apologies and promises

I have NOT forgotten about this blog. I have not been cooking much, or at least not anything real special, because I have

• started a new job (Yay!! but the stress that comes along with that has made me not what to be in the kitchen)
• been sick for about a week (not much of an apetite)
• have discovered how awesome Jimmy Johns subs are, and have been eating there at least every other day.

I have a cupcake recipe I used a few days ago, which I'll be writing up for a post. So...entries are coming!!

Chocolate and Almond Cake with Chocolate-Butter Icing

I attempted this cake because a friend had made it, and I thought the recipe was interesting, and I wanted to try it. Also, this is the first Julia Child recipe I've ever attempted!

THE CAKE:

The Ingredients:

• 4 ounces or squares semisweet chocolate , melted
• 2 Tbsp. rum or coffee
• 1/4 pound or 1 stick softened butter
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar to mix with butter
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 egg whites
• Pinch of salt
• 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar to beat with egg whites
• 1/3 cup pulverized almonds
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract
• 1/2 cup cake flour , scooped and leveled, turned into a sifter
• Chocolate-Butter Icing

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour the cake pan. (I used a square pan because that is what I have, but the recipe recommend a round one.) Set the chocolate and rum or coffee (I used coffee) in a small pan, cover, and place (off heat) in a larger pan of almost simmering water; let melt while you proceed with the recipe. Measure out the rest of the ingredients.

Cream the butter and 2/3 cup of sugar together for several minutes until they form a pale yellow, fluffy mixture. Beat in the egg yolks until well blended.

Beat the egg whites and salt in a separate bowl until soft peaks are formed; sprinkle 1 Tbsp. sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed.

With a rubber spatula, blend the melted chocolate into the butter and sugar mixture, then stir in the almonds, and almond extract. Immediately stir in one fourth of the beaten egg whites to lighten the batter. Delicately fold in a third of the remaining whites and when partially blended, sift on one third of the flour and continue folding. Alternate rapidly with more egg whites and more flour until all egg whites and flour are incorporated.

Turn the batter into the cake pan, pushing the batter up to its rim with a rubber spatula. Bake in middle level of preheated oven for about 25 ·minutes. Cake is done when it has puffed, and 2 1/2 to 3 inches around the circumference are set so that a needle plunged into that area comes out clean; the center should move slightly if the pan is shaken, and a needle comes out oily.

Allow cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan, and reverse cake on the rack. Allow it to cool for an hour or two; it must be thoroughly cold if it is to be iced.

To serve: Use the Chocolate-Butter Icing , and press a design of almonds over the icing.

THE ICING:

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces (2 squares) semisweet baking chocolate
• 2 Tbsp. rum or coffee
• 5 to 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Directions:

Place the chocolate and rum or coffee in the small pan, cover and set in the larger pan of almost simmering water. Remove pans from heat and let chocolate melt for 5 minutes or so, until perfectly smooth. Lift chocolate pan out of the hot water, and beat in the butter a tablespoon at a time. Then beat over the ice and water until chocolate mixture has cooled to spreading consistency. At once spread it over your cake with spatula or knife.

YAY OR NAY?

Since there wasn’t any added sugar in the icing, I thought it tasted like a buttered piece of chocolate cake. This was good, but not worth the effort, in my opinion. Fun to make though!

I completely forgot to add the almonds to the cake until half of it was gone! :)

So, I bought way too much baking chocolate chocolate when I went shopping for ingredients. Anyone have a good recipe I can use it in?

Apple Mushroom Chicken

This is one of my absolute favorites!! I just love this recipe! The point of blogging my cooking experiences was to try NEW things and see how they work out, but I just had to share this one. I got it from The Healthy College Cookbook which is my FAVORITE cookbook I own!

Now, this Apple Mushroom Chicken is the EPITOME of quick and easy!

THE INGREDIENTS

(okay, so I forgot to take a picture of the olive oil...you know what that looks like!)

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 cup applesauce (note: I used cinnamon once and it was not very tasty. I recommend just plain applesauce.)
• 8 medium mushrooms, sliced (again, I still have those mushrooms that were already sliced, from when I made the pot pie wedges, so I used those and estimated 8 mushrooms worth)
• salt and pepper to taste

THE CHICKEN

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook until browned lightly on both sides.
3. Place the browned chicken in a casserole dish and cover evenly with applesauce. Sprinkle with salt, cover, and bake for 25 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms to the casserole dish. Cover (if your casserole dish doesn't have a cover, use aluminum foil!) and bake for 10 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper.

YAY OR NAY?

Yay yay yay!! This recipe is AWESOME and turned out great, as usual! I served it over brown rice and made some green beans to go with.

Chicken Fried Steak and Okra

Saturday found me feeling incredibly homesick and lonely. So, I thought some comfort food would be in order. I dug up this recipe in my Taste of Home: Dinner on a Dime cookbook.

THE INGREDIENTS (I forgot to take a picture!)

Steaks:

• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup crushed saltines (I crushed them by putting the crackers in a Ziploc bag and then rolling a rolling pin over it. No mess!)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of pepper
• 4 beef cube steaks (1 pound)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Gravy:

I totally cheated and bought a packet of gravy mix. I feel like Sandra Lee, doin' it Semi-Homemade! I do not have a coordinating table setting and party favors though... The cook book has a recipe for gravy involving cream of mushroom soup, but I just wanted the stuff you mix with water and go.

THE STEAKS

1. Place buttermilk and saltine crumbs in separate shallow bowls. In another bowl, combine flour, salt and pepper. Coat cube steaks with flour mixture, then dip in milk and roll in saltine crumbs.
2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook steaks in oil for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden and no longer pink. Remove and keep warm. Serve with gravy.

