August Recipe Roundup

Some recipe ideas...I really need to clean out my bookmarks!

This round I am trying some other font options with my current theme so I can save time...and theming this one to desserts, what a shock I know!

Homemade Nutter Butters - Cookies & Cups

Fluffy Chocolate Caramel Fruit Dip - Madigan Made

Fluffer Nutter Bites - Real Mom Kitchen

Healthy Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Brownies - Chocolate Covered Katie
(I do keep coming back to zucchini baked goods year after year in these posts)

S’mores Pancakes - Craft Quickies
(I  probably won't try these after all, I like traditional pancakes too much!)

Salted Butterscotch Fudge - Crazy for Crust

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies - Spoon Fork Bacon

Nutella Coconut S'more Bars - ShowFood Chef

Samoa Popcorn (Chocolate, Coconut and Caramel) - Top with Cinnamon

Chocolate Chip Cookies without Butter - Liz Makes

Short share today, while I have lots of kitchen adventures to share from the past few months (we've moved since I last posted last year...so now there is a different kitchen to experiment in!)

Fall Recipe Roundup, Part I

Since I haven't caught up with my monthly Recipe Roundup like I intended, I am going to break up the current recipe stash of OMG SOMEDAY I WANT TO TRY ALL THESE into a few posts. In case you forgot what the Recipe Roundup was all about. Oh shit there are a lot! Lets try to break them up into chunks of ten...

Spiced Zucchini Bread with Chocolate  Poppytalk

Banana Breakfast Dumplings with Vanilla Bean Maple Butter  Joy the Baker

Bacon Wrapped New Potatoes   Ask Chef's Forum

Roasted Apple Spice Sheet Cake   Smitten Kitchen

Zucchini Bread with Pineapple   Simply Recipes

Baked Chili Cheese Fries  Joy the Baker

Mocha Banana Breakfast Smoothie  Madigan Made

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars  The Girl Who Ate Everything

Fudgy Brownies with Cookie Butter Frosting  Lauren's Latest

Granola Bars  The Pioneer Woman

On the "tried" front, in August I tried this idea of spiral cutting hot dogs. It had shown up in a few places online that I saw, but this writeup from Not Martha made me smile, as do all her posts.

I didn't think to leave the skewers in, but that was because I was subbing a chopstick.  These are brats that I love but are super fatty, so it worked great to help grill off some of the grease. That's grilled chicken piled behind them. I even typed 'checken' accidentally. Old joke.

Back in August I mentioned a third successful Bundt experiment; the carrot Bundt cake!

The Best Humble Carrot Cake Ever  Pastry Pal

Now this was one I found through Google-fu, and as you can see I skipped the whole nicely lining a pan and sprayed the Bundt, omitting the walnuts and raisins. I made a simple vanilla and confectioner's sugar glaze. It went over well at work, and someone even did recommend raisins; I thought everyone hated raisins! Someday I will try it with soaking chopped golden raisins in some sort of alcohol.

What made this experiment special was the carrots; they were carrot pulp saved from juicing! I placed the pulp into a plastic container and popped it into the freezer until I was ready, which turned out to be within a day or two.

I tried juicing fruits and veggies using an extractor for a few weeks in late August and September. We got a juice extractor, it works great, the juice is great, I found two veggies I hate in juice (beets and celery, beets for the taste, celery for the burpies) and had fun jamming kale into every drink...but it was hard. Cleanup, while simple, was time consuming, so to make fresh juice in the morning to sub for a breakfast/lunch was taking too much time. No, you can't leave the machine for later to clean, you will be sorry while you scrub; thankfully I only tried it with one piece one time. Also we are apartment dwellers, and can't compost, so all the fibre and solids were going into the trash (which makes it stinky fast). We also aren't in the best place to get fresh, organic, locally grown produce, so it was hard to justify spending on produce that had traveled so far just to only keep the juice?  

Mobile phone photos of juice, and one from the camera of the kale. Notes below from my facebook posts.

