Stuffed Poblano Peppers

I wasn't always a picky eater. According to my parents I started out as a wonderful eater. Then I spent 6 weeks with my grandparents and, as I was the first grandchild, they spoiled me absolutely rotten. I came home with a refined palate. I ate: scrambled eggs, watermelon, pizza, Happy Meals, and Mississippi Mud ice cream from Baskin Robbins. My mom & dad didn't let these eating habits last long but it took me a long time to really become the adventurous eater that I am today. Now, there are still some things that I roundly dislike -- raisins, bananas, and BEANS. Ick! I hate frijoles! It's a texture thing, you know? I love green beans, wax beans, all of those goodies, but keep me the heck away from a dried bean. I wish I liked them. Beans and rice are a perfect protein not to mention cheap and slimming. But, as many times as I tried them, I always wanted to spit them into my napkin. Until the other day that is. I had a meeting with my professor and I grabbed lunch at school. It was a "southwest chicken wrap" and it came with black beans in it (which, had I known this ahead of time I would never have ordered it). I was starving and in a hurry so I just ate it with the beans and as I was chewing I had the strangest thought: these beans aren't all that bad. Woah.

Oddly enough, right after that meeting I was digging around in the boxes of books that I still haven't unpacked (it's not really my fault, I have a plethora of books, because I don't like to get rid of them, and minimal shelf space) and I came across some older issues of Everyday Food. I pulled them out to look at because I was pretty ruthless about tossing all old issues of magazines, food or otherwise, when I was moving and there had to be some reason that these issues of EF made it from Houston to DC last August. I'm sure that this recipe isn't why I saved that issue but I did find it and in my eagerness to test my new taste for black beans I ripped it out to try.

I made some changes to the recipe to "jazz it up" a little bit. The original recipe calls for the peppers to be stuffed with only black beans, cornmeal, and cheese. I added frozen corn and a can of green chilis and I like the additions quite a bit. I also added sausage in Dudley's peppers but I left mine plain. My mom has since made them too and she said that she added some shredded chicken to hers. I think that one of the best things about this recipe is that there are many permutations and I'm pretty sure that almost all of them are foolproof.

Stuffed Poblanos
Martha Stewart

• 1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes in puree
• 1 jalapeno chile (ribs and seeds removed, for less heat), minced
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves (2 whole, 1 minced)
• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 can (19 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup shredded pepper Jack cheese
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 large poblano chiles, halved lengthwise (stems left intact), ribs and seeds removed

Preheat oven to 425. In a blender, combine tomatoes in puree, jalapeno, half the onions, and 2 whole garlic cloves; puree. Season with salt. Pour sauce into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish; set aside. (Note: I used pickled jalapenos because I find that fresh jalapenos at the grocery store often don't pack much punch and I wanted the sauce to have some heat.)


In a medium bowl, combine beans, cornmeal, 1/2 cup cheese, remaining onions, minced garlic, cumin, and 3/4 cup water; season with salt and pepper.


Dividing evenly, stuff poblano halves with bean mixture; place on top of sauce in baking dish. Sprinkle poblanos with remaining 1/2 cup cheese; cover baking dish tightly with aluminum foil.
Bake until poblanos are tender, about 45 minutes. Uncover, and continue to cook until sauce is thickened slightly and cheese is browned, 10 to 15 minutes more. Let cool 10 minutes.


I made this before I went to class and when I came home that evening I popped it into the oven. Dudley raved about it and he said that he's not normally fond of black beans. When I told my mother what I made for dinner that night, I could hear her jaw drop on the phone. BUT, while I don't think that you'll find me digging into a bowl of beans any time soon, I did like this. If you're familiar with the movie What About Bob? then you know that it's all about baby steps, so I think I'll consider this meal a baby step to liking beans.

Martha's Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies

So, I signed up for Martha Stewart's "Cookie of the Day" to be delivered to my inbox every morning last fall. I don't know why I did this, I generally don't like anything like that to hit my inbox, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. It hasn't been bad, I generally ignore them. What, Martha thinks that today's a good day to make pinenut cookies with rosemary? Too bad she doesn't know that it's NOT a good day to make pinenut cookies with rosemary. I usually look at the recipe and then I hit "delete" because even if it sounds good TWD usually keeps me in sweets for the week and I don't really have time to make much else. But every once in awhile there's a "cookie of the day" that piques my interest and this was one of them. I love pink grapefruit and I don't see that many recipes that highlight it as an ingredient so I thought that this one would be fun to try. I had to wait awhile to find the right time to make them though and when I offered to make food for my friend who just had foot surgery I knew that I wanted to make these.


