A Very Big "HIT"....oh yum!

Saltines, butter, brown sugar, chocolate...I've seen this recipe before many times in the past. It's a mock English Toffee type of thing. It always sounded good but I've resisted making it for some reason...perhaps it's the saltines that made me question whether or not it was worth the time.




The other day in a Facebook "comment" conversation I was having with my friend Michele and her friend Sandy, Michele was making these fantastic sounding neopolitan type cookies and had some concerns about how to go about cutting the dough. Sandy suggested that Michele take a look at an entry on the blog "Smitten Kitchen". I took a look at the blog and fell in love with it.


I clicked on the "candy" category and the first recipe I looked at was a recipe called "chocolate caramel crack(ers)". Check it out, I dare you. Okay....are you back now? How does it look? Great, right? Yeah, I thought so too.


You guessed it....I made it. I loved, loved, loved that it was made with Matzo Crackers and I actually had a box of them here on hand so I thought to myself, "what the heck". I had bought the Matzo for another recipe and only used a few sheets of it so what better way to use more of these?


This is the final product, all ready to be sealed up in an airtight container so not one little, precious bit of it becomes stale!

I pretty much followed the recipe to a T. The pan size it calls for does not correspond with what I ended up using and what the pictures in the blog appear to be using. I used a typical jelly roll/cookie sheet type of pan and with how many Matzo sheets (should "Matzo" be capitalized...hmmm...I don't know so I will keep doing it) it appeared the pan held in the blog pictures, it appears she used the same size pan as me. I was a bit worried there would not be enough toffee to go over it but it was all good...plenty of it.  I strongly recommend that you skip all oiling and buttering of pans and use her suggestion of lining the sheet with foil and then lining it with parchment paper.  Once these were ready to be pulled out of the pan and cut up they were 100% trouble free.


I used salted Matzo and salted butter so I skipped the sea salt step...good thing I did. The salt from the Matzo was just enough to give it that subtle saltiness that goes well with this kind of stuff. The toffee mixture boiled up nicely and smelled soooooo very good in the house. I had no problems at all with the baking part of it...however, I did forget to set the timer so I probably did not have it in there as long as 15 minutes fearing that I would overcook it. My end result does indicate that it could have probably cooked just a few more minutes....there's just a bit of chewiness where the toffee is thicker...it's still good, mind you...it's just not the completely crunchy, melt in your mouth toffee like you get where it's a little thinner. I used toasted pecans for the top because it's what I had. I was able to toast them in a frying pan while I was waiting for the toffee mixture to boil so it was no problem at all to take that extra step...I think it's always worth it to give your nuts a toasting....the flavor is so much more for that few minutes work.


I am happy I made this but on the other hand, it's just one more of those very easy to do type of recipes that you can whip up in a small amount of time and that you can seriously overindulge with in about the same time it takes to pull it together. It's dangerous stuff, I tell ya, but definitely one of those things to make if you need to bring a dessert/baked good somewhere...you can have your few pieces and get it OUT of the house!!

 

Yummy Chicken Burgers

I've been eating ground chicken for a very long time. I never got used to ground turkey....something about it always weirded me out. Always seemed to be a bit of gristle or bone in it...blech. I had the same fears about the chicken but found it to be, in my opinion of course, 100% better than ground turkey. Now, my husband does not feel the same way at all. He will eat it but does not love it. I know he'd much rather NOT be having it. So, when my son broke the news to him last nite we were having chicken burgers, he suggested I do something "good" with them. I think they are "good" on their own but I was in the mood to be creative so I set out to look for a recipe.


I ended up taking a few ideas and mixing them together. I saw a recipe for a garlic rosemary chicken burger and a recipe for a Cordon Bleu chicken burger that both sounded good. I decided to mix it up and do both on my own.