UL: I was trying to keep the kale happy by keeping it in a glass of water in the fridge 

UR: August 28, Carrot apple kale celery lemon

LL:  September 3, Two oranges, one lime, three apples, good handful of kale, blob of ginger, three carrots 

LR: September 2; Very pretty, but one beet overpowers all the other flavors! Maybe I won't be incorporating beets into my regular juicing trials...I have been making enough for two servings each time, so this is half. Again saved the carrot pulp, and this time the beet to make cake, I wonder if it will be purple when mixed into the batter? The carrot cake was a big success at work.

There is a hint of my baking fail in the notes from September 2. See how I tried saving the beet pulp with the carrot pulp? We will save that story for the next post!  

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What recipes have you tried recently? 

Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

August Recipe Roundup

August Recipe Roundup, some to consider, some tried!

First up the recipes I've collected throughout the month:

Strawberry Lemonade Cookies  Back For Seconds

Yummiest Zucchini Muffin Recipe  Dollar Store Mom

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles   Pennies on a Platter

Banana, Walnut & Chocolate Cookie Cake   Joy the Baker

Jello Cookies   I Heart Nap Time

My Favorite Brownies  Smitten Kitchen 

Hash Brown Waffles  Tea & Cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars  Greta White via The Girl Who Ate Everything

Double Chocolate Cherry Muffins  Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Bacon Corn Hash  Smitten Kitchen

A few months ago I mentioned wanting a Bundt Cake pan....well I got one, from a thrift store on the first try! We dropped some donations off and browsed a bit, finding some treasures!

Wow, NordicWare and everything? At $4.99 I was thrilled. Now comparing it to new it may not have been the amazing deal I thought it was, but still a great deal for being pristine on the inside, and in my hands.

The next night, I tried it for the first time...

BUNDT PAN SUCCESS! I made a banana apple bread as my first bundt experiment (based on this Smitten Kitchen recipe, adding a chopped apple). Yum. My mom gave me a box of steel cut oats, and I added some; a little too crunchy (maybe I should cook them before adding next time?)

Next Bundt experiment...later in the week was my second try - 3 bananas, 1 apple, and measured less even that last time (A little throw-and-go? Why do I pretend I know what I am doing?) added more flour in the end and baking soda to even out (?) the extra flour, which I added since it was very wet, and the last one ended up with a wet bottom (top, since it was flipped). Rather than trying to use paper towels and plastic wrap to get the brown sugar happier, I added water; Wow look a hot slurry from the microwave! Why did the surprise me? I dumped it in anyway. With the same measuring cup, I added the steel-cut oats and water and back into the microwave, they were a little -too- crunchy last time for my taste. It helped a lot, and the leftover brown sugar slurry sweetened them enough that I was eating the rest out of the measuring cup. I added some regular oats as well - tossing in a handful. I was successful in making a drier bread, but may have overcooked it at 40 minutes at 350 - powdered sugar and a bit of water made a topping that I practiced making a pretty pattern.

For my third Bundt experiment, wait, this has a whole other story! Since I'm not the most consistent blogger, I'll start a new post to share, and try to get some more content up here. ^^

What recipes have you tried recently? 

Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

July Potential Recipe Roundup

So this time I started this post as soon as I saw I had a few recipes waiting to be added; it seems to have gone well, except the darn formatting fight! I find I go back and forth from the "Compose" to the "HTML" screen more than I should...

I made banana-flop muffins. That means the rose beautifully and then FLOPPED when I brought them out of the oven. Sometimes you can't throw-and-go with a recipe (or mish-mash of recipes); or I need to not add more bananas just to use them up. Edible, I took them to the office and they would have all been eaten had someone not put the container back onto my desk; a sign, I incorrectly assumed, that they were no longer good. It turned out a hour later someone was asking if there were any left, after I had pitched the last half-dozen, oops. 

