Spiced Walnut Pancakes 10.1

I was going to make banana pancakes with walnuts for dinner one night, but somehow I remembered everything except the bananas when I was grocery shopping. So, I played around with spices instead. I really liked them! They had a very Fallish/Wintery flavor.

Note: This recipe makes  A LOT of pancakes, so unless you love pancake leftovers like me, you might want to reduce the amount of Bisquick to 2 C. If you go down to 1 C of Bisquick, I’d suggest only using 1 egg.

Spiced Walnut Pancakes

Spiced Walnut Pancakes

Ingredients: 3 C Bisquick, 2 eggs, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, 1 C walnuts

1. Mix Bisquick, milk, and eggs until the batter is not runny, but thin enough to pour off of the spoon.
2. Add walnuts to your liking.
3. Add cinnamon and nutmeg. I’d recommend adding a little at first and making a test pancake to taste it, since you might not like as much spice as me (I think I used about 1/4-1/2 t of each).
4. These don’t taste sweet since they balance the sweetness of pancake syrup, but if you’d like to eat them dry/make them into a dessert/whatever and you’d prefer they be sweet, I’d suggest adding some brown sugar to the batter.

Chocolate Raspberry Cookies 9.23

A friend made these a while back, and I loved them! So I thought I’d give them a try. More specifically, I thought I’d give them a try two months ago, and then I actually made them this week. :)

Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

See original recipe from Veganomicon

Notes:

• I don’t really have much to note here. I did exactly what the recipe said and they were great! The recipe was really easy, and a double batch fit on two cookie sheets. That’s it. Amazing.
• If anything, I’d say believe the recipe when it says you’ll need to do some kneading at the end. I never actually reached the point of having one giant mass of dough. It was more like lots of tiny bits of dough that I had to stick/roll/knead together into walnut-sized balls of dough to shape into cookies.

Mini Chicken Pot Pies 8.21

Knowing how much I love food, Corwin picked up a food-themed book for me in a hostel book exchange this summer. The book, Never Eat Your Heart Out, by Judith Moore, is the writer’s autobiography written in relation to memories of food throughout her life. After reading the first chapter, I was suddenly in the mood to make a pot pie (amazing since I’ve never felt the desire to make one before and I always pictured pot pies as bland food). So I decided to take a slightly easier and quicker route in making pot pie (although, it ended up being neither easy nor quick, mostly because I’d never made it before). Nonetheless, it was delicious, and disproved my assumption that pot pies are bland. And Corwin, who had never particularly liked pot pies before, loved it, too!

Mini Chicken Pot Pies

Mini Chicken Pot Pie

See original recipe from Allrecipes.com

Notes:

• I made “mini” pot pies by cooking the filling in a pan and the pastry tops in the oven, then filling ramekins with filling and placing a pastry on top. I steered clear of placing the ramekins in the oven to prevent scalding ourselves trying to dish the food out. This form also works very well for leftovers, as the bread doesn’t get soggy since you can store it separately in the refrigerator.
• I followed other allrecipes.com users’ advice and cooked the chicken in broth instead of water–rather, I added a couple chicken bouillon cubes to the cooking water.
• For lack of celery or celery seed, I added some celery salt instead.
• I added a can of sliced potatoes to the mixture.
• For the pastry topping, I took a couple cans of Pillsbury refrigerated roll-out pastry dough, cut each in fourths, and folded the corners of each of the eight dough rectangles inward to create ramekin-sized “pie” toppers, then baked them according to the cans’ instructions. Twice as many tops as servings of filling is a good proportion.

Beer Batter Tilapia, Fried Pickles, and Cheese Sticks 8.12

I had some Guinness leftover from the chocolate stout cake, so I thought I’d give beer-battered fish a try. And while I was at it, I fried some colby jack cheese and some pickle slices. The final products were delicious, but the process of cooking was a bit more complicated than expected, as the high temperatures resulted in massive amounts of smoke in my apartment and the melting of two of my spatulas. If I try this again, I’ll definitely need metal utensils and a different pan.

Beer Batter Tilapia, Fried Pickles, and Cheese Sticks

Beer Batter Tilapia, Fried Pickles, and Cheese Sticks

See original recipe on Allrecipes.com

Notes:

• I fried tilapia instead of cod. It went wonderfully with this recipe!
• I didn’t have pastry flour, but I did have some cake flour on hand, so I used that.
• I added a little extra beer to the batter.
• I didn’t have a deep fryer, but a deep pan with a thick layer of oil in the bottom works well. I suggest cooking this in a pan that you can use metal utensils with, as even melamine utensils started to melt in the hot oil.
• I fried several fish fillets, several sticks of cheese, and a few pickles, and I didn’t even use a quarter of the batter. If you can successfully scale down the quantities of the ingredients, you aren’t likely to need nearly as much batter as this recipe makes.