Even though I love cookbooks, this is a time when I really love using recipes on the internet. The comment factor is just such a bonus sometimes. People had commented that the cookies fell short on delivering grapefruit flavor and that the frosting tasted like nothing more than butter and powdered sugar. So, I did what one of the commenters suggested and added more grapefruit juice (about 1/3 cup) and I tried to make sure that there was plenty of pulp in that juice. It actually made for some very pretty pink flecks in the dough. The sugar scented with grapefruit zest also gave it a nice flavor.


For the frosting, I ignored Martha's recipe altogether and made a cream cheese frosting and I added grapefruit sections to the frosting while I was blending it. This made the frosting a little thinner than usual but it tasted fantastic and I'm generally not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting.

Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart

• Grated zest of 1 Ruby Red grapefruit, plus 1/3 to 1/2 cup freshly squeezed juice
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a small bowl, combine zest with 1 tablespoon sugar; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and remaining sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add egg yolks, and beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in reserved zest-sugar mixture. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the juice, and beat to combine.
Turn out dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, and shape into a 1-inch-thick disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out disk to 1/8 inch thick using a lightly floured rolling pin. Using a lightly floured 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out rounds and place about 1 inch apart on prepared sheet. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack to cool 5 minutes. Transfer parchment paper and cookies to rack to cool completely.
Using an offset spatula, spread 1 tablespoon filling onto flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, keeping flat sides down. Once filled, cookies can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Pink Grapefruit Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat, what's the point, really, but it's what I had on hand)
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 3 c powdered sugar
• pink grapefruit sections

In a food processor, or with a mixer, combine cream cheese and butter. Gradually add the powdered sugar. (Here's the hard part) Add a few sections of grapefruit (without any skin or pith attached) and blend. Taste the icing for flavor. I added grapefruit sections until I thought that the flavor was sufficient and the icing wasn't too thin.

I gave most of these cookies away but I did taste them with and without the icing and I thought that they were delicious. They have a nice, subtle pink grapefruit flavor that I really like. It isn't overwhelming but the sweet grapefruit flavor really comes through.

TWD: Caramel Crunch Bars

I have a confession to make: I watch The Bachelor. I never used to watch it. Well . . . that's sort of not true. My sister and I used to TIVO the Bachelor with Aaron on it and then watch it on fast forward but that's a little different than actually watching it. We'd call it "Bachelor-vision" and the fast forwarding through the episode was necessary so that we could miss out on all of the potentially embarrassing moments or really gag-inducing heart-to-hearts that they show. But now, this season Dudley and I have started watching The Bachelor and every Monday night we tune in to watch all of the drama unfold. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard Jason declare that "one of these women is going to be my wife." And then there are all of the girls professing their love for this guy . . . no way! And, how can we forget . . . the dramatic shot of the rose. My favorites were the dates when the rose was just there the whole time and you could tell that the girls were just freaking out about it. Or how about when the Bachelor stares longingly at all of the girls' pictures before he goes out to pick his ladies for the next week? I have so many issues with that show . . . and yet the entertainment factor is just through the roof. How can you pass up the opportunity to watch Jason put the moves on different girls every week? I can't . . . this show is some sort of bizarre TV crack and now I'm hooked.
Just like I know that the Bachelor isn't good for me but I love it anyway, I also love the caramel crunch bars. The shortbread dough for these just smelled heavenly while it was baking. I was a little put off by the coffee and the cinnamon and the chocolate in the dough but, oddly enough, it works! And really, these are so easy to make and there's no dough chilling involved, or multiple bowls and steps and that always makes me happy. The only issue that I had was a distinct lack of a 9x13" pan. I don't have a pan this big because, let's face it, mine is not a 9x13" reality right now. Nope, it's much more 8x8" and that's what I used . . . plus a loaf pan . . . and the bottom layer was much thicker on the loaf pan. I also discovered that my thin bars just sort of shattered when I tried to cut them but the thicker bars cut so much easier. So, I think that if I happen to make ice cream sandwiches out of these then I'd probably make them super thin, otherwise I'll just make it easier on myself and make them a little bit thicker. Dudley love, love, LOVED these. I gave half of them to my mom's friend (from high school who lives in D.C. and has been insanely nice to me) who just had foot surgery, I ate one while I watched The Bachelor last night, and then Dudley ate the rest. Thanks to Whitney of What's Left on the Table for letting her kids pick such a fantastic recipe!

