Cheesecake Slices

Cheesecake Slices

3/4 cup butter, softened
3 oz package cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp finely shredded orange peel
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup finely crushed graham crackers

1. In a large mixing bowl beat butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium to high spped for 30 seconds. Add sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, orange peel, and vanilla. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. If necessary, cover and chill 30 minutes or until easy to handle.
2. Shape each half of dough into an 8-inch-long log. In a small bowl stir together pecans and crushed crackers; transfer to waxed paper. Roll logs in nut mixture to coat. If necessary, press mixture lightly into dough. Wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper. Chill for 2 hours or until firm.
3. Preheat oven to 375F. Using a serrated knife, cut logs into 1/4-inch slices. Place slices 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until bottoms are lightly brown. Let stand for 1 minute on cookie sheet. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

Makes about 64 cookies.

I tried another new recipe for this week's cookies. Like last week, this recipe comes out of the Better Homes and Gardens' The Ultimate Cookie Book. I love cheesecake so I was pretty excited to try to cheesecake in cookie form.

The ingredients:


The butter and cream cheese after they had been beaten together.



I love any time I get to use one of my kitchen gadgets. With the lemon in this recipe, I got to use two, my juicer and my zester.

The finished dough smelled pretty strongly of cream cheese and citrus. It was soft so I had to refrigerate it for a while so I could form it into logs.

I also got to use another one of my kitchen appliances. I never remember to get this out when I have a job like this so I was proud of myself. It worked really well at chopping the pecans and saved me some time and quite a bit of effort.

Here is a prepared log just before I wrapped it and put it in the freezer. I had cut time a little short again and decided to cut a corner by freezing the logs instead of putting them in the refrigerator. It seemed to work well because the logs were very easy to work with when cutting.

Here are the cut cookies just before going into the oven. I seem to be getting better at judging 1/4 inch. This time around I was only 6 cookies short of what the recipe touted (instead of nearly 2 dozen like last week).

The final product: these cookies are small and crisp. The cheesecake flavor is subtle in the finished product, much more subtle than even in dough, with a hint of citrus. They will go nicely with coffee as they are not too sweet or too big.

Sweet & Sour Pork

Sweet & Sour Pork

12 oz lean boneless pork
2 Tbsp mirin or dry sherry
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup rice vinegar
4 tsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp soy sauce
Cooking oil or shortening for deep-fat frying
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup all-purpose flour1/2 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp cooking oil
1 clove garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, thinly bias sliced
1 medium green pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium red pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 green onions, bias sliced into 1-inch pieces
1 8-oz can pineapple chunks, drained
3 cups hot cooked rice

1. Trim fat from pork. Cut pork into 3/4-inch cubes; place in a bowl. For marinade, stir together sherry, the 2 Tbsp soy sauce, and sesame oil. Pour over pork. Toss to coat. Cover; let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.
2. For sauce, stir together the 1 cup broth, sugar, vinegar, the 4 tsp cornstarch, and the 1 Tbsp soy sauce. Set aside. In a wok or large saucepan heat 1 1/2 to 2 inches of cooking oil to 365F. Meanwhile, for batter, in a bowl stir together egg, the 1/2 cup cornstarch, flour, and the 1/2 cup broth until smooth.
3. Drain pork; pat dry. Dip pork into batter, swirling to coat. Fry a few pieces of pork at a time in hot oil for 4 to 5 minutes or until golden and no pink remains. Remove from oil. Drain on paper towels. Keep pork warm in a 300F oven while frying remaining pork.
4. Pour the 1 Tbsp oil into a large skillet. (Add more oil as needed during cooking.) Preheat over medium-high heat. Cook and stir garlic in hot oil 15 seconds. Add carrots, peppers, and green onions; cook and stir 4 to 5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove vegetables from skillet. Stir sauce; add to skillet. Cook and stir until bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Stir in pineapple and cooked vegetables. Cook and stir about 1 minute or until hot. Stir in pork. Serve over rice.

This week I decided to try one of my most complicated recipes yet. It's one I found in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook long ago but just never had the motivation to actually try. This would be the week. It's not a super-difficult recipe but it does require the ability to multitask (which as you will see is not my strong suit).

