Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola or corn oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven . Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and butter the paper.
2. Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture to incorporate it. Mix in the chips.
3. Using an ice cream scoop with a 1/4-cup capacity, scoop mounds of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies at least 2 1/2-inches apart. You could also simply use a 1/4-cup measuring cup if you don’t have a scoop. Use a thin metal spatula to smooth and flatten the rounds.
4. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry, about 16 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then use a wide metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool cimpletely.
5. Dust the cooled cookies lightly with powdered sugar. The cookies can be stored in a tightly covered container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

It's that time of year. Pumpkin is everywhere and it's filling my pantry as well. In branching out from the traditional pumpkin pie, I thought I'd find something else to do with my canned pumpkin. This is the first of a couple recipes I'll try and I found it on Joy the Baker

The ingredients.

The dough. It comes together really easy. It includes oil instead of butter or shortening so it kind of reminds me of a cake batter instead of a cookie dough.

Joy said to use a 1/4 cup scoop to spoon these out but that seemed really big to me. I ended up just spooning out a good sized mound for each. This was the first sheet. On the second sheet I went even smaller and they still turned out great.

Here are the ginormous results of the first sheet. They bake up really well and end up being more like individual pumpkin butterscotch cakes. I'm not exactly sure why the butterscotch chips sunk but I kind of like the effect. If you could finagle a design, you could make these into jack o' lantern cookies. How fun!

The final product: these are light and cake-like. The pumpkin and spice are very festive and the butterscotch chips are a wonderful compliment. I'll definitely make these again. If I want to impress, I'll stick with the original, ginormous size. If I just want to indulge in some festive treats, I try the smaller size and be able to share with lots of friends. Yum.

Zucchini Pancakes

Zucchini Pancakes
2 c. zucchini, grated
1/2 c. Bisquick
1/4 c. grated onions
1/4 Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
Mix all together. Fry like pancakes in butter, 5 minutes on each side.

I made these on a whim one night when we didn't want what I had scheduled for that night. In my head I was planning on trying this recipe from Joy the Baker but I didn't have 4 cups of zucchini. I set out to find another recipe quickly online and this is what I found. It's simple and used Bisquick which I needed to get rid of (double score!).

The ingredients.

The zucchini. As you can see, I had to stretch a bit to even get the 2 cups required for this recipe.

When I mentioned zucchini pancakes, I think Tyler was thinking sweet pancakes with some zucchini in it (maybe more like zucchini bread). These include onion and cheese so they definitely fall into the savory rather than sweet category.

We are more of a waffle bunch so I don't know if I've ever fried up pancakes before. New experiences = hooray!

Big pile of savory, green pancakes.

The final product: these are pretty good and could be very versatile. One could be very creative with toppings and completely change the feel of this meal. Suggestions I saw were sour cream or applesauce. Since we didn't have either of those options, we tried a couple of our own ideas. They were really good with just plain butter. We also liked honey but I think they would interesting with ketchup or salsa. This recipe was a good introduction to zucchini pancakes but I still intend to try Joy the Baker's recipe next time around.

More Pizza Fun

Food in Chicago is very important. There are a couple of things people seem to be pretty passionate about: pizza and Italian steak. While we haven't had a chance to delve into the Italian steak realm, we did get to expand our pizza experience a bit this past weekend. We tried Gino's East.

This is the pizza we had at Giordano's (just for comparison):

And this is the pizza we had at Gino's East. They didn't have our standard Hawaiian pizza (Tropical Delight at Giordano's) so we had to branch out a bit. This is a cheeseburger pizza which included ground beef, cheddar cheese (in addition to the regular cheese topping) and bacon. The pizza was pretty good. The crust included cornmeal which makes for a crunchy texture and interesting flavor. Gino's prides themselves on their sauce and I can see why; the sauce is really good. Since the sauce is really the star of this pizza, they emphasize it more than the cheese on this pizza. While I really appreciate the incredible sauce and excellent crust, I think we prefer Giordano's pizza just for all the cheese (we really like our cheese).

Pad Thai

Pad Thai
8 oz dried rick stick noodles
4 Tbsp Thai fish sauce
6 Tbsp white vinegar
6 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp ketchup
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
8 cloves garlic, pounded to a mash or crushed and chopped
2 eggs4 green onions/scallions, including green tops and white bottoms angle cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1.5 bean sprouts
1/3 cups of finely chopped peanuts

1. Soak the noodles in a large bowl of hot water until they are soft (about 30 minutes). Drain and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, mix the fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, ketchup until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Set a wok over medium-high heat. When it is quite hot, add the oil. Rotate the wok so that the oil coats the sides. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and stir fry until golden (1-2 minutes). Stir in the sauce mixture and bring to a boil. Add the noodles and gently toss them in the sauce. Stir fry until the noodles absorb the sauce.
4. Break the eggs into the wok, breaking up the yolks a bit, the mix the eggs down under the noodle mixture. Cook without stirring for 15 seconds, then stir fry until ingredients are well balanced.
5. Add the green onions and stir fry for a couple minutes until cooked through but still crisp. Stir in the bean sprouts and peanuts until well mixed. Serve immediately.
   