King Cake

Down in New Orleans
Where the blues was born
It takes a cool cat
To blow a horn
On LaSalle and Rampart Street
The combo's there with a mambo beat

The Mardi Gras, mambo, mambo, mambo
Party Gras, pambo, mambo, mambo
Mardi Gras, mambo-ooh
Down in New Orleans

It's that time of year again, King Cake time! When I was little it seemed like my dad always had a conference in New Orleans in January and we would always bring back King Cakes for my brother and sister and I to take to school to share with everyone. Now you can find King Cakes for sale in grocery stores all over Houston so it isn't really necessary to bring them back from Louisiana but it's still fun. I like King Cake more for the festiveness that it provides less than the actual cake itself. Like anything, there are really yummy King Cakes and so-so King Cakes (these are usually dry and not very sweet) there are King Cakes with filling and King Cakes that are not filled. The only thing that's certain is that a King Cake is always in the shape of a circle and it's always sprinkled with the colors of Mardi Gras: purple, gold, and green. My brother hates the icing, Dudley can't get enough of it, and I fall somewhere in the middle. So, this year Hank offered to send me a King Cake but I really wanted to make my own so here you have it, my King Cake.


You can find the recipe that I used here and I chose it because it looked like a fairly straightforward brioche base King Cake and it has excellent pictures of the process. The next time I make a King Cake I'm not going to use this recipe, because I have a King Cake in my head that I want to achieve and this wasn't it, but I do think that this was a good recipe to start with. It makes a very sweet brioche dough that smells amazing while it's baking. I don't like filling in my King Cake and many recipes have a filling so that's why I chose the recipe without a filling. The King Cakes that I remember aren't quite as bread-y and it could be my fault but next year I think I'll try a different formula, or something. I think that what I really need is to spend my time sampling real King Cakes again and then I'll have a better idea of what I want. Oh, the plastic baby? I didn't have one but I did hide half of a pecan in there (an acceptable substitution, or so I'm told) and I'm hoping that Dudley will be the one to get it. Dudley & I are going to a Tulane Alumni Mardi Gras shindig tomorrow night and I'm told that there will be King Cake there so hopefully I'll get to taste some and see how mine measures up!

Magnolia Bakery Peanut Butter Cookies

Sometimes it amazes me . . . but I get tired of chocolate. Well, not that I'd ever turn it down, perish the thought, but sometimes when dessert rolls around I look for something that doesn't have chocolate in it. Usually this happens when I've had a whole lotta chocolate, such as right after the World Peace Cookies and Malted Whopped Drops. Then I felt like I needed a little break from all of that chocolate goodness, nothing major, just a little break. Peanut butter cookies are usually pretty far down on my list of cookies. I can easily pass them up. I just don't like the straight up peanut butter thing, it's too one-dimensional for my tastes. But, as luck would have it, I found this recipe in the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and I couldn't resist trying what's described as "the secret to the perfect peanut butter cookie." Well, I don't think that I'm the best person to judge a peanut butter cookie but I will say, these are the best peanut butter cookies that I've ever made! They have a fantastic flavor because they're not too sweet and not too overwhelmingly peanut buttery. The peanut butter chips are a must but of course I think that next time I'll add some chocolate chips too, just for good measure. I had some extra Heath toffee bits (with the chocolate on them) that I sprinkled on top of some of them but I liked the plain cookies the best.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c chunky style peanut butter
3/4 c sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)
1/2 c firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 c peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisscross pattern but do not overly flatten cookies. Lightly sprinkle cookies with sugar. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.
Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack and cool completely.
Makes 2-3 dozen cookies.

Cranberry Tangerine Scones

I love scones. I like them in the same way that I like tea sandwiches and petit fours in that I think that I've read too much Henry James (and who can forget the first page of Portrait of a Lady?) and maybe I like the idea of scones more than I actually like scones. No, what I realized when I ate these scones is that I really do love scones -- they're the perfect vehicle for clotted cream and jam or marmalade. This reminds me of the time my friend Kirsten put a mildly depressing spin on clotted cream at one of her bridal showers. You see, it was a tea party and there were all of the requisite elements, including scones and clotted cream. Any time she wanted more cream for her scones she'd ask me to "please pass the lard." And I'd say, you mean the cream? And she'd reply, yes, the lard. My response? I just put a very healthy dollop of clotted cream on my scone and ate on. I guess that all of the stress about fitting into a wedding dress will make you do crazy things, like freak out things like calories and clotted cream.

These scones were delicious. I made them to use up the rest of my tangerines and now I'm sad that I can't make more. The only change that I would make would be to steep the dried cranberries in hot water for a bit first so that they're not quite as tough but other than that I thought that they were fantastic.



