know?

It turns out vanilla may be more secret than I thought, but it's not completely unheard of. I just made sure to use a recipe that did include it. I was intrigued, though, that my recipe listed the cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla as "optional." If you don't use them, you dip the bread in milk, eggs, and salt (to taste). That sounds gross; please use at least some of these spices.

It turned out pretty tasty. I think this is a quick, easy recipe to hold on to for the future if friends stay over or I have extra bread to get rid of before it turns green.

-Aly

I absolutely can't find my recipe again online, so I'll just post it here without a link. If you recognize it, let me know and I'll include a link. I know I found it online and didn't make it up myself.

Ingredients
6 thick slices bread
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
salt to taste

Directions
Beat together egg, milk, salt, desired spices and vanilla.
Heat a lightly oiled griddle of skillet over medium-high flame.
Dunk each slice of bread in egg mixture, soaking both sides. Place in pan, and cook on both sides until golden. Serve hot.

Lunch Feature: Egg Salad

I saw an article on Lifehacker the other day about hard boiling eggs in the oven rather than in water, and, with Easter coming up, I wanted to try it out. I figured that with the eggs I tested, I could make egg salad. I know I've made it once before, but that was with a friend in middle school, so I hardly think it counts. I looked up a couple recipes and picked one I liked. I knew I wanted to use mustard, and the first few recipes I found didn't. They seemed like fancy people egg salad with spices I haven't heard of and celery and crap.

 

Cooking the eggs in the oven worked pretty well. I'd say the only down side was that they were harder to peel afterwards, but with the ease of just having them sit in the oven for 30 minutes, I didn't mind.
The egg salad turned out pretty good, too. I added just a tad more mayo and mustard than it called for, but only a touch.

Recipe from All recipes.com

-Aly

Burgers

So, apparently all my entries start with so. Didn't want to break the cycle.

Tonight I grilled burgers. We had some leftover bacon, so we went for bacon swiss burgers. Fairly standard fair on the burgers, throw them on the grill. Take them off when finished. The interesting part of this meal came from the bacon.

A weekend or two ago we had Aly's friend and her husband over and we grilled some burgers. At that time I decided why not throw some bacon on the grill. Its already going, and I know he is a big bacon fan. It worked great and I looked really impressive with my culinary knowledge and techniques. Since it worked last time, I did it again. Did not work so hot. The bacon grease dripped down onto the flames of the grill, and when I opened it up to check the bacon itself had caught fire. I quickly put that out, and managed to save most of it, but it was all charred way past what Aly likes. I was alright with it, but I like my bacon crispy anyway. She likes hers still able to flop around, and this did not happen.

 

So outside my little grease fire in the grill, this meal turned out alright. I know T had mentioned buying some nice meat at some point, and having it ground for nice burgers so there might be a part 2 soonish. This meat was the simple cardboard/low grade preformed patties that were "the cheapest they sold in a big box". Not bad, but nothing to write home about.

-Jeff

Taco Pie

When I told a coworker about our schedule change and need for more meal ideas, she responded with "Ooh, you should make taco pie! The recipe's actually called 'Impossibly Easy Taco Pie,' and trust me, if I can make it, you can make it!"
I admit I was at least slightly insulted because I'd only said "I need ideas for what to eat," not "I need to eat, but food is hard!" However, I got over it because "taco pie" sounds delicious.

I found it on the Betty Crocker website and, when I saw the ingredients, I had to categorize this in my group of "foods I have no problem serving my family and enjoy myself, but would not ever make to impress anyone." It is definitely impossibly easy; it is seasoned ground beef, Bisquick, and some tomatoes and chiles, but the result is not going to make your snooty mother-in-law believe you have become a domestic goddess.

First off, I completely removed the tomatoes and chiles for ours because eeeeew. Jeff made up for this by topping his servings with salsa which I consider a completely satisfying compromise, but I don't like these things in my food, so I don't know if people who do would still find it lacking. I also cut all of the cooking times down by a minute or two because our oven cooks hot, but I haven't figured out by how much, so rather than decreasing the temp I've usually just made a point to decrease cook time. I think it was still in a little too long for the first time (before adding cheese) but it wasn't burnt, so that's fine.

 

The end result was very tasty. I added a dollop of sour cream to mine and, as I said, Jeff put salsa on his. We only had two small slices leftover even though it said it was supposed to feed six, so I think if you were feeding a group you'd need two pies, or some side dishes so they could handle smaller portions. I also am not totally sold on pouring Bisquick over ground beef as a meal. I guess I'd rather take a page out of Jeff's book and have more "from scratch" steps because the Bisquick definitely feels like a cop out. Maybe I'll try a variety next time that uses Jeff's biscuit recipe and his homemade taco seasoning.

Recipe from the Betty Crocker website

-Aly

Biscuits and Gravy

Tonight I tried my hand at biscuits and gravy. I hadn't made either before and its always pretty satisfying. We threw some bacon in as well, because we happen to have tons of it.