Here's what I used:

~1 pound Perdue ground chicken (not the ground chicken breast but I am sure that would have been great as well)
~dried rosemary
~crushed garlic (I used Trader Joe's jarred....love this stuff)
~sea salt
~pepper
~deli ham
~Swiss cheese (I used Finlandia light Swiss)

As you may have noticed, I have no measurements for anything. I don't measure too much when I cook. Rather, I tend to just put what looks good in. This is hard to retell as a recipe of course, and hard to remember what I did if it turns out great and I want to do it again but I just can't bring myself to do it when I cook. When I bake, I do it faithfully for fear that the recipe will not turn out properly...but cooking, nah...I wing it!

So...on to what I did.

I made 3 burgers out of the pound because there were 3 of us eating. I am guessing it would work for 4 burgers, you'd just have to be aware of the thickness and size as you shape the burgers. 

I put the chicken in a bowl and put in the salt (about 1 tsp), pepper (about 1/2 tsp), garlic (about 1.5-2 tsps) and the rosemary (about 1 tbsp). I mixed this all together and let it sit while I got the ham and cheese ready.

I was afraid of cheese seepage if I was going to stuff these burgers with the ham and cheese as I had wanted to. What I did to lessen the chance of seepage was this....I cut each cheese slice into quarters. I laid the each piece of ham out on the counter and in the middle of each piece I put the cheese...all 4 quarters stacked on top of each other. I then folded the top of the ham down over the cheese, folded the left side over, folded the right hand side over and then the bottom up. Now the cheese was all wrapped up in the ham like a little package.

The chicken had gotten quite sticky as I mixed it with the other ingredients. I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to make 6 thin patties and assemble them without a disaster on my hands. This is what I ended up doing and it worked out wonderfully....I divided up the chicken in 3 equal portions. I tend to get a bit obsessive about things being even so I did this with a scale. I then took each third and divided it in half, again with the scale...now that I type this I realize I could have just used the scale the first time to divide it into 6 portions but it was a process and I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it all at the time!!! Okay...so, take 1/6 of the chicken and pat it out onto the frying pan into a thin, burger sized layer. Next, take your lovely ham/Swiss cheese package and put it in the middle of the patty. Take another 1/6 of the chicken and put it on top of the package and pat it out and around the package to meet up with the patty underneath and press a bit to seal then push in the flattened edges a bit so it's all one uniform thickness...make sense? I hope so. I hadn't intended on blogging about this so I didn't take any picture to demonstrate. It should not be taller in the middle than it is on the edges where you sealed it...I wanted it an even thickness for more even cooking. Repeat with the rest and cook over a fairly high heat, medium high maybe, until all is done.

Like I said, hadn't intended on blogging at all about these but I keep thinking of them today, the day after I made them, and really want to make them again so I figured it was worth sharing.

Pasta, Sauce and Bread

I had no errands to run or any place to go today so I decided to make cavatelli pasta.  When I went to the store to get the ricotta for the pasta and some stuff to make sauce for it, I thought it'd be nice to have some sort of fresh bread with it so I started looking for that too but decided I'd make my own at home.  It's been a long day of cooking and here are the results!

I got the bread dough going first.  This is the recipe I used:

Italian Sesame Bread

I made it just as instructed except that I put some vital wheat gluten in with the flour.  I did not have any of the dough improver that was optional so I threw 4 tsps of the gluten in there instead.  Would it do the same thing...have no idea but I figured it wouldn't hurt at all.

Here are some pics:

This is the dough shaped with the first of 2 egg washes on it.

 

This is the dough after rising and with the second egg wash and sesame seeds on it.

Here the bread is done.  The left end split a little bit as it rose while baking but it looks like it will be a nice, soft loaf of bread.  I had in mind to make crusty bread but this will do...I never turn any kind of bread away.

Next, I got the pasta dough started.  Here is the recipe I used:

How To Make Cavatelli Pasta By Hand

I won't go into too many details as to the process here because the page the recipe is on does.  I will tell you though, it is a long process indeed...as the author of the recipe states.  I did not deviate at all from the recipe as this was my very first time making homemade pasta and I wouldn't even know what to do if I were to change it up.