Cranberry Tangerine Scones
Epicurious

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated tangerine peel
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
• 3 tablespoons fresh tangerine juice
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons raw sugar

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, 1/3 cup sugar, peel, baking powder, and salt in bowl to blend. Add 1/2 cup chilled butter. Using fingertips, rub in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in cranberries.

Whisk crème fraîche, tangerine juice, and egg in medium bowl to blend. Gradually add to flour mixture, using fork to toss until moist clumps form. Knead dough briefly on lightly floured surface until smooth. Pat dough into 8-inch round. Cut into 8 equal wedges. Transfer to prepared baking sheet, spacing apart. Brush with melted butter; sprinkle with raw sugar.

Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. (Can be made up to 1 month ahead. Cool completely. Wrap in aluminum foil; freeze. Serve at room temperature.)

TWD: Devils Food White Out Cake

I think that everyone was excited when the cover recipe of Baking From My Home to Yours got picked by Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater, I know that I was! There's just something about a big 'ole layer cake with mounds of fluffy white frosting that makes me go weak in the knees. It would have been a perfect Valentine's Day dessert but I made it a few weeks ago for Dudley's birthday. At the time, I wasn't sure if he'd be in D.C. for Valentine's Day and this is definitely a cake that I didn't want to eat all by myself! You see, Dudley and I have been dating for three years but we've never lived in the same city. He's up here looking for a job (so, fingers crossed everyone, please!!) and I absolutely love being able to see him for more than just a few days at a time. So, while it really is a singleton's kitchen, lately Dudley's been around more and that's great because it means I have someone around to help me eat all of the TWD goodies each week.

So, I decided that I was going to bake a little cake because even though Dudley's around a three layer 8" cake is a lot of cake to eat. So, I halved the recipe and made it in 2 four-inch cake pans. The cake batter was super easy to halve and I added white chocolate chips along with the semi-sweet because Dudley is a "more is more" kind of guy when it comes to chocolate chips. The little cake layers came out fine. They only issue I had was the the top layers sort of cracked when I split them in half. No matter. I just cut them in half and used the 2 good halves to make one of the layers and then crumbled the remaining portions. I sampled some of the crumbs and let me tell you, this cake is so good it brings out the Texan-speak in me because oh-my-gawsh-y'all-this-is-soooo-good!!! Yup, you can take the girl out of Texas but you can't take Texas out of the girl and I think that this chocolate cake is so good! It's rich, it's moist, it's delicious and I definitely could've eaten it plain, right then and there, without the frosting. But, a birthday cake calls for frosting so I went ahead and made the marshmallow frosting.

I didn't have a lot of trouble with the frosting. It took awhile for the syrup to get up to temperature but it eventually did (it was one of those wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . oh my gosh, it's ready and now I'm NOT ready, eeek!, sort of things) and then the syrup combines with the whipped egg whites and there's fluffy marshmallow goodness. Actually, the only part of the cake that I had trouble with was the crumbs. I didn't make them small enough, I think because I thought that the cake was so good that it was a shame to turn a layer into crumbs. Anyway, the crumbs (or hunks in my case) sort of dry out after they're embedded in the frosting and I personally think it's a waste of cake. I think that next time I would probably just make a 4 layer cake, with more frosting, and keep the outside simple or decorate it with chocolate jimmies or something to that effect.

I don't have any pictures of the sliced cake and I really wanted to take a picture of Dudley eating a slice of it. However, in my eagerness to taste the finished product, I neglected Dorie's instructions to gently saw through the layers. I just pushed down with my knife and squished and splatted the cake all over the place. So, no pictures but the cake was fantastic anyway. I think that I'm going to make this one again soon. It's a contender to replace my all-time favorite birthday cake, yellow with chocolate frosting, and I didn't think that any cake could ever do that.

Thanks to Stephanie for choosing such a fun TWD pick this week. I love her blog, she has all sorts of great recipes and restaurant reviews on it so check it out.

