Bread Machine / Apple Cider

So the saddest thing happened on Friday... The belt on my bread machine is shredded and the company doesn't make them anymore so... Going to have to get a new one, but thats not going to happen for awhile so doing it by hand for awhile. Ugh.

In other news, I made homemade apple cider yesterday, and it is Delicious. I used granny smiths that were getting pretty soft. Here is the recipe:

• 8 -10 apples (I used 12 small granny smiths)
• 1/2-1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons cinnamon (or 4 cinnamon sticks)
• 4 tablespoons allspice

Directions:

     Quarter your apples (no need to remove peel or seeds). In a large stock pot add your apples and fill with water--just enough to cover the apples. Add your sugar. Wrap your cinnamon and allspice in a doubled up cheese cloth and tie, and add this to the apples and water. 

     Boil on high for one hour (uncovered) checking on it frequently. Turn down heat and let simmer for two hours (covered). Take off the heat after two hours of simmering and let cool. Remove spices and mash up the apples to a pulp like consistency (a potato masher works well for this). 

     Once cool pour into a strainer over a large bowl. (At this point you can either restrain the juice to get out the little bits of pulp that remain with a cheesecloth draped inside the strainer to catch them or just leave it like I do). You can store in an air tight container in your refrigerator for up to a week or you can freeze it for later use if you like.

And in even more news... still can't get my chocolate chip cookie right. Kinda frustrating, I just want a cookie... and idk how many more cookies I can't get Donnie to eat... he's going to explode at some point. lol

Bread Machine Garlic Parmesan Dinner Rolls

So in my house.. everything is better with garlic and parmesan. So I adapted this recipe by adding about 1 1/2 tbls granulated garlic, and about 2 tbls parmesan cheese. Definetly do the melted butter on the top at the end. I also usually only get 12 regular sized rolls out of this recipe, but nine makes them man-sized. BEST rolls I have ever made. They are so light and fluffy, and require so little hands-on time that I can make these even with the baby home.

Christmas Care Packages

So with my grandma now being mostly blind and confined in a wheel chair, I have officially taken over all the baking... EEKS.  So for the care packages we are looking at about 20 different items to put in them, thankfully some are truffles and fudge so they are easily frozen and can be made ahead of time. Yay! Only problem is I won't be getting most of the other ingredients until the 8th or 9th, so it will be an interesting week, because I am pretty sure I am supposed to have it all done by the next weekend.... hmm. Well they get what they get I suppose.

Anyway so far made:
Gingerbread Truffles
Trash Piles
Banana Chocolate truffles
and I had basic brownie truffles... but they all disappeared... hmm wonder where they went. lol

And I am currently on the search for my perfect chocolate chip cookie, and its not going so great. But I just got a scale, so hopefully that means that when I do find it, that it will be easy to replicate.

Apple Sugar cookies with caramel Frosting

 So I really really wanted some caramel apple cookies but... I had no caramel. And it was late and I didn't want to start from scratch so I started with a sugar cookie mix, added about 1 cup peeled chopped apples, 1-2 tsp cinnamon and cooked according to the package.

• Frosting
• 3/4  cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/4  cup margarine or butter, softened
• 1 1/4  cups powdered sugar
• 1/2  teaspoon vanilla
• 1  to 3 tablespoons milk

In small saucepan, combine 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup margarine. Cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Cool slightly. Stir in powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and enough milk for desired spreading consistency.* Frost cooled cookies.

My frosting dried kind of hard, not super great, I really should have added another tablespoon of milk. 

Sorry about the break

I moved back to Washington, had to live at my moms for a bit but now we are back in action! Living in our own apartment, still no internet for probably a couple months but... that's alright. Just doing the wi-fi hotspot thing with my phone.

Back on Topic

So right now I am in the process of testing out Cookie recipes to go in my grandmothers Christmas cookie care packages. Usually I make like 10 kinds of cookies, mostly from mixes, but I am trying to do it a little different this year, like... maybe from scratch? Anyway this means lots of cookie testing in the next few weeks. Eeks.

Starting off this week I made some Raspberry White Chocolate cookies. My brother came over and ate one...two... and took five in a tupperware. Then Donnie came home from work... and complained when I told him to leave two for my mom and grandma to taste test this weekend. So I guess these were a hit? lol.