Here are some pics:

                                    

I had to weigh out the ricotta...could not find a 16 oz container, they were all 15 oz, so I bought a 2 lb container and weighed out the 16 oz I needed.

Can you see the little guys?  They kinda blend in with my counter and the flour...look closely though, they are there. (You can click on the pics to make them bigger to, if you want)

Here the little guys are after being shaped with the dough scraper...it's pretty cool to see them transform into their final shape.

       

Here's the whole crew.  There are 3 layers of them in the baking dish with plastic wrap or wax paper in between to help them from sticking to each other.  They are now in my fridge awaiting their swim in my big pot.

As I was shaping these, I noticed that I am not the best at keeping the sizing consistent and that they were holding onto a lot of the flour I was using to keep them from sticking to each other.  I decided a test run was in order so I boiled up a few to see if it was just a disaster waiting to happen and I should be making alternate plans for dinner.

What a little bowl of lovely...they cooked up very nicely and tasted great.  I put some sauce on them that I've had simmering and I can say that I am sooooo looking forward to dinner tonite.

The sauce I made is nothing special.  I am an extremely picky and will only eat sauce that I make so I know what is in it.  I don't like onions...no, let me rephrase that, I H-A-T-E ONIONS.  I also don't like chunky tomatoes or chunky anything else in my sauce either.

This is what I do for my sauce....I know it's not anything authentic or way out there for deliciousness, but it's what I like and therefore, it's what I make....

I take one 29 oz can of tomato puree and add this to it:

crushed garlic

salt

pepper

basil

oregano

honey

grated cheese (I used freshly grated romano today)

Add however much of whatever you want to the puree and warm it through or let it simmer for a while...it's up to you.  I don't know that I notice too much of a difference if I let it simmer vs. just getting it nice and hot and then eating it.  It just felt right today to let it simmer on the stove while I was doing all the other work.

This is what the pan looks like before I stir it up.

I will be making meatballs as well but have not made them yet...I usually use this recipe:

Baked Italian Meatballs

So, that's it for today...I think that's enough though.  I am wiped out and hungry.  Can't wait for 6:00 to roll around so I can eat...yum!

Happy Cooking.......

                                                                       

     

Found Some Fiber One Cereal....

...and since I won't eat it as cereal, I decided to bake with it.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have all my extra food in the corner of my living room.  My unopened box of Fiber One cereal was calling to me.  I know I bought it for something...I always have ingredient lists in my head of things I'd like to make.  I have made a lot of things with it...I use it for breading when I'm being "good" with my diet and I have made haystacks with it...also some very interesting muffins using a brownie mix, water and a bunch of the cereal.  I'm afraid to eat a bowl of it in the morning with some milk as intended, but I am not afraid to cook or bake with it.

I went to the Fiber One website and found their recipes.  I know I just got an email with a great looking coffee cake recipe using FO but did not see anything that resembled it on the site.  Instead, I went with this:

Double Chocolate Muffins

Anything double chocolate has to be good, right?  Even if it has a bunch of FO in it, right?  Yeah, you and I are both right...they are good.

These are easy enough to mix up.  I used my trusty Sacco Buttermilk Powder for the buttermilk.  Usually I just add the called for powder to the dry ingredients and add the called for water to the liquid ingredients.  For this, I did mix it up.  In a glass liquid measuring cup I measured the 1 1/3 cup of water and added 5.25 tbsps of the powder to it.  Once mixed up, I put my FO in it that I had already crushed in the food processor.  I set the cup aside and set the timer to 5 minutes and then went on to whisk all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.  After the 5 minutes was up, I put the vanilla, egg and the oil in the liquid measure and mixed it in with the very lovely looking buttermilk/FO mixture...it looked even better with the addition of the oil, egg and vanilla...thick, glossy and smooth...(insert sarcasm if you didn't get it...it was pretty gross looking).  I poured that in the dry ingredients, mixed it a few times, threw in the mini chips and finished it off as directed.