Homemade Tortillas

So, super bowl Sunday I went to Safeway to get the things that I needed for spinach artichoke dip. I didn't go until about 5 pm and I thought that it would be quiet there but no way. Everyone was doing their last-minute snack shopping. Well, Safeway was bumping and, oh my gosh, avacados were on sale for 77 cents each. I love living in Washington D.C. I really like it here . . . but there are some things that I miss. Like Tex-Mex. I miss queso and margaritas and yummy enchiladas. Yes, there are restaurants that serve that food up here and when I'm overwhelmed by a craving they'll do the trick, but it's not the same. I also miss Texas barbeque something fierce. I was online pondering air-shipping Texas bbq the other day for about 5 minutes until I came to my senses. The barbeque craving I don't think that I can fix, at least not until I get a smoker and some real estate to put it on and that might be awhile coming. But the tex-mex craving I can fix. I can make decent tex-mex at home but when avacados are $3 a piece it's cost prohibitive, you know? So, I came home from Safeway just gushing about my score of ripe avacados and yee-haw, guacamole time! I didn't have time to make the guac for the Super Bowl and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to use my fabulous, cheap, avacados, so I thought that this would be a great time to have a taco dinner.
Dum . . . dum . . . dum.
Wait a minute, there's a reason that I haven't made anything like that since I moved here. What was the reason again? Oh yeah. I grew up in Houston, where you walk into restaurants and there's someone making tortillas by the door. They make fresh tortillas at grocery stores in Texas. Those insipid, doughy flour things are just not going to cut it for me. Back to the drawing board. I remember one night when my brother was in school in Chicago and he wanted Mexican food. He decided he was going to make his own tortillas. The conversation went something like this:

Hank: I'm just going to make my own tortillas.
Jessica: Umm, I'm almost positive that you need LARD to make tortillas. Where are you going to get lard? You can't make tortillas without lard. You can't make tortillas.
H: I'm just going to use butter.
J: *gasp* You can't use BUTTER! That's just like making pie crust. It will be a total disaster.
H: Yup. I'm going to use butter and make tortillas.

And, it was, in the words of my sister, an epic failure. So, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to navigate the whole "lard" thing. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any inherent problems with animal fat but the lard that sits on the shelf at the grocery store skeeves me out. I didn't want to render my own . . . and I wasn't sure how duck fat would work. Well, King Arthur Flour to the rescue. The King Arthur Baker's Companion had a recipe for thin cornmeal tortillas that are made with vegetable oil. Ding! Ding! Ding! Sign me up. Taco dinner . . . here I come.

The great thing about these tortillas is that they're a combination of flour and cornmeal, the best of both worlds.

Thin Cornmeal Tortillas
King Arthur Baker's Companion
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
2/3 c yellow corn meal
1/4 c corn or vegetable oil
1/2 c plus one tablespoon of water (you might not need this much)
1/2 tsp salt

In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour, cornmeal and oil with a spoon. (The mixture will be sort of lumpy, that's ok.) Gradually mix in the water and the salt. Knead briefly, just until the dough is smooth. If you add too much water the dough will be sticky -- just knead it with a little bit of extra flour until it's smooth but not too sticky.



Divide the dough into 10 pieces. Round the pieces into balls, flatten them slightly, and let them rest, covered, for at least 30 minutes.



Preheat an ungreased griddle or frying pan over medium high heat (you want the pan to be hot when you start). Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll out each ball about 8 inches in diameter. They will be sort of sticky (mine were), just make sure that you flour them (and your rolling pin) before you roll them out and then dust off any extra flour before you cook them. Cook the tortillas in the ungreased pan for about 45 seconds on each side. Serve warm or at room temp.


So, I thought that these tortillas were delicious! They're a great combination of flour and cornmeal and they're really pretty easy to make. I will definitely, definitely make them again.

Knock-Off Crispery Treats

I love rice krispie treats. Seriously, for all of my love for high-falloutin' food and restaurants (and there's quite a bit of it) when you get down to the nitty gritty, I'm pretty plain and simple. I would definitely have a rice krispie treat and a warm chocolate chip cookie at my last meal, after I finish off my burger and fries. But, not just any rice krispie treat. I don't think that I loved them half as much as I do now until I stumbled upon these treats at Dylan's Candy Bar (the uber candy store, in my very humble opinion). They sell these insanely good treats from the Crispery there and I became obsessed with them. I don't really love to shop . . . but when I do shop I h-a-t-e shopping malls. Don't get me wrong, I went through the obligatory mall rat phase as a teenager (as much as my parents would allow it anyway) but somehow, over the past few years, I've grown to loathe shopping malls and shopping in general. (Side note: this has created a bizarre sort of inferiority complex for me here in D.C. because everyone is SO put together . . . I used to be put together too! But I don't understand how to look fabulous in cold weather, it's just strange to me.) Anyway, when I had to go to the Galleria in Houston I would always, always stop at Dylan's Candy Bar and buy 4 of the Crispery treats: 2 for me and 2 for my sister. And I would always eat half of one on the way home. Well, now the closest Dylan's is a 3 hour train ride away in the Big Apple and I was struck by a desire to see if I could knock them off. Let's face it, rice krispie treats are great and all but they're not exactly rocket science. How hard can it be to amp them up, anyway? Besides, don't we all love a knock-off?