On the success side, I made beans and rice. Yes it sounds silly to have never made it before, but I took time to look up a Chili's clone because I LOVE their beans and rice. The clones I found were super simple, so I took a few and made something that turned out GOOD and CHEAP. I sauteed half of a diced onion until translucent and starting to brown, and dumped in a can of black beans (Go GOYA! - my favorite) and then started adding spices and garlic and cooking it to reduce the bean liquid and make them softer. I ended up making it too spicy for my taste, but J thought it was great. I made quick brown rice and a bag of corn, and now can boast a meat-free pantry meal as part of my potential rotation. Just next time I will taste as I go a bit more (as opposed to NOT AT ALL) so I can make it a teensy bit more mild. Can of beans, cup of rice, can or bag of corn, spices/onion on hand = way cheaper than going out. If I could add one meal like this a month to my mental rotation, it would save us a lot of money eating at home and having lunches to take to work. 

I also picked up a bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp at Aldi (OMG why is shrimp so expensive, I thought it was supposed to be cheap? Aldi had the best deal I had seen.) I was starving late one night, but ended up being lazy and saying "Let's just eat here" - J made an omelet and I made a bowl of pasta with a few shrimp and a fake fancy sauce; margarine, garlic, Parmesan cheese (aka 'shakey cheese' - processed stuff in a shaker-can). The pasta was udon noodles, which were bundled in the pack into perfect portion-sized servings. Tasted great, but I did need to rebrush my teeth from the gaaahlic. Something I can make in bulk and pack for a work lunch? Not unless I bring some mouthwash. ;)
Onto the delightful looking recipes!

Chocolate Mint Brownie Bites  The Pioneer Woman 

Zucchini Pineapple Bread  Brown Eyes Baker

Honeyed Peaches  The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

Cappuccino Bars   Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls   Joy the Baker

The Amazing Incredible Broccoli Surprise Sauce  Tea & Cookies

Cinnamon Roll Waffles with Cream Cheese Syrup  Lady Behind the Curtain

Breakfast Nachos  Joy the Baker

Waffle Brownies  Tea & Cookies

Classic Icebox Cake   Serious Eats

Tarragon Corn Chowder  Simply Recipes 

Zucchini Tots  The Curious Country Cook

Crockpot Strawberry Jam  The Lady Wolf

Beer Batter Bread*  Epicurious

*We bought some beer; lemon shandy...I am not a beer drinker, so I am trying to cook with it.

Beer Batter Bread Round 1; I find I don't taste the lemon in the beer nor in the bread. I used 2/3 wheat flour, and added some extra sweetner (no-calorie stevia based). Sifted in the baking powder since it was getting to the end of the container, age unknown. Maybe I will like it more when it has cooled more? I was on my third piece of deciding if I did or did not like it that I cut it up and took it to work; I got some nice feedback!

Round 2; Nice enough feedback from the first Round that I tried it a second time; still half-wheat-half-white, extra tablespoon of -sugar-sugar, added some cinnamon, ginger, and a teensy bit of nutmeg. Better to enjoy on its own, still didn't rise much. I blamed that it was the last of the baking powder. Taste was much better for enjoying on its own.

Round 3; Took a bread pan and a can of the ale to my mother's. This time the beer was room temperature (maybe it didn't rise to being awesome last times because it was cold?) and I used her dry ingredients. Same as first try; a dense yeasty product that is a great vehicle for bringing a spread (jam, apple butter, peanut butter, etc.) to your mouth. Probably not something I will try again unless at some point I am in possession of an unopened beer that I have no desire to even try.
  

Not -too- bad looking, right?

What recipes have you tried recently?
Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

June Potential Recipe Roundup

Apple, banana, strawberry yogurt,
coconut, oatmeal...

I feel like June flew by, just as I was used to writing/typing the digit '6' for the month... I didn't make any new recipes to share, but I did make some everything muffins cobbling together a few muffin recipes in my print-out binder to match what I had. They were very well received at the office, something that always makes me feel good! See, in some cases I do well with throw-together baking; I guess that means I am learning?

As far as cooking basics, I did learn how to cook fresh green beans in the microwave. Sometimes basic things slip away from your mind; I'm sure as a kid we cooked and ate fresh green beans at least on occasion! Trim the beans, add a little water to a Corningware dish, season, add butter/margarine if desired, nuke for 5 minutes, check for level of doneness. Spellcheck thinks I am making stuff up with the word "doneness" (ironically, also the word "spellcheck".) 