OKRA

I used frozen breaded okra, just had to throw it in a pan!

YAY OR NAY?

Pretty good and pretty easy! Made me feel like I was in the south again. :) I even had it with (un)sweet tea! (I'm sorry, revoke my Mississippi birth certificate if needed, but I just can't drink sweet tea!)

Beef Potpie Wedges

Also could be title "Rachael Ray, I ain't!"

I just love Rachael Ray, (even though she spells her name wrong!) but I can't say I always love her recipes. Most of them just don't interest me. I am a subscriber to her magazine, and have a few of her cook books, but this is actually the first recipe of hers I've ever followed. (The cook books were gifts, and her magazine is full of great restaurant reviews and home entertaining ideas, which is part of the reason I love it!)

This is the recipe, as it appeared in the March 2010 issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray. My variations will be in bold!

Ingredients

-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
-One 2/3-pound piece skirt steak or flat-iron steak, thinly slice on an angle and cut in to pieces
-2 tablespoons butter
-8 white mushroom caps, slice (I bought already sliced mushrooms, so I had to approximate 8 caps)
-1 small onion, finely chopped
-1 clove garlic, finely chopped
-1 tablespoon flour
-1/2 cup beef stock
-1/2 frozen peas (I don't like peas. I used corn.)
-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
-Salt and pepper
-1 package (2 pieces) prepared piecrust (I had bought pie crust you mix up yourself, because it was cheaper.)
- egg, lightly beaten

THE WEDGES

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. In a medium skillet, heat the EVOO over medium-high heat. Add the steak and cook until browned, 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Add the butter to the skillet to melt, then add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the beef stock, peas and Worcestershire sauce. Return the meat to the pan and cook until the sauce thickens and the peas heat through, 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper; remove from the heat.

2. Unroll the piecrusts and halve them. Divide the cooled meat among the 4 piecrust pieces, placing a mound on 1 side of each piece and leaving a small border. Brush the edges of each piecrust piece with some of the egg. Fold the pastry over to enclose the filling, pressing down on the edges; crimp with a fork. Brush the tops of the dough with more of the egg and transfer the pies to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until golden-brown, about 10 minutes.

YAY OR NAY?

Well. Mine are definitely not magazine-worthy. Instead of making 4 wedges I tried to just make two big ones. That was a great idea until I had to move them to the pan. One of them just became a huge mess...I don't even want to talk about that one. The other one looked okay...

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should mention that, although this is a "30 minute meal", I don't have Rach's kitchen or experience, so, from preheating oven to being on the table, it took me about 45 minutes, and I had a helper in the kitchen. She says to cook in the oven for 10 minutes, but mine took . (this may be a high altitude thing...)

My finished product made me very sad. My wedges tasted GREAT, but were heck to put together. My mistake was the pie crust I had to prepare myself. Dough is sticky and messy and hard to move from prep table to pan and I doubt I will ever make them again, but if I do, I will definitely buy ready-to-go crust.

Smashed Finger Special

So, I had a beef pot pie recipe planned, but last night I shut my finger in my car door (it's so gross...) and have a useless right hand, so here's what's for dinner tonight!

Slow Cooker Honey BBQ Ribs and Roasted Corn

So, hey, remember when I said I look at cookbooks and then don't follow the recipe quite all the way? This is one of those times. This recipe was heavily inspired by something in a cook book, but I changed a good bit, based on what I had and what I wanted on my ribs. I pretty much just used the liquid proportions for the sauce as a guide and used what I wanted.

I am not much of a pork eater (something I blame on a graphic picture of a Trichinosis round worm in my 9th grade biology book), but I have just been CRAVING ribs, so these had to happen. (and had to be fully cooked.)

THE RIBS
Ingredients:

-10 oz. beef broth

-1/2 cup water
-3 tablespoons soy sauce (I'd advocate anyone who wanted to use teriyaki sauce, I think it'd be great with the other sweet flavors!)
-2 tablespoons honey
-2 tablespoons maple syrup
-2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
-half a teaspoon of garlic powder
-2 lbs of pork ribs (I used boneless, but use what you want/have)

1. Combine broth, water, honey, soy sauce, syrup, barbecue sauce, and garlic powder in a bowl and mix.
2. Broil, on low, ribs for 10 minutes. This gives them a "crust" (like searing a steak) and will insure they don't get too soft in the slow cooker.

3. Place ribs in bottom of slow cooker (By the way, I use Reynolds slow cooker liners, because I hate cleaning, and I especially hate scrubbing.) and pour broth mixture over them.

4. Cover, cook on low for 4 hours. (They will not be done after 4 hours, but that is when you'll add the corn.)

I should mention at this point that I have a 4 quart Rival Crock Pot. I could have easily doubled this recipe in my 4 quart, so if you're feeding more people than 2 lbs of ribs will feed, go for it!

THE CORN

Super, super easy. I used frozen corn cobs. Use as many as you want/as many as will fit in your slow cooker. Wrap individually in foil (I rubbed butter, salt, and pepper over the cobs.) and place right on top of ribs. Turn your slow cooker up to HIGH and cook for 2 more hours.

YAY OR NAY?

Well received by all who ate! I like to do slow cooker meals on Tuesdays so that nothing interrupts my Lost viewing experience. :) I ate my ribs with a good bit of the honey BBQ sauce I had.

I served these with a couple of Pillsbury "single serve" frozen biscuits. The recipe, as I followed it, served two hungry people with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. With another side (okra...green salad...), it easily could have fed 4 people.