So, my here were my thoughts:
1. Take the butter, marshmallow, rice krispie formula that you find on the box of rice krispies.
2. Then, change it around so that you have more marshmallow and less rice krispie. This means that you use about 3/4 of a box of rice krispies per one stick of butter and one bag of marshmallows.
3. Then, you add about 1/2 a bag of baby marshmallows to the mixture, thereby adding even more marshmallow goodness.
4. And, since you just can't have enough of that sugary greatness, you add marshmallow fluff to the top of your rice krispie treat and top it off with sprinkles or m&m's.

With all of the marshmallow-y goodness surrounding these treats, I couldn't help but recall one of my favorite movie moments ever. You see, my dad loves the movie Ghostbusters and I started watching that movie waaaaaay to early on in life. Anyway, I couldn't help but think about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man:

Dr. Raymond Stantz: I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something that I loved from my childhood. Something that would never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay-Puft.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Nice thinking, Ray.

Dr. Raymond Stantz: We used to roast Stay-Puft Marshmallows, by the fire at Camp Waconda.

Probably because I had marshmallow all over me while I was making these treats, sort of like the end of Ghostbusters!
I sent these to my sister for Valentine's Day and she got her box today and said that the treats were great! I myself give them 2 very enthusiastic thumbs up. They won't replace the Crispery treats for me (because after all, there's no work involved in those treats) but they're dadgummed good.

Knock-Off Crispery Treats

3/4 box of Crispy Rice Cereal
1 bag of marshmallows (or one jar of marshmallow fluff)
1 stick of butter
1/2 bag of mini marshmallows
1 jar of marshmallow fluff
sprinkles, m&m's and the like for the top

In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat. Add the cereal and stir until well-coated. Then add the mini-marshmallows and stir to combine. Using buttered spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool. Unmold the treats. Spread marshmallow fluff over the top (you might want to nuke the fluff in the microwave for a bit to make it easier to spread). Decorate as you like. I cut mine into about 4 inch sqaures in keeping with the knock-0ff theme!

TWD

A little later, alligators! I'm trying to get it together so that I can serve it and post it tonight! Keep your fingers crossed!

Update: I just went to get started and it seems that my once full carton of milk is now residing in the recycling bin. It seems that looking for jobs makes Dudley very thirsty and I'm not used to having two people in the house. Sorry, but no Floating Islands today. I will probably make them later on this week.

Fanny Farmer's Mix-in-the-Pan Chocolate Cake

The weather in D.C. was gorgeous this weekend! I spent all day Friday and Saturday reading so that I could play in the 60 degree sunshine yesterday and it was so worth it. My Texas bones needed a little bit of warmer air and sunshine. It was 80 degrees in Houston yesterday -- I know that some people are really offended by warm weather in February but, hey, I grew up with it and I love it. Dudley & I went to Arlington National Cemetery yesterday because he'd never been before and I hadn't been since I moved here. As usual, it was quite moving and inspiring.

Anyway, with all of my reading and sunshine, I didn't spend much time in the kitchen and last night I was struck with a craving for chocolate dessert. Actually, I wasn't hungry at all for dinner, only for dessert. Side note: one of my very favorite things about being an adult is deciding that I don't want dinner, I only want dessert. I love not having to eat all of my dinner before I can move on to the good stuff. Don't stress out though, I try to eat reasonably healthy most of the time. I was pondering several recipes but I'm low on stock ingredients right now and I found this recipe in the Fanny Farmer Baking Book and it looked like it'd be fun to try -- it was fun! It's a chocolate cake that you mix in the pan. It doesn't call for eggs but it does call for vinegar -- how strange? It's not really what I'd call intensely chocolaty, the flavor is more along the lines of Texas Sheet Cake, for those of you who have had that dessert (my MawMaw makes it quite a bit). The recipe calls to dust it with powdered sugar but I wanted to increase the chocolate factor so I made a ganache with the little bit of heavy cream that I had left.

Mix-in-the-Pan Chocolate Cake
From Fannie Farmer Baking Book
Makes one 8" cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together:
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 c granulated sugar
1/4 c unsweetend cocoa
1/2 tsp salt

3. If you want to unmold your cake, grease and flour your 8" cake pan, otherwise, you can go ahead and dump your dry ingredients in the pan as-is (you'll just cut the pieces out of the pan after the cake is done.