This time I am creating this post using a copy-paste method from last month's post; keeping the same formatting can be frustrating, but I think this method is moving the creation of this monthly post into less of a chore.

Breakfast Pasta Bake   Kayotic Kitchen

Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix   Joy the Baker

Super Easy and Delicious Zucchini Butter   The Kitchn

Chocolate Zucchini Bread   Simply Recipes

Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans  Real Simple

Crispy Potatoes with Green Beans & Eggs   EatingWell

Mini Pretzel Dogs  Joy the Baker

Broccoli Parmesan Fritters  Smitten Kitchen

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip + Bacon Cookies  Foodbuzz

Ginger Walnut Chocolate Blondies  Joy the Baker

What recipes have you tried recently? Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

April/May Potential Recipe Roundup

I was running behind with adding my April Roudup, so I decided to wait a bit and make it cover the two months. I finally was able to get myself to save the links as I came across them as bookmarks, rather than have them sit in my Reader queue and potentially expire. Next step? To make a draft post and add them to that as I go!

White Bean Bundt Cake  Joy the Baker

Awesome Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies   Simply Recipes

Homemade Honey Lollipops   The Chick n' Coop  

Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cake   Little Birdie Secrets 

S'more Cups   Texas Cottage 

Coffee Coffee Cake Muffins   Joy the Baker

The very best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever   Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies with Creamy Peanut Butter Filling   Joy the Baker

Coconut Chocolate Macaroon Bars  Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Strawberry Lemonade Shortcake   Little Birdie Secrets 

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Cookies*   Scrumdillydilly

* tried this one - yumm! Definitely take some extra time to chill it in the fridge, because SUPER STICKY is not an exaggeration. I am going to make it again without the chips so it can be lactose-free (Richfood brand cake mixes contain no milk, and using lactose-free milk as the liquid.) 

What recipes have you tried recently? If you click a few of these, you may notice I haven't tried any that involve a Bundt pan - I don't have one! I'm also not willing to spend a lot to get ONE MORE THING to fit into the kitchen, so I am on the lookout for something inexpensive. Maybe one that looks nice enough to hang?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

Have you ever tried tadpoles?

We were at our friends' place the other week; they have a Breville juicer and are enjoying juicing green smoothies for weight loss and overall health factors. I tried some of one - all I tasted was the cucumber...and I like cucumber! It was a mix of kale, celery, cucumber, green apple, ginger and lemon (in case I want to remember the recipe someday).

We're not ready to invest in one or in the veggies required, but definitely a great inspiration. They were also saving the veggie pulp and making their own crackers; all I tasted was the kale (aka GRASS FLAVOR) so I wasn't into them, but I was told they are great with hummus!

Other things I managed to try that night included squash soup (Too much curry! Arg! I'm such a wuss with spice!) and what turned out to be my favorite, chia seeds!

But they have a little story (doesn't everything with me?)...our friend asked me if I had ever had chia seeds, and then took out a giant jar from the fridge. I'm still mentally stuck on the seed idea, and thinking of a dry good - then he asked if I had ever had tadpoles... WHAT. He poured a small glass, but after the tadpole comment, I was laughing and disgusted all at the same time and almost couldn't even try them. I managed to have a sip, and HEY THIS IS LIKE A FUN DESSERT. They had added some home-grown ground stevia (!!) so it was a slightly-sweet drink, just only palatable in small sips for me (OH NOES THE TEXTURE). I'm odd with textures of some foods like that.

Now I want to get my own chia seeds and add them to my diet as something to hold me over while at the office in liquid-y form and trying to graze ALL THE TIME. I know it is a stress and boredom reaction; I am usually fine when we are busy or at home with watching what volume of calories I consume. I read up on them and you can add them as a crunchy topping, or hydrate them into a slurry-like drink; they form a gel around the seed that makes it possible to 'drink' them, in the same way one 'drinks' jell-o - it isn't a pure liquid but your ingest it like it is one. You know, the gel you make when you apply the weeds to the terra cotta surface of a chia pet...yes I ate your chia pet seeds.

