Breakfast of Champions

No, not cold pizza.  Really yummy coffee cake!  I learned how to make this recipe at an Essen cooking class.  Don't know Essen?  Check them out!  This is a coffee cake with rhubarb filling.  My boyfriend and I went to pick strawberries earlier this week and the farm we went to had other homegrown produce, so I picked up some great rhubarb.  Recipe is boyfriend approved :)

Big Crumb Coffee Cake With Rhubarb


Ingredients:
Filling -
1/2 pound rhubarb, sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Topping - 
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Cake - 
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream

Start Cooking:


1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 8 inch baking pan.
2. Filling: combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3.  Topping:
a.  In a medium bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth.
b.  Gradually mix in flour with a wooden spoon.  Leave pressed together and set aside.

4.  Cake:
a.  In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
b.  Add egg and yolk, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and then vanilla
c. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
d.  Alternate adding sour cream and flour mixture to butter mixture, beginning and ending with sour cream.
5.  Put it together:
a.  Spread cake batter in pan, smoothing top.  Scatter rhubarb over batter, leaving accumulated liquid in bowl.

b.  Break topping into big crumbs and sprinkle over cake.  Bake for 45-55 minutes.

No Sugar Added

After watching cooking shows last week(when I was supposed to be writing a paper...) I decided to try to make something without any sugar.  So I made mini apple pies. And I have to say that I wondered where the sugar was.  Overall, it was good, but it could have been sweeter.

First, you have to make a Basic Pastry


Ingredients:
2 and 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ice water

Start Cooking:
1.  Use a metal blade in a food processor.  Put flour, butter and salt in the food processor and pulse until butter is chopped and evenly spread throughout the flour.
2.  Add water and pulse until dough forms.
3.  Separate into 3 balls, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten into discs.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.


When the dough is refrigerating, prepare Apple Filling

Ingredients:
4 apples, whatever kind you like
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons honey
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon(how every much you like)
1 egg

Start Cooking:
1.  Cut apples into bit size pieces.  Melt butter in large sauce pan, add apples to melted butter, over medium heat.  Add honey and cinnamon, stir well.
2.  Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes on medium heat.  After 5-7 minutes, you will see that the apples are soft and all the flavors have mixed together.

3.  After the pastry dough has been refrigerated for at least an hour, roll the dough out flat.  The flatter the better!  Put a cereal bowl upside down on the dough and cut around it, making a circle.  Place circle of dough on a baking sheet, brush egg around dough, used to help seal the dough together.  Put a scoop of apples in center of dough, then fold over and press edges together.

4.  Cut small slits in top of dough to vent air and bake for 17-23 minutes at 350 degrees, until dough is firm and flakey.  

Tips and Hints:

1.  Make sure you roll the dough really really flat.  My first batch, pictured above, was too thick and you tasted more dough than apples(not so good).  The second batch, with thinner dough was much, much better.

2.  I tried to roll out the dough before refrigerating for 1 hour, and it was really hard to roll out.  I would say refrigerate for more like 90 minutes.  

Enjoy!  And share your sugar free recipes! 

Marshmallow Sticky Buns

I found this recipe online, and LOVE them.  I have to say that I'm not a big fan of marshmallow, but these are great, and the marshmallow is not the dominating flavor.  This recipe uses the same technique as the pizza poppers.  

Ingredients: 
1 can refrigerated biscuits
2 tablespoons butter, melted
enough marshmallows to fill biscuits
cinnamon and sugar(however much you like)

Start Cooking:
1.  Pre heat oven to 350, well grease muffin tin.
2.  Separate biscuits and flatten as much as you can.  Sprinkle some cinnamon sugar in center of biscuit, then fill with marshmallows.

3.  Pull sides up to cover marshmallows and form into a ball.  Roll biscuit in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar.  Place in muffin tin.

4.  Bake for 15-17 minutes.  Serve warm.

Tips and Hints:
1.  Make sure to WELL grease the pan.  They will stick!
2.  Put the muffin tin on a cookie sheet while baking.  The marshmallows in mine oozed out and I ended up cleaning a puddle of sticky marshmallow off the bottom of my oven.
3.  Can't eat them at all once?  Re-heat in oven until warm!  I tried re-heating in the microwave; they we OK, but better in the oven.

Enjoy!

Iced Tea

Since I will not be home much this weekend, I decided to scrap the 8 hour iced tea recipe and make one that doesn't take so long to make.  I decided on Wild Berry Iced Tea.