Recipe:

18 cookies

1 pkg. "JIFFY" Raspberry Muffin Mix
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. margarine or butter, melted
1/4 c. Brown Sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease baking sheet.

Blend all ingredients well. Drop by teaspoon on prepared baking sheet. Bake 10-13 minutes. Remove from baking sheet after 1 minute.

Please ignore the apples in the corner, those are for the next cookies! 

Also I got this idea from http://buddingbaketress.blogspot.com/2011/10/white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake.html 

Meat Cake

Why yes... its a cake made out of meat. It was actually really yummy, although the sauce was a little too sweet for me, but maybe I just measured wrong.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/3uNRwo/www.slashfood.com/2008/08/18/the-best-grooms-cake-ever/

SourDough

So this is my newest venue, I have no idea what got me started but I am soooo into this. well this is where I got my starter recipe:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm
They have pretty much everything you need to know about how to make the sour dough. so to start things off I decided on pizza
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/pizzacrusts.html
First set came out a little dark (recipe is for one big pizza, I made lots of little ones and for the second ones I did them at 450 for 10 minutes)

Apple turnovers

So.. I had some extra apple pie filling and decided to make apple turnovers, making the dough from scratch.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1813,152184-226205,00.html

I just eyeballed the squares but next time I really am going to measure them, it was a pain to fold the ones that weren't perfect.

Monster cookies

Alrighty, so this recipe comes from :

http://www.playinghouseblog.com/2009/02/best-cookies-ever.html

and it is a fairly large recipe so I cut it in half. I also substituted 1/3 c chocolate chips, 1/3 c white chocolate chips, 1/3 cup butterscotch chips for the chocolate chips. I would make them again but without the butterscotch chips, those were just too overpowering, but it was an AWESOME recipe. :D  Also out of the halved recipe I got about 50 cookies, so of course I froze some 

Freezer enchilada casserole

Beefy Enchilada Bake 

1 lb. Ground hamburger meat
3 T.  flour
1/2 cup water
1 can (4 oz) green chilies
salt
3 cups tomato sauce
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese (I had some squares of Tillimook so I just used those)
12 corn tortillas (I used flour because thats what I had)

Brown hamburger meat.  Do not drain grease!  Put cooked hamburger meat in separate bowl, salt  and set aside.  Sprinkle arrowroot powder into the grease and stir (if you do not have enough grease to absorb the arrowroot powder, add 2 T. butter). Keep your burner on medium to high heat.  Pour in water and “smoosh” the clumps of flour/grease around while you stir the water in.  This will thicken and make a gravy.  Pour in tomato sauce and chilies.  Stir well until bubbly.  This is now your enchilada sauce! 

Cut corn tortillas into one inch strips (mine were more like 2 inches, I'm lazy).  Dip tortilla strips in enchilada sauce and coat thoroughly.  Cover bottom of baking dish with enchilada sauce coated tortilla strips.  Sprinkle 1/3 of the cooked ground beef over the tortillas…then a little cheese.  Repeat layers twice more:  enchilada sauce coated tortilla strips, meat, cheese.  If you have any leftover enchilada sauce, drizzle it over the top.

Cover and bake at 350° for 30 – 40 minutes or until bubbly.

I didn't actually make this, I just put it together and then froze, so I'll update once I bake it. 

http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/make-ahead-meals-beefy-enchilada-bake


UPDATE: I made this.... SUPER YUMMY, going to make it again for sure.

Peanut butter cup cookies

http://www.angelfire.com/bc/incredible/xC4heydiddles.html
I doubled this recipe, baked half then froze there rest on the cookie sheets then put them in bags marked with the date, what they are, and how to bake them when they come out. 