We are golden AND delicious. 

I also made bread! This was before the chia adventure but along the same lines... English Muffin Bread! The original recipe makes four loaves but was fine to be cut in half to make two. I used yeast-in-a-jar that I apparently bought thinking I would be THE BREAD MASTER OF MAKING BREAD but only used once; I had to follow the manufacturer's directions on the container to make sure it was alive. I did this BEFORE adding any of the flour, just in case it was dead; dead-yeast-sugar-water is easier to throw out than 5.5-cups-of-flour-plus-dead-yeast-sugar-water.

How did it taste? Great! It was a success. The taste this recipe emulates isn't the Thomas' muffins we are used to - it is a fresh muffin taste; have you ever gotten English Muffins from the refrigerated section? This makes bread that tastes like those, only much easier on your wallet (5 ingredients!)

I tried freezing some pre-cut slices, but they don't reheat to their original glory easily. I found they need to be microwaved AND toasted. It doesn't mean I'm not eating the frozen pieces though, and I would definitely use this recipe again.

March Recipe Roundup

Totally gonna add a “Recipe Roundup” tag, since this is the third group – it can be a theme! Monthly I have to clear out the Reader stuff I have been hording in the area of recipes!

Homemade Graham Crackers Little Birdie Secrets

Crunchy Chicken Stuffed Waffle Pops and Maple Dijon Dip Snappy Gourmet

Braided Spaghetti Bread Rhodes Bake-n-Serv

Shepherd’s Pie with Cheddar-Spiked Mashed Potatoes Fine Cooking

Potato Chip Cookies Smitten Kitchen

Super Quick Homemade Mac and Cheese Tried & True

Colcannon Simply Recipes*

* tried this, twice! It is awesome with a few slices of cooper sharp cheese in the mixer when mashing the potatoes – made a second batch since I inhaled the first and added ham bits (I should have gone with the first amount of ham I added, now it has too much, but still yummy). I didn’t really follow the recipe as it states, just took the idea of making mashed potatoes, and adding sautéed cabbage and onion. Great to help add veggies to my diet and not be eating a BIG blog of starch as just mashed potatoes. I Didn’t bother peeling the potatoes either time since I knew the cabbage would add texture.

What food have you tried recently? I have a whole upcoming post about the different foods I tried at a friends’!


Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

Pizza!

Lets play a little good idea/bad idea!

When making pizza at home for the first time...

Good idea; Taking time to roll out the dough on a floured counter top for a nice, even shape.
Bad Idea; trying to roll the dough with the rolling pin while on the pan which has a lip.

Good idea; using the lip of the pan to help hold the dough to the edges, no shrinkage!
Bad idea; not closely monitoring how far over that dough is going, and allowing it to cook around the lip into an inedible pan-man shape.

Good idea; Pre-shredded mozzarella cheese, on sale.
Bad idea; two bags are unnecessary.

Good idea; chopping your own ham from the fridge.
Bad idea; not adding enough ham to balance with the cheese (boo!)

Good idea; adding fresh onion in super-thin slivers to only one half to meet both diner's needs.
Bad idea; finding out the second party likes them on there sliced super-duper thin, and now they're only one one side.

Good ideas in general (no sillies this time): getting pre-made dough from the grocery store to save time and energy, jarred sauce that has the more "authentic" looking label (tasted great, sorry Ragu your lost out to old-world Italian looking font, colors, and images) [not to self, write down the brand], feel free to use the whole jar, the whole-wheat dough tasted great so stick with it.

Other ideas for the future - what does it take to diy pizza dough? Too much planning? Is it easier to get the stuff Giant makes fresh for two bucks rather than make your own the night before? What other home toppings would be great that are easy for us to work with (meaning we normally buy) besides ham, pineapple, ground turkey with taco seasoning, taco-seasoned cheese, etc.?

I'd say a success, and the other pieces should reheat well in the oven. Cheaper than ordering out, even though it was home-assembled from store-bought components.