It will look like this in your pan:

4. Meanwhile, get together,
1 tbsp white or cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 salad oil
1 cup of water

5. With the back of a spoon, or your finger, make three small holes in the flour mixture:


6. Pour the vinegar in one hole, the vanilla in another, and the oil in the third hole (my oil didn't really fit into the third hole. Oh well, no worries.)


7. Then pour the cup of water over all of the ingredients.

8. Using a table fork, stir the mixture very well, reaching all over the bottom and the corners of the pan to incorporate the flour (Be careful with this step, every time I thought I had completely mixed it I found another little pocket. The recipe says that it takes about 90 seconds of mixing).


9. Bake the cake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven. If you're going to unmold it, let it rest for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a rack. Otherwise, let the cake cool completely in the pan.


So, what the cake lacks in chocolate intensity, it makes up for in ease and convenience as well as being super moist and tasty. When I started this blogging thing, I stopped buying any sort of sweet, dessert-ish things at the store. So, when I don't have something that I've made, I have to resort to chocolate chips or fruit. Fruit is good but sometimes chocolate is so much better. I have a feeling that I'll probably be making this again!

Sunshine Marmalade Muffins

In an effort to use up some of my lovely tangerine vanilla bean marmalade I went on the hunt for recipes that call for marmalade. I thought muffins would be great because I've been on a major muffin kick lately. I love how convenient they are in the mornings! I was a little skeptical about these muffins but they're spectacular. And for those of you actively involved in the muffin vs. cupcake debate (I'm not), well, I'd put them in the middle. If you're quite particular about muffins not being cupcakes you might want to leave off the glaze. I added the glaze mostly for Dudley's benefit because he loves sweet things. The muffins are wonderful without it though. They're citrus-y and not too sweet, very moist and they have lovely bits of marmalade scattered throughout. I was sorely tempted to replace the butter with yogurt but it's such a small amount that I decided just to use the butter. I'm going to make these again soon though and then I'm going to try the yogurt.


Sunshine Marmalade Muffins
(makes between 12-14 muffins)
Ingredients:
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c sugar
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 c butter, melted and cooled
1/2 c orange marmalade
3/4 c milk

Glaze:
2 c powdered sugar
2 tablespoons of liquid (orange juice, milk, water)
1 tablespoon marmalade

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin cups with no-stick cooking spray. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Add butter, marmalade, and milk to eggs and combine. Add the wet mixture all at once to the dry mixture. Stir quickly and lightly, until just mixed (mixture will be lumpy, that's ok). Fill prepared muffin tins about 3/4 full (I was worried that I filled mine too full but they were fine). Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool muffins on a rack. When the muffins have cooled, glaze them with the powdered sugar glaze.


Dudley ate 6 of these the morning that I made them so I'm thinking that I get an A+ on this round of "How to Feed Boys" -- go me! I love these and I will definitely make them again. I didn't get the chance to freeze these because we ate them too quickly but I think that they'd freeze really well. Oh, Dudley also thinks that he deserves a special name as he's the "person who eats the Singleton's cooking." I have never seen anyone put away food the way he does.

TWD Rewind: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

Oh. My. Goodness.

These cookies are so fantastically good. My mom loves Whoppers and so does my Aunt Suzy (my mom likes them to be stale though, strange?). Me, I'm merely ok on them. OK at best. So, if there happened to be a box of Whoppers in the house and I was facing down a chocolate craving, it'd be a coin toss for Whoppers or chocolate chips to fix it. I like them . . . but I don't love them. However, Whoppers in these cookies are AMAZING!!!! They're crunchy and sweet and with the chocolate chips and the chocolate batter . . . I was in chocolate bliss. Cathy from Tortfeasor (one of my very favorite blogs) recommended these cookies to me and I've been wanting to make them ever since. I kept forgetting to buy Ovaltine at the store though, so I never got around to making them. But, last week I did remember to buy it and then it was on to chocolate bliss. Incidentally, I LOVED Chocolate Ovaltine when I was little and I drank it almost every morning. But for some reason the thought of enjoying a glass now kinda grosses me out. So, I suppose the only option is to make some more of these cookies! I might need to wait though; I could hardly restrain myself around these cookies and the freezer didn't help because they're actually really good when they're frozen.