These cooked about 15 minutes or so and they were ready to come out.  They looked just like regular ol' chocolate cupcakes...rose up nice, crackly tops, soft to the touch...yum!

The recipe said these were to be served warm.  Well, you don't have to tell me twice to not wait for them to cool completely.  I pulled off the paper liner and it did stick a bit...probably because I did not wait for them to be warm, instead I chose to eat them while still slightly hot.  No problem though...that's why you see the fork below...used it to scrape all the yum that was left inside the liner.  Notice I did say "yum".  They were really good.  There is that something to them that indicates they are not a chocolate cup cake, as they look to be.  The FO is well mixed in and you cannot notice it at all but it must be between that and the whole wheat flour that you use that you notice a slight taste difference.  It's not bad at all, it just doesn't taste exactly what it looks like, a Betty Crocker, PIllsbury or Duncan Hines mix cupcake.

See...I cleaned my plate and paper liner.  I will make these again...perhaps another batch with what's left of my now opened box of Fiber One.  I am hoping the rest of my family will like these as well...while they aren't "better-for-you" in the sense that they are low fat/fat free, the Fiber One does add fiber (of course), 28 grams to the entire recipe to be exact, and it's fortified with vitamins and minerals so it adds a wee bit of nutrition to it as well so in a way, they are better for you than Betty or Duncan's finest.

I hope to post another recipe soon...I have it in my head that I want to try to make gnocchi or cavatelli pasta.  Don't aske me why because I cannot tell you...it's just there in my head.  While I was looking for a recipe for the cavatelli, I found a recipe for homemade cheese crackers, like Cheez-It's, and I am dying to try those now too.  They looked flaky and wonderul...so, who knows what will be next and when it will be...until then, happy baking!

Boilers, Brownies and Bagels....oh my

It's been an eventful few days here since I last posted.  Having work done to your house is never an easy thing and it's making me crazy because my house looks like one of those houses in the show "Hoarders".  Okay, so not every room is to that extreme but the rooms that are, or are almost to that extreme, are really making me shake my head at how anyone can live like that all the time and to those extents...wow!

So, what we live in is a Campanelli ranch.  There's loads of them in this city and in some of the surrounding towns.  It's on a slab so that means no basement and there's not attic either.  To top it off, they're small so there's very little storage.  We were lucky, the one we found had already had some work done on it to convert half of the garage into a nice sized dining room.  That other half of our garage is our only storage and I'm grateful they did not convert that to yet another room. 

What else is a bit quirky is that the boiler unit is in the kitchen (along with the washing machine, mind you).  It's underneath a rather retro looking cover and it's noisy and makes a lot of dust.  We have long wanted to move it out of the kitchen but had never really looked into it.   In the last month or two, we were considering remodeling the kitchen and because of this, we felt it was the time to look into it.  We did look into it and we put a 50% deposit down on the work to move the boiler but the we decided that the kitchen was going to cost too much at this time.  Sure, it will cost too much when we do want to do it at another time but we want to get some of the nuisance work done a little bit at a time so when we do the kitchen, it's not so very overwhelming.  So, because we had already paid a deposit on the boiler we went ahead and got that work done as a start to what we eventually want to do with the kitchen.

Last Thursday and Friday they worked...Friday they were here until 7:30 even.  They are coming back tomorrow afternoon as well to finish it.  Meanwhile, all the stuff that was in my garage is in my house...my very small house that is comfortably full when there is not all the garage stuff in it.  My dining room is like a maze...paths between boxes and boxes of who knows what.  I have a corner in my living room that is full of the excess food that I had stored out in the garage that was duplicates of what I had un my cupboards already and I also have a bunch of Rock Band and Guitar Hero gear on the other side of the living room.  The bedrooms and cat's room/office are full as well.  I have managed to keep the kitchen no more cluttered than it usually is and for that I am grateful...it means I can still do my laundry and cook with out too much aggravation!