Other grocery/food success this week? Found teeny pre-made steak-burgers on manager's special - we don't eat red meat too often so getting a taste of a burger was like OM NOM NOM. I took them and some scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese and made breakfast burritos. AWESOME TASTING. Cabbage was $.25/lb for St. Patrick's Day, so I got one even though I made halushki last week. Heard from a coworker about making cabbage with mashed potatoes and bacon; wonder if I can crumble a steak burger in rather than bacon? Still sounds good, to me at least!

What have you been enjoying cooking or eating?

2012 Potential Recipe Roundup

Time for another Recipe Roundup, as I keep saving these ideas for later in my Google Reader, but not quite to the point of printing them out! I actually had my Reader list down to nothing for the New Year, so I am trying to keep it manageable, and not lose any good ideas because they time-out (posts over a month[?] old get purges from your list automatically, else you would be perpetually reading until the beginning of time of your blogs)

Bite-Sized Baked Brie

Bierocks from Scratch

Toasted Coconut Clusters

Egg McMuffins for Home Skillets

Green Pea Pesto Ravioli

Previous Recipe Roundup links here

Foods I want to make

aka ‘Potential Recipe Roundup’!

Food, I think I love you.

Yes I do really like food, and cooking, and making something AWESOME…but…

But I need practice.

You see there are times when it is easier to go out and get what I want from someone else’s hands – eating establishment, pre-made, frozen. I also have to contend with the understanding that my tastes do not always have the prefect alignment with my other half, which can leave me frustrated, and with too many servings!

Regardless, I keep getting my head full of ideas of recipes I want to try….and maybe having them in little posts will be easier than printing them and losing them in a folder in the kitchen.

Baked Potato Potato Salad

Make Your Own Ice Cream Cones

Homemade Ricotta

Coconut Cream Cheese Cookies

World’s Easiest Chocolate Pudding

YUM.

Deep Thoughts

Crap, can’t remember, was that from SNL?

So why is my deodorant made in Mexico? Oh well I had an argument about that but then when I went to type it I was like…”Oh, well, why not?”

I made these again (almond), and they still taste burnt. I guess I should try it next time in a pan like the recipe says, rather than a pot…hey I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want teeny tiny candy splatters everywhere! Wait, I looked at the original post and those don’t have skins, and both times my nuts had skins. Maybe that is what is burning. My nuts. Crap here comes the link. Thanks Vince. (and crap there were too many to choose from)

Still Thirsty.

Am I blogging? Like a normal blogger? With updates that aren’t months apart? I blame Regretsy. *waves and hollers* HI MY NEW FRIENDS!

Yes my blog readership has doubled. I blame Jackie. But if I typed Jackie-O, everyone else reading would assume I meant something totally different. And my blame I meant YAY.

I think this updates was inspired by The Blogess. She makes things awesome though, so it is all good.

WHY IS THERE NO FOOD IN FRONT OF ME. Well shit that one is my own fault, I forgot to do something other than take the lid off and leave it on the counter.

That was the hungry voice.

This was supposed to be left open and filled in throughout the day, but it kept flowing, so we’re going to go with it.

I feel simultaneously smart and idiotic. NO no, in this moment I mean, different than that feeling throughout the day. I just found that what blogger calls tags, LiveWriter calls Categories and THERE IS A BAR RIGHT IN THS FRAME for me to edit them. Fail in paying attention.

Water makes me thirsty

Water is making me thirsty.
I am trying to jam a much as I can down my throat in order to feel better – because I AM SICK AND TIRED OF FEELING SICK AND TIRED.
And I was inspired by this post from Crunchy Betty:

Slip It In For Beautiful Skin: Drink Water When You Wake Up

So today is my second day of guzzling extra water, and I am freaking thirsty. Also I had tuna melts for lunch/dinner and water doesn’t fix the after taste. Not that I haven’t been trying to cut my sugar-drink consumption (other half switched to diet and I would rather drink city chlorinated water from the tap than that) anyway, but this has been water only. I may have to mix up some gatorade though, as just rambling about it is making me even more thirsty and I just had a big glass of water.
Yup, blogging about water. I will say it makes you thankful you can have such a thing to complain about, and such an outlet to do so it! So there’s something positive… yup one of those grumpy days around here. 