You can find the recipe on page 85 of Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

"More is More" Spinach Artichoke Dip

I had a string of roommate disasters my first 2 years in college. All of those stereotypes that you read or hear jokes about probably fit one of my roommates (my sophomore year in particular). So, my parents, after being really, really patient decided that it was probably just me and that I needed to live alone because even Jack the Ripper would be better than the girls I found to live with! So, I lived by myself for one semester of my junior year and then a girl that I was friendly with, but not really friends with, called. She was moving into the apartment complex where I was living and did I want to abandon my one bedroom to be her roommate? And, I suppose the stars aligned because my parents thought that it was a great idea. And they lived happily ever after . . . Well, as college girls are wont to do, we had to have the most perfect apartment and my roommate was quite a "nester." She managed to fit almost all of our combined belongings in that apartment and we thought it was the cutest thing ever. I remember my dad came to visit (and he could never understand why I needed anything more than a desk, a lamp, and a mattress) and he walked in and he said well, more is more. Not exactly words of praise from my dad but Lauren & I liked it and many great times were had in that apartment.

Whenever I think about "more is more" (as opposed to "less is more" -- incidentally, one of my Dad's favorite aphorisms) I think of that apartment. And this Spinach Artichoke Dip definitely falls under the "more is more" heading. If a little cream cheese is good, more is better. Same for sour cream, cheese, spinach, all of it. More is more here. It's delicious! I don't like mayonnaise so I don't put in any mayo but I'm sure you could if you were so inclined. It's made on the stovetop and that way you can just spoon it into a bowl and eat it at well. And, as I told myself and the others who were eating it on Sunday, it's got spinach in it so it's good for you. Hey, it made me feel better, ok?

Spinach Artichoke Dip

2 packages of frozen spinach, thawed and drained as much as possible
2 jars of marinated artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
2 blocks of cream cheese (I think that reduced fat is fine)
~8 oz sour cream
~8 oz shredded cheese (I used white cheddar this time)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or minced
1/2 an onion, finely diced
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil or butter
Tortilla chips, french bread slices, or crackers for serving

Heat olive oil or butter (as much or little as you'd like) in the bottom of a heavy saucepan. Add onion and sautee until transparent. Add garlic and cook for a little bit longer, about 1 minute. Add spinach and artichoke hearts and stir to combine. Add cream cheese and sour cream and cook until hot, about 5-10 minutes. Be sure and stir this frequently so that you don't have some of this goo attaching to the bottom of your pan! When the spinach mixture and the cheese-cream mixture have thoroughly combined and are hot, add the cheese and stir to combine. At this point it should look gooey and delicious! Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a serving bowl and dig in!

TWD: World Peace Cookies . . . It's Hip To Be Square

Huey Lewis said it best, didn't he? I don't know why I think that song is so funny but I do. It could be that my mom used to dominate Jazzercise when I was little and I remember her in a leotard and legwarmers rocking to this song. So, how do Jazzercise and Huey Lewis go with World Peace Cookies? Glad you asked . . .

This week's TWD selection is World Peace Cookies, selected by Jess of Cookbook Habit. I made these cookies over Christmas and I loved them . . . but I was a little miffed that my circles turned into a sort of odd, hexagonal shape because the sides flattened in the refrigerator. If I were Martha Stewart then I'd save my old paper towel cardboard rolls and I'd stuff the dough logs in those rolls to keep them beautiful, perfect circles. But, as fortune would have it, I'm not Martha and I don't save my paper towel rolls, and even if I did, I would never be able to fit the dough inside. I mean, the circumference of one of those things isn't that great, do you know how small you'd have to roll out your dough? All I can picture is me trying desperately to jam the log of dough inside and having it squish up and turn into an awful mess. And, I'm pretty patient but I'm pretty sure that it'd end with the dough in the trash. No thank you! So, I decided that for my 2nd time around, it's hip to be square. Now, this dough is a shortbread of sorts and it doesn't have an egg so it's pretty crumbly. I think that, no matter what, it's going to be hard to make a perfect shape with this dough. But, I used my bench scraper thingee and made a square, it might be a rectangle in math-speak, but in my kitchen it's a square. Next time, triangles?

I know that some people mentioned having issues with the dough being too sandy. Thank goodness that wasn't the case here. I am not sure whether the relative humidity has anything to do with this dough being more or less friendly. I used Pacific fine sea salt from Penzey's in these because I don't have any fleur de sel and I didn't feel like purchasing it. That's about it. These cookies are super simple, in my opinion.

So, World Peace cookies are so good that if we air-dropped them all over the globe, we'd have world peace? I don't know about that (there's always some disgruntled types who can't be swayed even by chocolate, right?) but these are sooooo good! I like them best warm out of the oven but they're great cold too. Dudley ate the rest of these . . . I guess they were so good that he couldn't control himself. I was looking for them and he sheepishly admitted that he'd eaten a lot of them . . . like maybe all of them.