Bacon turned out alright, I probably should have cooked it longer, but I think I like it crispier than most people anyway.

Biscuits were a new adventure. I don't really bake much, but figured I'd give it  a shot. I got covered with flour which was neat. They weren't particularly hard. Mix the stuff in bowl, roll it flat and cut them into circles. They turned out really good I thought.

The gravy was another story. We got the Jimmy Dean sausage and broke it down, but I think we really ought to have gotten ground sausage. The JD was hard to break into small chucks, and I sort of gave up halfway through. The gravy didn't thicken like the recipe said it would, and while decent, it wasn't as thick as I'd want.  In the end the sausage should have been smaller, and the gravy thicker.

 

-Jeff

Biscuit recipe from Allrecipes.com

Sausage Gravy recipe from Allrecipes.com

Sloppy Joes

Tonight I made some sloppy joes. I like to go as from scratch as I can for things, and so looked up a recipe online.

We made some basic changes to it, for a few reasons. 1/2lb ground beef isn't sold anywhere near us, and that really didn't seem like enough. We know we have leftovers with a full pound but we can deal with that. We also doubled most of the rest of ingredients. We dropped "prepared mustard" because I think it may mean yellow mustard which I don't like. If it doesn't mean that we simply didn't know what it was. Instead we gave "A dash" of mustard powder figuring it was close enough. It took all of 5 min. to make which was really nice. Aly said she would like less worcestershire sauce in hers, more ketchup and added some to hers. I liked mine as is.

Was a really quick easy recipe and I think was pretty good. We didn't simmer as indicated, but I think it was fine in the end.

recipe from allrecipes.com

-Jeff

Baking Feature: Double Chocolate Brownies

Tonight I baked my mother’s specialty: Double Chocolate brownies. These things are amazing, and to say that they’re delicious is almost silly in its lack of understanding. These transcend delicious; they take you to a secret place made of sunshine and happiness where you are enveloped in warm gooiness and cradled lovingly; your taste buds will begin to shun other food for its disappointing inability to compare.

And they’re not pot brownies. I want to make that clear.

I wanted to celebrate Friday with my coworkers, and my criteria for what to make were simple: I had to already have the ingredients because I had to take the rabbit to the vet and I’m wasn’t stopping at a grocery store and leaving him in the car. Since my mother and I both bake relatively regularly, there were probably a ton of things that I could have made with what we had on hand (since anything I lacked she probably had upstairs. We live in the in-law suite in the basement which is convenient when you run out of butter). Somehow I just felt that it was a brownie kind of Friday, so that’s what I decided to make.

I admit that lately I’ve been making box mix brownies which, if I didn’t know this recipe, would be acceptable (they’ve all been delicious). But I did not have my box mix in my pantry to tempt me into taking the easy way out, and my coworkers were very glad about that. Making them from scratch is definitely slower since it takes several bowls and a little time on the stove rather than throwing everything in one big bowl and pouring it into a pan; in the end, though, I think it was worth the extra effort and dirty dishes.

Unfortunately, since these are my mother’s specialty and the closest I think we have to a family recipe, I will not post it here. The pictures show you a good bit of what’s in them, and below I’ve linked to a recipe that is similar and will probably give you an acceptable close result (and apparently is safe to send to troops in the desert, so you could do that). For me, the biggest key is to reduce the cooking time by about 10 minutes. I don’t like cakey brownies- we already have a dessert that is cakey; it’s called cake. A brownie should be gooey and sticky and fudgy, and if you bake these for the full time, you’ll bake them past that ooey-gooey perfection. Obviously make sure you bake them long enough to remove any salmonella risks, though. But just barely.

This time around, I was doing dishes and not paying attention to my timer, so I baked them about 3 minutes longer than I intended to, and they suffered a little for it (but don’t tell my coworkers, because they had no idea what they almost had).

Recipe from VeryBestBaking.com

-Aly

Cheesesteaks

So tonight was cheesesteaks. T came over and we set to work. Aly had to take a rabbit to the vet for routine maintenance, and so it was just the two of us. T sliced a flank steak thin into strips while I chopped red/green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Threw them all together and cooked until onions were clear. Really all there was to it. We set some meat aside for Aly for later with no veggies.

Served the mix on some sandwich rolls, and it was pretty good. I went with pepper jack cheese, and T did swiss. When Aly got home I quickly cooked hers, and as she had no veggies it took minimal time. She went swiss as well.

Thoughts about the ordeal. Next time we will get much smaller rolls. These things were huge, and I actually ended up picking a lot of my bread off. Aly cut hers into thirds and didn't eat the middle third. We would also go 2lbs meat instead of 1.Xish. Once chopped and diced it really didn't go 3 ways. We would also do veggies first, let them get good and cooked, then throw the meat on. The veggies were still a little crispy. I also would like to find some way to melt the cheese, that isn't just "Microwave it" which was all I could think of. Thats seemed wrong, so I didn't do it.