Ingredients:
4 cups water
3 tea bags(plain Lipton tea works great)
1 can frozen wild berry juice, prepared per directions on can

Start Cooking:
1.  Put 4 cups of water and 3 tea bags in a pitcher.  Set in the sun for about 2 hours.  After two hours, remove tea bags.  If you have an iced tea  maker, that will work fine, just use 4 cups of the finished tea.
2.  Measure out 3 cups of the prepared wild berry juice and mix with the prepared tea.  Serve cold, with ice cubes.

Something Special:
For a special treat, freeze a few fresh raspberries in ice cubes.  Serve with the tea.

 
Hints and Tips:
1.  Make sure you put the water and tea bags in the SUN, it will brew much faster.  I made mine this evening, and it wasn't in the heat of the day, and it seemed to take longer to brew.

Enjoy! 

Pasta Salad

drum roll please...  I did it, I made real pasta salad!  I know, not that exciting, but I've never done it before.
I did a combination of suggestions that I received and recipes that I found.

Ingredients: 
pasta(whatever shape you like, I used bow tie)
cucumbers
red peppers
carrots
tomatoes(if you like them, I don't)
chick peas
Italian dressing

Start Cooking:
1. Cook pasta per directions on box/bag.  Let noodles cool.
2. While pasta is cooking, chop all veggies into bite size pieces.  Drain and rinse chick peas.
3. Put veggies and chick peas in whatever container you will be serving or storing the salad in.  Add cooked pasta and Italian dressing, then mix well.

I then made english muffin pizzas to make a complete meal.

Ingredients:
whole grain light english muffins
reduced fat mozzarella cheese
reduced fat cheddar cheese
pizza sauce

Start cooking:
1. Lightly toast plain english muffins.  This prevents the bread from getting soggy.
2. Place toasted english muffins on a baking sheet.  spread pizza sauce on english muffins.  Top with 2 parts mozzarella cheese, 1 part cheddar cheese.
3. Bake until cheese is melted and crispy around the edges.

Hints and Tips:
1.  add chicken to pasta salad and pepperoni to pizzas for you meat eaters out there.
2.  To mix pasta salad: put a lid on the container and shake it!
3.  Line the baking sheet with tin foil for pizzas, makes for easy clean up!

Enjoy!

National Iced Tea Day

So today is National Iced Tea Day!  I never knew there was such a thing, but I'm pretty excited about it.  In honor of the holiday, I found a recipe for frosty raspberry iced tea.  I don't have all the ingredients on hand, and you have to freeze it for 8 hours, but it looks great!  I will be making the drink within the next few days, and I'll let you know how it goes!
What are your favorite iced tea recipes?  

Cooking Shows

While I'm avoiding writing my final paper for History of American Business, I'm sitting here watching The Cooking Channel.  I haven't watched a cooking show on TV in ages and I'm really enjoying them(maybe too much considering that paper I have to write...).  I'm learning a lot of new ideas and recipes to make(will post some soon).  My take away from today's TV time:  use honey instead of sugar whenever you can.  It is less processed, less calories, and less bad stuff.  Also, it tastes really good :)  So, my new goal(after I make real pasta salad) is to make something with honey instead of sugar.  

What are your favorite cooking shows?  

Pizza Poppers

I love pizza.  It's probably my favorite food.  Next to tacos.  So today, I made my own pizza poppers.  I found this recipe from Pillsbury, but didn't like some stuff, so I changed it to make it better!  I'm posting my version of the recipe.

Ingredients:
Refrigerated buttermilk biscuits(as many as you want)
1 inch cubes of mozzarella cheese(one for each biscuit)
2 tablespoons melted butter
Italian seasoning, to taste
Pizza sauce for dipping

Start Cooking:
1.  Heat oven to 375 and grease pan(any size that will fit all your pizza poppers)
2.  Separate biscuits and press flat so they are about 2-3 inches.  Put 1 cheese cube on each biscuit and pull dough around cheese, shaping into a ball.

  3.  Roll in melted butter and place in baking pan.  Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.

4.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

I had mine for lunch, with pizza sauce for dipping and a salad for a complete meal.  Very yummy and the boyfriend said to make them again :)

Hints and Tips:
1.  Make sure you WELL grease the pan... mine stuck.
2.  Stuff the biscuits with pepperoni or sausage for you meat eaters out there.
3.  Money saving tip:  there are often coupons for refrigerated Pillsbury products.  I found one that was $1 off 3 refrigerated dough products.  Unless you a making a ton of pizza poppers, buy the little cans with 6 biscuits each for $0.55 each.  With the coupon, you will pay $0.65 for 18 biscuits, which turn into 18 pizza poppers!