We have Banana Bread!

Sometimes plans around here don't fall into place; especially in the kitchen. I saved and shared a link to a Brown Sugar Banana Bread the other day through Google Reader - I have sad bananas in the 'fridge, I can make this! Wait until I have some time on Tuesday, it'll be great!

So I sat down and better inspected the recipe Tuesday morning (ahem, er, afternoon - hey what else are days off for??) and realized I didn't have a few of the ingredients listed, or had substitutions on hand... so off I went to find a better idea for the scary bananas that were dangerously close to being sent to the dumpster. They were getting ugh-lee. And, no you can't peel and freeze them - er well you kinda can, but you need to plan better, as the last time I made a container of banana mush, froze it, I forgot about it after putting it back into the 'fridge, and well, it got nasty.

First and final stop by to smitten kitchen, where I knew I had found a great recipe for apple muffins previously. I found her jacked-up banana bread as the first search result, and I had all the ingredients! Well, in theory anyway, things around our house always have some minor alterations when it comes to baking. Like old bananas that look terrible but turn out to still be hard because you didn't know you weren't supposed to store them in the fridge. Pfft, I like cold partially green bananas, so it seemed like a great idea. If you haven't experienced this before, the peels turn a nasty brown color long before the inside turns to mush under refrigeration.

Then there was the rest of the kitchen adventure; since this is a new blog you'll have to know that no matter what project I take on in the kitchen, it turned into an adventure - if I had a cooking show it would be called OH S*^# - in the kitchen because no matter the project, I say that at least once. Today was giving myself an impromptu manicure with a new knife (GINSU!) that I love, but keep trimming my nails. No there were no escaped parts that will be crunchy bites, eew. The other event was the minor spilling of the last ingredient on the counter, floor, and myself in a small amount - flour.

One-Bowl Banana & Apple Bread
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen's jacked-up banana bread)

3 to 4 ripe bananas, peeled and smashed
1 to 2 small apples, peeled, cored, and chopped in size to your liking (I like teeny, but that's me)
1/3 cup melted salted margarine/butter (I added a pinch of salt, mine was Fleishman's unsalted margarine so my bread would be lactose-free)
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten (I didn't pre-beat my egg, which made this a one-bowl mess)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cup of flour

• Preheat the oven to 350°F.
• With a wooden spoon - or hand mixer in case your bananas aren't ready to be wooden spoon mixed - mix melted butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.
• Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla - then the spices.
• Sprinkle the baking soda over the mixture and mix in.
• Add the flour, and mix!
• Pour mixture into a buttered (or sprayed, I found baking oil spray with flour worked great) 4×8 inch loaf pan - your call on material, I used one of those silicon ones because that's what we've got!
• Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack or on top of the stove and marvel at how great the kitchen smells.
• Remove from pan and slice to serve. Or stand over the stove and enjoy while still warm, dropping half a slice onto the counter - good thing you just cleaned it from spilling flour.

This also has potential for some great muffins too! I just happened to be too lazy to partition the batter into lined muffin tins today. I'd bake 'em for 25 minutes at the same temperature, and keep checking with the clean-poke-to-the-interior-with-a-sharp-object test. Ohh another great option? Sprinkle the top with extra brown or raw sugar for a little crunch on the crust before baking.

(Oops, this sat lonely in my LiveWriter since June, argg!)

Cupcakes, kitchen adventures, and something new!

The piping bag...
Originally uploaded by rengawk

The piping bag, he and I are once again friends.

We didn't speak for a long time.

It was over a silly incident where I tried to pipe out deviled egg filling that included chopped black olives. Many swears were shared. The eggs eventually turned out tasting great, but were not too pretty.

These cupcakes were made in belated birthday celebration for saibotjr. I was so pleased with the ease and simplicity of piping the icing on, I had to share.

And welcome to my new blog! I hope to share all the fun projects that come together around here, hopefully even with pictures!