The ingredients:

The marinade is simple to make but involves sherry and sesame oil which are both things I didn't have in my kitchen already. I found a cooking sherry in with the sauces and marinades and the sesame oil with the asian foods at Walmart.

After the pork was done marinading, I drained it and started to fry it. In my haste I forgot to batter the first batch. Oops! Between no batter and the oil being way too hot, this is what the first batch ended up looking like.

I had never deep-fat fried before this recipe and you could definitely tell. I had quite a bit of difficulty getting the oil to 365F. I overshot at first and then spent a long time trying to get it back down only to have it too cold for a while. I finally got it stablized and at least fairly close to 365F but it took a lot of trial and error.

Here is all the pork after it is done frying.

The sauce looks nothing like the pink stuff you always see in fast-food restaurants but it definitely smells good. In this picture I'm still waiting for it thicken up a bit.

Here is the lovely ensemble as it heats just before serving. The carrots and peppers adds some nice color to this meal (and they taste great).

The final product: it looks nice and tastes really good. I'll make this again... just not any time soon. It takes much more effort and concentration than my two kids will generally let me pay it.

I do still have one question though. What do you do with the used cooking oil?

Brown Sugar Toffee Rounds

Brown Sugar Toffee Rounds

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 package almond toffee pieces (1 1/2 cups)

1. In a large mixing bowl beat butter and shortening with a electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, milk, and almond extract until combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and the almond toffee pieces.
2. Divide dough in half. Shape each half of dough into a 10-inch-long log. Wrap each log in plastic wrap. Chill about 4 hours or until logs are firm.
3. Preheat oven to 350F. Using a serrated knife, cut logs into 1/4-inch slices. Place slices 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 9 minutes or until edges are firm. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

Makes 80 cookies

Here is last week's cookie of the week. This recipe comes from the Better Homes and Gardens' The Ultimate Cookie Book. I received this book for Christmas the year and every recipe I've tried out of it thus far has been awesome. This was my first attempt at this recipe. Other than making quite a few less cookies than touted in the recipe, it went well.

The ingredients:

You are never supposed to soften butter in the microwave; it cooks off a bit of the water in the butter which will affect the texture of the cookies. Nevertheless, I was very rushed and went ahead. Here is the butter and shortening after they have been whipped together.

This is the dough right before adding the flour and toffee. The almond extract makes it smell really good. I kind of wanted to eat it straight from the bowl at this point.

The finished dough is quite mallible and soft. It was kind of like a delicious smelling playdough; I had difficulty stopping playing with it.

Among my many shortcomings, I have a inability to divide things evenly. Whenever I have to divide something in half by eyeballing, I get it wrong. I've come to terms with this. Another inability I have is eyeballing lengths. For that, I got out the ruler. Here is one of my 10-inch logs.

The recipe said to chill the logs for 4 hours. When I finished the dough, it was almost 6pm so I didn't feel I had that much time.

To hurry things along a bit, I stuck the logs in the freezer for the first 30 minutes. I tested the dough after about 2 more hours and stuck them back in the freezer for another 30 minutes to get them to the right firmness.

I seem to have also have some difficulty judging a 1/4-inch thickness. The recipe says it will make 6 1/2 dozen but I was only able to get 5 dozen. They didn't turn out any worse for being extra thick.

The final product was very chewy and moist. The toffee added a subtle flavor and a very pleasing crunch to these cookies. I'll definitely be making these again. However, I will try to allot the full four and half hours next time.

Cookie of the Week

Dandy Candy Oatmeal Cookies

12 oz creamy peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 butter flavored Crisco Stick
3 eggs
3/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp maple syrup
4 ½ cups quick oats, uncooked
2 tsp baking soda
8 oz M&M’s

1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease baking sheet with shortening. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies.
2. Combine peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and shortening in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and maple syrup. Beat at high speed 3 to 4 minutes. Add 2 ½ cups oats and baking soda; stir. Stir in candy. Stir in remaining 2 ½ cups oats. Shape dough into 1 ½ inch balls. Flatten slightly. Place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
3. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 11 to 12 minutes for crispy cookies. Cool 2 minutes. Remove cookies to foil to cool completely.