Enjoy!

Strawberry-Walnut Galette

First, what is "gelatte?"  I didn't know either.  Gelatte is a French flaky pastry dessert.  And a very yummy dessert.  
I found this recipe in a Pilsbury cookbook, but didn't like some things in it, so I changed it around a bit.  I'm posting my version of the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 refrigerated pie crust(or you can make your own)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 cup strawberry preserve(or jam)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Start Cooking:
1.  heat oven to 400.  Put the pie crust in a ungreased 9 or 10 inch pie plate.

2.  Put walnuts and sugar in a food processor and pulse until nuts are finely chopped.  Add egg and milk, process until thick paste forms.  Spread in bottom of pie crust.  Wipe out food processor.

3.  Put preserves, lemon juice, ginger and cornstarch in food processor, pulse until smooth.  Spread over walnut mixture.

4.  Fold edges of pie crust over the filling.  Bake 20-30 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Hints and Tips:
1.  Don't like walnuts?  Use almonds!
2.  Don't like strawberry?  Use another flavor of jam!
3.  Ground ginger tip:  get some ginger root from the grocery store and freeze it. Then use a micro plane to ground the amount you need.  Freezing the ginger makes it easier to ground up with the micro plane and also keeps it fresh for longer.

Enjoy! 

Graduation

My littler sister graduated from high school a few days ago, and we had her family graduation party yesterday.  We were all instructed to bring a dish to share.  I offered pasta salad.  Pasta salad has always intimidated me; not sure why, but it has.  So I made it from a box.  Make the pasta and mix the seasoning with mayo and milk.  Easy.  Really easy.
My goal for this week:  Make real pasta salad, as in, not from a box.  I'm looking up recipes, but would like some input.
What are your favorite pasta salad recipes? 

Strawberry Season!

It's strawberry season!!  What are your favorite strawberry recipes?
This year, I tried something a little different.  We had a dessert recipe exchange at work, and I made a 3 layer pie.  First is a brownie layer, second a cheese cake layer, third a layer of strawberries :)

We all decided that there was too much brownie and not enough cheese cake, so I tweaked the recipe a little to account for that.

Recipe:
Brownie layer -
boxed brownie mix and the ingredients listed on that box

Cheese cake layer -
16 oz regular cream cheese
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Strawberry layer -
enough strawberries to cover the top of pie
hot fudge topping

1 refrigerated pie crust(or you can make your own)

1.  Heat oven to 325.
2.  Roll out the pic crust in a greased 9 inch pie plate
3.  Make brownie mix as directed on the box
4.  Pour about 1/3 of the brownie mix on top of the pie crust and bake for about 25 minutes.
5.  Meanwhile, prepare cheese cake layer.  Blend all cheese cake ingredients until smooth.
6.  Pour cheese cake mix on top of brownie mix.  Bake for another 20 minutes.
7.  Let cool completely in the fridge.
8.  Cut the strawberries in half and put them on top of the cooled pie.  Garnish with the hot fudge topping.

                                  

HINT:  I noticed that after a day or two in the fridge the strawberries got a little soggy.

Enjoy!  

Early Morning

I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now, and today I'm finally doing it.   Cooking is now one of my favorite hobbies, and I my goal is to share that with everyone.  I want to share recipes, tips, ideas...  


Today's recipe starts with breakfast, and one of my favorites: Baked Oatmeal. 

I'm not much of an early morning person, and cooking a big, healthy breakfast at 7 AM before work.  This recipe is my easy out - make a pan on the weekend and have a healthy breakfast for the rest of the week!   

Ok, so it's not very pretty looking...  but is oatmeal ever pretty?  


Ingredients:  
3 cups oats
1 cup brown sugar 
2 teaspoons cinnamon 
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup(1 stick) melted butter
2 teaspoon vanilla 
3/4 cup fruit (apples, cranberries, bananas, dried cherries...)
1/2 cup nuts (almonds, walnuts...)


1.  heat oven to 350
2. In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients.  
3. Add wet ingredients and mix well.  
4. Add fruit and nuts. 
5.  Pour into a greased 8x8 or 9x9 pan.
6. Bake for about 40 minutes


You will see that the oatmeal is set and the edges are golden brown.  In this one, I used dried cherries and almonds.  I store it in the fridge, cut a square each morning and heat it up in the microwave.  I serve with milk.  A yummy and healthy breakfast that gives me energy for the work day!  


Enjoy!