What I did manage to cook this weekend were two things.  First off, Simon slept over at a friend's house on Saturday nite so I made him some caramel brownie cups to takeover.  I have done this before with mini peanut butter cups but was inspired to try them with Rolo's when I walked by a bag that was whispering, "buy me" as I passed it by.  Candy does that to me ALL the time.  I thought, if I buy them I can have a few and bake with the rest.  I listened to that bag of Rolos and bought it.

What you do is...it's so simple it's not even really a recipe:

~1 box brownie mix (the size for a9x13 size pan)
~1 bag of Rolo's or mini Reese's peanut butter cups

See...that's it...not much to it at all.  You prepare the brownie mix as directed on the package and preheat the oven as directed.  I was lucky enough to find some inexpensive mini muffin tin paper cups recently...if you don't have any of these, just spray the tins well.  Plop some of the batter in each cup them push a candy piece into each one.  Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until they start to look done.  You can't really test them for doneness with a candy being in the middle so you have to just keep an eye on them and use your best judgement about pulling them out when the look done.  In my opinion, an underbaked brownie is a good thing so I'm okay with it if I get them out a bit too early.

The Rolo's were good in these.  However, overall I do like the peanut butter cups better.  The Rolo ones were best when they were out of the oven long enough to cool so that you could handle them but warm enough so that the caramel was still gooey.  Oh my...it was wonderful!  As they completely cooled, the Rolo's firmed right back up.  I don't like the peanut butter cup ones right out of the oven but room temp...so very wonderful.  They are both good...don't get me wrong, but they only stay just warm enough for so long and are room temp for much longer of a time so the peanut butter wins out with me!  (Unless of course I were feeling incredibly gluttonous and ate ALL the caramel ones at the right temp while they were still gooey!)  I was going to frost these as well with either caramel or chocolate frosting but I ran out of time and oomph.

Saturday night Keith was busy getting insulation up in the garage.  Now that the boiler is out there we do need to take steps to make sure that none of the pipes freeze.  There was really nothing I could do to help so I went ahead and made bagels.  

Here is the recipe:

Michele's Bagels

These are from my friend Michele with whom I have reconnected...or should I say connected with on Facebook.  We went to high school together but hardly knew each other then.  We became Facebook friends and have found that we have many, many things in common...including baking!  I hope you'll visit her blog often after looking at her bagels.  She's always creating something and I know I look forward to seeing what it is she's up to on her blog and hope you will too!

Seeing the pictures of Michele's bagels inspired me.  I have tried to make bagels in the past and while they were not inedible, they were not as bagel-ish as I would have like them to be.  Michele's were lovely to look at and she has said how much her and her husband enjoy them so I knew they were just as good as they looked.

I set out to do this and found that I really enjoyed the whole process of making these.  I like things that take a lot of steps...I like to see the progress as you complete each step.  With the bagels there was not a lot of down time and when there was, it was only 10 minutes or so at a time and there was plenty to do to get ready for the next step so you were always doing something.

I had, what I consider, a great success with this recipe.  I had a few that looked like they had shrunk and I'm not quite sure what I did wrong with those ones, but the majority of them were indeed bagels and they were bagel-y!  They looked like bagels, they tasted like bagels, they had the consistency and texture of bagels.  They were so very good...I am so excited that I now have a great bagel recipe.  It will be a great thing to play with as the winter looms and I am more in the mood to do things like this.  You can add just about anything you want so there's lots to explore.  For this batch I did a couple things to them.  I topped a few with sesame seeds and to a couple, I topped them with some shredded asiago cheese.  I have long loved Au Bon Pain's asiago cheese bagels so I just had to try this out.  For the rest of the batch, I lef them plain.  All of them were great in their own way.   I would like to do a cinnamon swirl one at some point, I would also like to try some with a topping similar to the one Michele mentions in her blog and, I would love to do a chocolate chip one...Finagle A Bagel has the most wonderful chocolate chip bagels and I think I can give it a whirl now that I have a great base recipe.  Thanks again to Michele for sharing this!!

Happy baking til next time!