Makes 3 ½ dozen cookies

Nearly every week I make cookies to bring to church. I'll be posting my selection for the week on the sidebar (under the menu). This week I made one of my favorites. It is a recipe out of my very first cookie cookbook, The Cookie Bible. My mom bought it for me shortly after Tyler and I got married and this was actually the first recipe I tried out of it. The name is arduously long so Tyler just calls them "molassie cookies" (although I have no idea where the name came from since there is no molasses in them).

I've made these cookies a couple of times for church already (when it's close to a holiday and I'm feeling lazy I just use the holiday-colored M&M's to make "holiday" cookies). I've noticed in all the stacking that is involved in transporting them to church that these tend to be a little crumbly. This week I used one of the tips I picked up from the magazine I've been reading lately (Cooks Illustrated) to correct this issue.

The ingredients:



The switch up: I heard that increasing the brown to white sugar ratio would make the cookies chewier. I kept the total amount of sugar in the recipe at 2 cups but I increased the brown sugar to 1 1/3 cups and decreased the granulated sugar to 2/3 cup. This is after I've creamed together the sugars with shortening and peanut butter.


Here is the finished dough.


The recipe says to roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and flatten. I'm not really good at judging how big a ball of dough is (without getting out a ruler which just seems silly). My inability to eyeball 1 1/2 inches did result in significantly more cookies than the recipe touts. We actually ended up making 5 1/2 dozen instead of 3 1/2; I like my cookies a little smaller though, so I probably won't change this next time.

Here are all the cookies that survived past the tasting testing phase. We were trying to figure out precisely how long to bake them. Tip: Bake cookies one sheet at a time. It takes longer but results in a superior product. Since you are able to place the sheet in the center of the oven (instead of one on the top rack and another on the bottom), the cookies bake evenly top to bottom. Turning the sheet in the middle of the baking time will further ensure even baking.

Tyler and I did most of the taste testing but Addilyn helped as well. We decided that the third dozen was just about perfect. I baked that dozen for 9 minutes, 15 seconds and turned the sheet just a little past half way through. Those cookies came out extra chewy and moist. If you like your cookies crunchier than you'll want to keep them in longer; the longest batch was somewhere around 10 minutes and was nice and crunchy on the outside but still chewy in the center.

The final product: Here is the stack of cookies right before I wrapped them to go to church. They sat, covered, overnight and were very good when I served them. We did notice that they seemed to have more peanut butter flavor today than they did yesterday. I would say that the sugar adjustment was a success because the cookies definitely crumbled less even when handled by the tough crowd at church.

Quick Tomato Sauce

Quick Tomato Sauce

2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup grated onion
1/4 tsp dried oregano
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1/4 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1. Heat butter in medium saucepan over medium heat until melted.
2. Add onion, oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon table salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated and onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
4. Stir in tomatoes and sugar; increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer until thickened slightly, about 10 minutes.
5. Take sauce off heat, stir in basil and oil; season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Last night I tried a new recipe for spaghetti sauce. It's a recipe I got out of Cook's Illustrated (a magazine that was recommended to me by Liane, one of the best cooks in our church) and was super excited to try out. The goal of this recipe is to produce a fresh-tasting tomato sauce that can be made in the time it takes to cook spahetti.

The ingredients:

The author said to use the large holes of a box grater to grate the onion. Other than a few tears, I enjoyed this step; it's always nice to get to use one of my kitchen gadgets.

This is about a minute into step two. It smelled good.

This is what the onion looked like after it cooked for a while. Looking back on this now, I probably could have cooked the onions even a little bit longer but I don't think it really hampered the final product. At this point, I had added the garlic and it smelled even better.

After adding the tomatoes and sugar, you're supposed to bring the sauce up to a simmer. Be warned: it will splatter. I don't know why I never think of this when heating tomato sauce until I've got tomatoes on my wall; I guess I'm just a slow learner.

Here is the last step of mixing in the basil and oil.

The final product: the sauce was really good and seemed to get better with each taste. Even Tyler (who absolutely hates change) agreed that this was much better than our usual Prego.

The main issue I had with this recipe was not actually with the sauce but with the pasta. I decided to use Angel Hair pasta because Tyler likes it better. Of course, it has a shorter cooking time than regular spaghetti so it was done well before the sauce. I also have the inability to judge serving sizes of dried pasta. I either cook too little and we have to try to stretch it or I cook way too much. Last night I cooked way too much (seriously, you should see how much pasta I gave Tyler). On the whole, it was a successful meal and I will definitely be making this recipe again.