Sesame Green Beans and Sushi 8.9

Corwin and I got together with some friends to make sushi, and I thought I’d try out a new greenbean dish as a side. It was great! I only made a few changes to the recipe–check out the notes. Also, although I wasn’t around for the preparation of the sushi ingredients (i.e. the sticky rice), I thought I’d pass on what I learned about sushi-rolling. Note, I’m only including instructions for the rolls with seaweed on the outside, since I didn’t make any with rice on the outside.

Sushi-Rolling

from Jimmy and Cinnamon

Sushi!

1. Cover a sushi-rolling mat with plastic wrap.
2. Place a piece of dried seaweed on the sushi-rolling mat (make sure your hands are dry before touching the seaweed).
3. Wet your fingers with water.
4. Place a small chunk of sticky rice in the middle of the seaweed and, keeping fingers wet, spread the rice outward to the edges of the seaweed.
5. In a strip centered on the rice and parallel to the uncovered seaweed, place long strips of whatever you’d like to include in the roll (i.e. salmon, tuna, crab, tilapia, avocado, cucumber, mango, sauces and seasonings). When choosing how much filling to add, keep in mind you’ll have to roll the rice-covered seaweed around this.
6. Use your rolling mat to roll toward he strip of bare seaweed from the opposite side. Stop when you’ve almost reached the strip.
7. Gently tuck the mat around the roll and slightly under, applying firm, even pressure to make sure the roll is solid and even.
8. Wet the strip of bare seaweed, then finish rolling so the wetted strip seals to the seaweed on the outside of the roll.
9. Give the sealed seaweed edge a chance to dry before slicing the roll.

Japanese-Style Sesame Green Beans

Sesame Green Beans

See original recipe on Allrecipes.com

Notes:

• I used 2 T of sesame seeds because I didn’t think 1 T looked like enough.
• I didn’t have sesame oil, so I toasted the sesame seeds in the canola oil for a little bit before adding the green beans.
• We added a little sriracha sauce over the greenbeans (like a garnish) to give them a little kick. Taste a green bean with it before adding it and, if you do, don’t add very much and don’t mix it in. It looks good as a garnish. :)
• We actually had these cold (or rather, room temperature) since the sushi was cold, too. I’m sure they’d be good hot, but they were great cold!

Chocolate Stout Cake 8.5

I made Corwin’s favorite cake, chocolate stout cake, for his birthday. I had to be a little devious in getting the recipe from his mom, though, since I wanted it to be a surprise. ;) The cake was DELICIOUS, and my first successful cake to bake from scratch! The Guinness really brought out the chocolate flavor. Yum.

Chocolate Stout Cake

From Corwin’s Mom

Chocolate Stout Cake

Ingredients: 1 C stout (like Guinness), 1 C (2 sticks) butter, 3/4 C cocoa powder (like Hershey’s), 2 C all purpose flour, 2 C sugar, 1 1/2 t baking soda, 3/4 t salt, 2 large eggs, 3/4 C sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Oil and flour two 9 inch cake pans (cooking spray is recommended, but I’ve had bad luck with the spray, so I wiped the pans down with a paper towel coated with oil instead).
3. Bring stout and butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly. (it’s OK if it separates a little).
4. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl to blend.
5. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream together.
6. Add stout mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.
7. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on low speed until combined.
8. Divide batter between the 2 cake pans and cook for about 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
9. Cool completely before frosting.
10. Use 2 cans of milk chocolate frosting (Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are both good) to frost and fill the cake.

Mushroom Quesadillas 7.27

I like to eat tortillas as a snack, and thought I’d give wheat tortillas a try. I’ve had wheat tortillas I like before, but unfortunately, Mission’s wheat tortillas didn’t fall in that category. So I decided to make quesadillas to use the rest of the tortillas up. Having always made chicken quesadillas before, I decided to experiment with some ingredients I had on hand. They tasted great!

Mushroom Quesadillas

Mushroom Quesadillas

Ingredients: tortillas (flour or wheat), grated colby jack cheese, sliced mushrooms, butter, cumin

1. Sprinkle a thin layer  of cheese over the tortilla, leaving a little bit of a border around the edge (so the cheese won’t melt out of the quesadilla when you cook it–about 1 cm should be good).
2. Spread sliced mushrooms over the cheese (as much as you want).
3. Add another thin layer of cheese over the mushrooms.
4. Lightly sprinkle cumin over the mushrooms and cheese.
5. Lightly butter one side of a second tortilla, then place it (butter side up) on top of the mushrooms and cheese.
6. Lightly butter a frying pan over medium heat, then place the quesadilla (buttered tortilla on top) in the pan.
7. Flip the quesadilla when the bottom starts to brown.
8. Once both sides have browned, remove the quesadilla from the pan and let cool for a couple minutes before cutting (to prevent cheese oozing).