COOKIE DOUGH
1 1/2  c.            flour
     1/2  c.            cocoa
     1/2  tsp.          baking soda
     1/2  c.            sugar
     1/2  c.            br. sugar
     1/2  c.            margarine
     1/4  c.            peanut butter
   1      tsp.          syrup
   1                    egg
FILLING
     3/4  c.            peanut butter
     3/4  c.            icing sugar
Cream the margarine, sugar and peanut butter well.  Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Stir in the baking soda, then the cocoa and flour.  Form this dough into 30 balls for reg. sized cookies.
Combine the filling ingredients and form into 30 balls. Shape the chocolate
ball around the peanut butter centers (i made a ball, flattened it then kinda wrapped the chocolate then just rolled it in my hands).  Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Flatten slightly, they don't spread much so the shape they are when they go in is the shape they will be coming out.  Bake in a preheated oven 375 deg. for 7-9 min.
This makes chocolate cookies with soft peanut butter centers that taste like peanut butter cups! 

Bread

This has to be the easiest bread EVER, I made stew tonight and it was SO yummy to sopp up the stew with. :) 

You can freeze the bread in 1 lbs balls and defrost over night in the fridge.

My dough was a little too moist I think (although it is supposed to be really wet) and I used too much flour on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dining/211brex.html?_r=1

Mint Oreo Truffles

So I took the basic recipe for oreo truffles (google it, you'll find it by the millions) and used mint oreos instead. So here goes my experience...

This is one pack of oreo's crushed (by little hands) and mixed with 8 oz of softened cream cheese. And then frozen.

Then I attempted to dip them... but I screwed up the chocolate chips so it became more of a paste.. so I flattened out a piece and rolled it onto the ball. Then we didn't have room in the fridge for them so I left them in the freezer (figured they were already frozen so why not?) and my boyfriend just keeps eating them... he doesn't care. lol. says they are better that way, then no one else eats them.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake

Btw I hate those blogs where all the pictures look like professionals... I take all my own pictures with my crappy camera... and you can tell. lol


So I started with this recipe: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/03/strawberries-and-cream-cupcakes/


But naturally I modified it. 

It came out SUPER yummy, but I was impatient so I frosted my cakes a little early... my bad. 




2 c. flour
1/4 c. corn starch
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 sticks butter, softened
2 1/4 c. sugar
3 large eggs
1 egg white
1 c. buttermilk(I used substitute, milk and vinegar)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. cut and mushed strawberrys (I like chunks)
1 packet cheesecake pudding

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin pan or use liners. Mix flour, corn starch, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer about 3 minutes. Add eggs and egg white, one at a time.

Reduce speed to low. Combine buttermilk and vanilla together and set aside. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk mixture; end with the dry ingredients. Fold in strawberries. Scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure everything has been mixed in. Divide batter among muffin cups (about 45), filling them almost all the way to the top, they don't rise very much. 

Bake cupcakes until a knife inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Allow to cool in muffin tins. Top with frosting (see below)

1/2 c cut up and mushed strawberries
1 small tub cream cheese frosting

Mix in a bowl... then put on cupcakes. lol

Easy breakfast in a muffin pan

So I got this idea from somewhere online, and apparently I didn't bookmark it, I have no idea what they called it, so if I stole it from you, I'm sorry, please let me know and I'll give you proper credit.

12 strips of bacon
12 eggs

12 servings


Cook some bacon up most of the way (it will get a little crispier later) curl it up in a greased muffin pan around the edges, put an egg in the middle (this can be just dumped right in, or scrambled with some cheese, whatever you like). Bake at 300 degrees for about 15 minutes depending on how you like your eggs.

Cookies Galore

So I took a shortbread cookie recipe, modified it, tripled it, then made different kinds of cookies.

Any so here is the not multiplied recipe. lol

1 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
2 1/2 c. flour

Mix it all up, roll into balls, flatten (at this point you can make the indentation and fill it) then bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen. 

Anyway I filled mine with grape jam, Nutella (yes those are leftover cupcakes, I asked them to save them for me... they are gone now), and melted then drizzled some butterscotch chips. 

Banana Chip Bars

"Favorite Brand Name Cookie Collection"
Pretty awesome book, found a bunch of recipes that I have all the stuff for :D always a plus.

So this recipe is basically just banana bread, with 1 1/2 cups crushed cereal mixed in, with 1/2 sprinkled on top. The recipe called for corn flakes... well I used Honey Bunches Of Oats, because I'm awesome like that. It was pretty good, although I kinda think the cereal was a little stale.

Butterscotch Heath Truffles

So I was almost out of chocolate chips so I had to improvise a little... They actually came out okay, but next time, more chocolate.