We had some extra bread at the end so I whipped up some garlic bread real quick improvising a recipe based off memory and best guess. Toasted the bread on the pan from the cheesesteaks. Then melted some butter and dripped that over top and dashed some garlic powder on them. Aly grated some mozzarella and we covered them in that. Then, I put them back in the pan on low heat with the glass lid on it. I had picked this up when making grilled cheese. The glass lid helps keep heat in, and makes the whole thing crispy and lightly toasted, instead of burning the side touching the pan while not cooking the other at all like normal. I can make a pretty mean grilled cheese.

-Jeff

Blueberry Pancakes

Tonight we opted for Blueberry pancakes for Breakfast night. I've made pancakes before, so I wasn't worried about it. Jeff looked up a basic pancake recipe online and we just added blueberries. I even got a little creative and added some white chocolate chips to two of them as an experiment. My famous muffins that have pleased many coworkers in the past involve blueberries and white chocolate chips, so I thought I'd try the combo again.

I mixed up the batter and started pouring it on the skillet. I found that the pancakes were burning around the edges of the pan very quickly while the parts closer to the center weren't ready to flip. After the trouble this pan gave us with Steak 2 on Monday, we might be done trying to use this pan. To combat the inconsistency from the pan, I started just making one pancake at a time in the center. I even indulged in every kid's dream and made one giant pancake with the last of the batter (mostly because I was sick of making pancakes and just dumped it all out). Jeff got that one.

In the end, they were very tasty and I will definitely save the recipe for future experiments. If I made any changes, I'd lower the heat (medium high made for some very quickly-cooked and at time a little burnt pancakes) and possibly add some vanilla or cinnamon to the recipe.

-Aly

Recipe from All Recipes.com

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
-3 12/ tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-1 Tbsp granulated sugar
-1 1/4 Cups milk
-1 egg
-3 Tbsp butter, melted

Directions:
-In a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg, and melted butter. Mix well until smooth
-Heat a lightly oiled frying pan or griddle over medium high heat. Pour or scoop batter onto the griddle using approx. 1/4 cup per pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot

Date Night: The Melting Pot

Last night we went to The Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant) for date night. Neither of us had been before, so it was fun to both be experiencing it for the first time. It wasn't a special occasion or anything; we just decided to go because I saw a fondue kit at the grocery store the week before and said "I've never been to The Melting Pot." Jeff said "Me either," so I said, "we should go." That's really it.

The building was uninspiring from the outside, and the parking lot was at the back with awkward sidewalk layouts and no clear route to the entrance. However, once you get around to the front and go in it was more appealing.
The  lighting was very low to enhance the intimate atmosphere. It wasn't enough, though, to conflict with the two small children at a table near ours who, for reasons beyond my comprehension, had been brought by their parents. I imagine this is probably a regular occurrence because The Melting Pot locations tend to be in yuppy areas where parents will buy their 3 and 5-year-olds $80 dinners. Jeff and I overheard the mother say "Do you want your iPad? Sit in your booster seat!" which we just didn't know how to process. If the girls had been quiet we wouldn't have noticed they were even there (because of the high booths -again- to increase the intimate atmosphere), but they needed everything on the menu explained to them very loudly multiple times, and the younger one was prone to crying outbursts. But I digress...

We had four courses based off of their current "Big Night Out" special which has an American Barbecue theme. The cheese course was a cheddar mix with bacon in it swirled around with a Samuel Adams lager (and some other spices). It was delicious and we finished it off.

For the salad course, we chose individually; Jeff had a ceasar and I had the California (with no tomatoes). They were salads... which are hard to mess up.

For our entree we ordered the Fondue Feast from the Big Night Out menu. It was a plate of Buffalo chicken, angus steak, bbq pork tenderloin, and Old Bay shrimp that we prepared with the "Mojo" cooking style (carribean/citrus flavors). It was very good, but everything on the plate was spicy (we probably should have guessed that, but a little warning in the menu or from our server would have been nice). I struggle with spicy food, so I only had one piece of steak and one shrimp since they were a little strong for me. I still ate my fill, so I wasn't upset.

Oh Dessert. For dessert we chose the Flaming Turtle mix which is milk chocolate, caramel, and pecans. I don't have to tell you that dipping things in melted chocolate and caramel is delicious. It was absolutely wonderful and I was pleased to see Jeff eagerly choosing new dippers to try because he's not usually very big on dessert.

At the end of the meal we were both absolutely stuffed. As far as price/value it was definitely more expensive than our typical date nights, and I can see why people reserve it for anniversaries. Still, the experience is definitely unique and it was a lot of fun. I would definitely like to go again, even if it's not for a while.

-Aly