Variations: You can make mushroom swiss quesadillas by removing the cumin and using swiss cheese instead of colby jack. Make sure to keep the cheese layers thin, though, to prevent the cheese from overpowering the mushroom flavor. Also, some sliced fresh spinach could be layered with the mushroom and swiss.

Rosemary Foccacia Pizza 7.22

Since I had made foccacia, I decided to try out this foccacia pizza recipe. It was delicious! I tried to modify the recipe a little to make it more like a pizza I had at Mandola’s once, with disks of fresh mozzarella cheese. It didn’t end up tasting like their pizza (it’s been several months since I had it, so I don’t remember exactly what was on it), but it tasted delicious! And the fact that it was easy and quick to make was a huge plus. I’d definitely make this again.

Rosemary Foccacia Pizza

Rosemary Foccacia Pizza

See original recipe on epicurious.com.

Notes:

• I used a pre-made pizza sauce to make this recipe easier.
• The recipe isn’t clear about exactly how you cut the bread in half, but I cut the thickness of the bread in half to make a slightly thinner, more manageable pizza. I put the pizza sauce on the cut side.
• Disks of fresh mozzarella cheese work great on this! And it’s OK if you don’t cover the entire pizza with cheese.
• I added orange bell peppers and fresh sliced mushrooms for toppings, keeping things simple so I’d taste the cheese better.
• I left the pizza in the oven for a little over 10 minutes, until the cheese looked like it was beginning to lose its shape and melt a little.

Rosemary Foccacia 7.19

I’ve been hearing all about Italy from Corwin for the last two or three weeks, so I’ve started to crave Italian food. It’s been a while since I’ve had foccacia, so I thought I’d try to make it myself for once. Plus, I found a delicious-looking recipe for foccacia pizza that I thought I’d use with the leftover bread later in the week.

I found two recipes that were almost identical, except that one is vegan and the other includes cheese, and the vegan one uses sugar while the other uses honey. I decided to try the vegan recipe, but use honey in place of sugar.

This recipe was great! The bread was just the right flavor and consistency, except for the salt on top. Also, the bread reheats well after being refrigerated if you brush a little olive oil with rosemary mixed in over the top and heat it for about 10-15 min at 300°F.

Rosemary Foccacia

Homemade Rosemary Foccacia

See original recipe from Vegan A Go-Go.

Notes:

• I had to brush the salt off of my bread because the salt sprinkled over the top was a bit much. Perhaps if I had used kosher salt or sea salt (something with a larger, chunkier consistency), it wouldn’t have collected in the indentations quite as much. In any case, I thought the bread had enough flavor on its own, so I probably wouldn’t salt the top much, if at all, next time.
• Instead of drizzling olive oil over the top and sprinkling seasonings afterward, I’d recommend mixing the seasonings into the olive oil in a bowl and using a brush to brush the mixture over the bread. The spices didn’t stick to the top of my foccacia very well, but a friend said she’s had very good luck with the alternative I mentioned. The alternative definitely worked for reheating the bread.

Pain Perdu with Mint-Peach Topping and Vanilla Ice Cream 7.19

I had some leftover mint leaves from the Jamaican Jerk Chicken and Mango Salsa I make a week or two ago, so I thought I’d find a use for it before it went bad (I’m actually amazed it hadn’t already!). I ran across this recipe for pain perdu (a.k.a. french toast) online while looking for vanilla cake recipes, so I held onto it for using up the mint. I kept track of more exact quantities than the recipe gave, and I made a change or two, so I’m going to go ahead and post my version here.

Overall, this was a fairly easy recipe, and it tasted wonderful!

Pain Perdu with Mint-Peach Topping and Vanilla Ice Cream

Pain Perdu with Mint-Peach Topping and Vanilla Ice Cream

See original recipe from GroupRecipes.com

Ingredients: 4 slices of french bread (not the hard crusty kind), 4 eggs, 4 T powdered sugar, 6 T milk per slice of bread, 2 t vanilla extract, 1-1.5 peaches per slice of bread, 8 fresh mint leaves, vanilla ice cream, butter

1. Blend egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla.
2. Mix in milk in proportion to the number of slices of bread you plan to use.
3. Put about 1 T of butter (or however much you like to use when making french toast) in a pan over low heat.
4. Dip and briefly soak both sides of each slice of bread in the liquid mixture and cook in the buttered pan on both sides.
5. Peel, slice, and core the peaches, then fry them in a separate pan until they soften. Note: You might not need as many peaches as me if you use it as more of a garnish, but I liked having lots of fruit with my french toast.
6. Roll several slices of mint leaves and slice them into small pieces or strips.
7. Assemble a slice of french toast topped with peaches and sprinkled with mint leaves, and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top or on the side.