So I took my same basic recipe (http://www.food.com/recipe/super-easy-chocolate-truffles-354693) and  but I substituted heath bar chunks and butterscotch chips for about half the chocolate chips.

Cheeseburger French Fry Casserole

 Yum yum. So With this recipe I didn't the soups it wanted so I used 2 cans cream of mushroom, 1 can cream of celery instead. I also put french fries on the bottom as well (with a family of 8 we need to stretch recipes) and I added pepperjack cheese and broccoli. YUM, going to make this again for sure.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cheeseburger-and-Fries-Casserole/Detail.aspx

Strawberry Banana Salt Water Taffy

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/candy/saltwater-taffy/


As usual thats the recipe I started with, but I must have done something wrong as they kind of lost their shape, they didn't stay standing up. Also another tip, butter your hands, and TAKE OFF YOUR RINGS FIRST.... please learn from my mistakes..

Heath Banana Truffles-Super Easy

So these... could have been yummy but the banana wasn't super yummy. 

I started with this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/super-easy-chocolate-truffles-354693

But substituted heath for some of the chocolate chips (next time I won't substitute, I will just add it) and I used banana instead of rum. I was going just going to skip it all together but it tasted really buttery. 

Well now I'm off to the store, hopefully to get some sugar. 

Spicy Alfredo

Two warnings with this
1. I cook chicken weird (I think that stems from a phobia of raw chicken lol).
2. I HATE cooking fettuccine, it always comes out weird and gloppy.

So anyway I cut up chicken into bite sized pieces and put them into a baking pan filled with water and put it into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes (15 would probably be fine, but the phobia thing, and it seems like they never dry out this way). Also if you or someone you are cooking for hates boiled                  chicken, this doesn't tastes gross like that at all, its more similar to braising I supposing.

Anyway so I cook up the chicken, cook up the noodles, drain both and mix with some jarred Alfredo, then I add some Dijon mustard, probably 1/4 to 1/2 cup or so, this part is definitely to taste. And then enjoy :D


(I'm also out of sugar, and almost out of flour, so not much baking going on until grocery shopping day lol, Sunday I believe)

Super Fancy Chinese food

Alright... so it wasn't so fancy, but it sure did look that way.

So for last nights dinner I ended up making 4 boxes of chicken rice a roni then about 5 minutes before it was done adding finely chopped frozen veggies and some frozen chicken won-tons from costco. It tasted really good, like it took a lot more then 5 min prep and 20 minutes of cooking.

McMuffin Maker

So I got one of these from Bed Bath and Beyond today, and I LOVE it. It's amazing. I like making breakfast for everyone... but I don't like getting up early to do it. But this.... 5 minutes and I get a hot sandwhich, YUM. And it cooks the egg how you want it, (depends on the amount of water you put in it, and if you scramble it). Totally worth the money.

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?sku=13888434&

Cookie in a cookie

Its an oreo... inside a chocolate chip cookie. What could be better right? Well baking it actually makes the oreo a little softer which is nice but i musta done something wrong with the leavening of the cookie dough, also might have been that I had to put it in the fridge for a bit before I could actually bake it.

Anyway so the recipe I used was
http://www.playinghouseblog.com/2011/02/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

But I cut the oreos in half because we have kids here and the cookies sounded like they were going to be huge and I knew they would want more than one.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips

So the muffins didn't come out all that muffin shaped but they were pretty good. I started with this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/peanut-butter-banana-muffins-185957 but then added chocolate chips and vanilla, and used chunky peanut butter.

They were pretty good but there seemed to be a second taste, according to the comments a lot of people seemed to be tasting the baking powder so maybe that was it. Also I think I added too many chocolate chips, but thats what the man asked for. lol

Well now I'm looking for my next challenge. Ever heard of the Cherpumple? I'm going to have to think about that one awhile....

Chocolate Souffle

My first attempt at a souffle... pretty much flopped. While it baked up yummy as a light cake, I obviously didn't do the egg white part right.  Well here was the recipe I used:
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chocolate-souffl-10000000608433/index.html

And here is the picture of mine:

Obviously it didn't come out right, but it was super yummy. 

(also I just realized I need to change the date on my camera)