Sweet Pork
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, pounded to a mash or crushed and chopped
3/4 pound pork tenderloin, cut crosswise into thin medallions
2 Tbsp fish sauce
4 Tbsp golden brown sugar
1/2 tsp pepper

1. Set a wok over medium-high heat. When it is quite hot, add the oil. Rotate the wok so that the oil coats the sides. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and stir fry for a few seconds then add the pork. Stir fry until cooked through. Add the remaining ingredients and stir fry for 1.5 minutes.

I got these recipes from my husband's cousin (would that make her my cousin-in-law?), Denita. She sent it to me months ago and I finally got a chance to try it this week.

Aside from the move, my main obstacle to making this sooner was finding the rice noodles. I don't know why but I couldn't find them anywhere. I tried big markets and small but had no luck. Finally I ended going to an Asian market near Chinatown (you'd think with not one but two Korean senior centers within 5 blocks of our apartment we'd have one closer but no). The market was filled with all sorts of interesting products, lots of smells I'm not accustomed to and a vast array of rice noodles. Hooray!

I realize you should make the pad thai before making the meat but I didn't notice that you needed to soak the noodles for 30 minutes before stir frying so I switched them.

The sweet meat sauce ingredients. I decided to switch out chicken for the pork (because that's what I had already) and it seemed to work well.


The chicken and garlic stir frying.

The sauce cooking down.

Pad thai ingredients (minus the soaking noodles).

The first time around I burned the garlic. This just proves you should never cook while distracted. Can I get a redo?

Much better. Here is the sauce stir frying after a more successful garlic stir fry.

The noodles after they soaked up all the sauce.

The eggs cooked up nicely but made the noodles really sticky. I had a lot of difficulty stir frying the scallions because the noodles didn't want to separate at all. I'm not really sure what caused this so if anyone has any advice, I'd be thrilled.

The final product: this was really good. Tyler and Addilyn both ate this willingly and seemed to really enjoy it which is quite the feat. I will definitely make this again (and not just because I still have half a pack of rice noodles). Next time I need to either cook the pad thai first or figure out a better way to keep the meat warm but it was a little dry and chewy.

I'm sorry...but this will make up for everything

I know it's been a while. I don't have a great excuse. I could blame our move but I think I've already used that one up. I'm out after that so I'll just say, "I'm sorry" and we'll move on.

It's starting to get cool. An actual fall!! After a year in Houston, I'm really excited about cooler weather just so I can break out all the fun, really hearty recipes I have that I ignored for a year. Soup is something that I always love in the fall and this recipe screams FALL.

Harvest Creamy Corn "Choup"

by Rachel Ray

2 Tbsp olive oil
4 bacon slices, chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 to 5 large ears corn, cut off the cob, or 1 (10-oz) box frozen corn
1 medium or 2 small zucchini, chopped
1 lb small potatoes, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 bay leaf
5 to 6 fresh thyme sprigs
1 tsp paprika
salt and black pepper
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 qt chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream

Heat the olive oil in medium soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the bacon to the hot oil and cook until crisp at the edges, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the onions, corn, zucchini, potatoes, and bell pepper as you get them chopped. Add the bay leaf, thyme sprigs, paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 7 to 8 minutes, until the veggies begin to soften. Sprinkle the flour around the pot, and stir and cook for 1 minute, then stir in the stock and bring up to a bubble. When it thickens up a bit, stir in the milk and cream and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and discard bay leaf. Season the choup with salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste.

Serves 4.

The ingredients:

Veggies cooking in bacon grease has to be the best smell ever. Seriously, it's awesome.

The veggies are all soft. Here is where I stop and smell the pot. Inhale the deliciousity.

Simmering in the broth. This is right before adding the milk and cream.

The final product: I don't know how to express how wonderful this soup is. The name "choup" comes from a cross between chowder and soup. That's a good description because this is creamy like a chowder but not quite as thick. It's got a warm, smoky flavor from the bacon and the vegetables are delicious (not to mention really pretty all mixed up together). Enjoy a big bowl of this...soon.