The Menu

In an effort to budget more efficiently, I try to make only one trip to the grocery store a week. While it doesn't always work out as planned it's the effort that counts, right? This means that every Monday morning (or Sunday evening if I'm feeling especially industrious) I sit down and figure out what meals I will be making that week. Since we have a meal at small group each week, I only have to prepare for 6 meals during the week. I don't have them designated to certain days because I like to feign spontaneity and sometimes you're just not in the mood for what's planned ("I really don't want to eat tacos tonight"). Anyway, I have posted our weekly menu on the sidebar. The numbers that follow each listing are how many night's worth of meals I think each recipe will make. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into our dietary world.

Fettucine alla Carbonara

Fettucine alla Carbonara

8 oz fettucine
6 slices bacon
2 Tbsp butter
1 egg
1 cup half & half (or milk or heavy cream)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
black pepper
finely chopped parsley for garnish (although it looks pretty, I usually skip this because I'm too cheap to keep fresh parsley around just for garnishing)

1. Cook pasta.
2. Cook bacon and crumble.
3. Combine lightly-beaten egg with butter and half & half and cook over medium heat until the mixture will just coat a metal spoon (approximately 6 minutes).
4. Toss pasta, bacon, parmesan, pepper and sauce together to coat and serve immediately.

This past week I made Fettucine alla Carbonara (per the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook). This is a recipe I've made many times before. It actually was one of the first recipes I tried out of this cookbook (Tyler loves alfredo and bacon so I thought this was a sure-fired winner) and was one I thought I had down. Step 3 is the tricky part in this meal (that and making sure to serve this immediately because it gets pasty the longer it sits). If you don't cook the sauce long enough, it doesn't coat the pasta. If you cook it too long and it starts to boil, the sauce isn't creamy but instead is kind of grainy and dry. When we were living up north, I could get it to just about the perfect consisency by simply following the recipe and cooking for 6 minutes. I don't know what but something has changed since we have moved to Houston. Here it takes sometimes 15 minutes or more to get it even close to coating the spoon. That has been very frustrating and has resulted in multiple runny or grainy versions of this meal. Friday I decided I would try to alter my methods to see if I could get that cooking time back down to 6 minutes.

My ingredients (minus some salt for the pasta water and some black pepper for garnish):

The switch up: Instead of simply lumping all of the ingredients together and cooking for the stated 6 minutes, I thought I'd try to speed things up a bit by melting the butter and preheating the pot before adding the rest.

I have always beaten the egg in the pot to avoid soiling another dish but since the pot was already warm this time it actually cooked the egg just a little before I could get the rest of the ingredients added (this didn't turn out to be a huge problem but Tyler did notice a small hunk of scrambled egg in his carbonara).


While melting the butter beforehand did speed up the process, it still took nearly 10 minutes to get the sauce to spoon-coating consistency. If anyone has any ideas why it takes longer in Houston rather than in Kansas and Missouri, please share. I'm still stumped.

Here is the finished product. It ended up tasting fine (Tyler seemed to enjoy his added scrambled egg) and being about the right consistency but I think that's more due to my experience with this dish than any of the tweaking I did.

That Special Cookie

This is the cookie that started it all. Long ago I was given a cookie cookbook by my mother for Christmas. This is the first cookie I made that came out looking just like the picture in the book. I was so proud of myself (thus the picture of a random cookie). It was then I discovered that baking could be fun and wasn't completely beyond my abilities. And, of course, that it has to be one of the tastiest hobbies out there.

Introductions

Hello all. I'll cut to the chase. I'm hoping to learn to cook and bake better. To do so, I'm going to need a little accountability and a lot of help. Enter blog. I plan to use this to chronicle my cooking successes and failures in hopes of discovering what works and what doesn't. I will try out new recipes and techniques and let you know how it goes. You can then give me advice if you have it or just enjoy the entertainment value of my failures. The ultimate goal is to become one of those super cool cooks that can make up recipes and have them turn out edible (if not actually enjoyable). Wish me luck!