 

Pecan Crusted Fish

My first "cooking" entry is the following recipe:

Pecan Crusted Trout

I have no desire to try trout so of course, I did not have any in the house.  What I did use instead, is below.... 

I first bought this fish a few years ago at Trader Joe's and have loved it ever since.  Sometimes it goes missing from their shelves for a while but it usually shows back up and I'm thrilled to say it's been back again the last few times I've been there after being away for a bit again. 

As the packaging indicates, there really is no fishy smell when cooking and it doesn't taste fishy at all.  While I don't mind my seafood tasting like seafood, I do prefer it to be on the more mild side with fish.  I love strongly flavored shellfish but I'll pass on really fishy fish!

So, onto the recipe.  As you may have noticed, I tend to deviate from most written recipes and do my own thing.  Even with baking where you have to more or less keep certain ingredients the same to ensure proper rising and such, I like to tweak the ingredients that won't affect that kind of stuff.  Usually the reason is just that I am picky and don't like certain things that are called for or I just plain ol' don't have it in my cupboards so I change it so I can make it with what I do have.  This recipe, however, I did a few things just because I wanted to!! 

I did not just "crust" the fish, I breaded it, so I began by dipping the fish into flour, then buttermilk and then finally the panko/pecan mixture.  Before doing so, I did add salt, pepper, garlic powder and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper to breading mixture.  I put a tiny bit of olive oil in my heated, non-stick pan and browned the first side.  Before I flipped them over, I sprayed the fish with some cooking spray so that the other side would brown as well without adding anymore fat than I had to.  

 

The fish was clearly not done on the inside after browning the second side and I did not want to over-brown (burn!) the breading so I put them on a baking sheet and threw them in the oven since I had baked potatoes in there anyway.  I can't tell you how long I let them continue to cook in there...the oven was at 400 and I just kept checking them until they were clearly done.

The little guy on the top row, at the end, doesn't have any breading...I ran out since it was supposed to only be on top of the fish so I just dredged him in some flour and cooked him up too....that's why he looks a little different than the rest of them.  They finished cooking up really nicely in the oven...I did spray the pan before I placed them on it and glad that I did...a couple of them did give me a bit of trouble when I went to take them off but all it took was being careful and most of the breading stayed in tact.

I will tell you that this dish got a thumbs up from everyone!  I would venture to add more seasonings next time but what I did add was pleasant enough.  It's not a super crispy breading, I imagine the way I prepared it had something to do with that outcome, but I still liked it and would definitely make it again.

Pumpkin Cake...kinda

Let me start by saying that I do not like pumpkin.  Not pies, breads, muffins, scraping the yuck out of a jack-o-lantern...none of it...blech.  So, when I kept hearing the suggestion of making a cake mix with nothing but a can of pumpkin I thought I'd never try it out.  Everyone said that you could not taste the pumpkin..."yeah right" is what I thought.  But...I will admit it...a couple years after I first heard this suggestion, I tried it and ya know what?  It's not half bad.

I have only tried this one other time prior to today.  I believe I used a spice cake mix with the can of pumpkin and threw in a few chopped walnuts.  I did them as muffins and everyone liked them....even me.  I had done the muffins because the WW's meeting that I was in that finally convinced me to try this out had been discussing how it takes a very long time to get the middle of a cake done when you make it in a 9x13 pan and sometimes it was impossible to get it done at all.  

The thing with me and muffins is, I usually end up not getting through a whole batch of them before they need to be tossed.  Sure, I could freeze them but then they'd sit up in my freezer and I would forget about them and they would end up getting tossed once freezer burn has taken over anyway.  Today I decided to brave it and try this recipe in a 9x13 pan to see what would happen.

Here's how the experiment went down:

1 box Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
(evidently, you can use any flavor)
1 15 ounce can of Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
2 egg whites
2 ounces chopped walnuts

Let me explain about the last 2 ingredients....

In the meeting that convinced me to make this, they suggested using about 1/4 cup of water to thin down the batter some.  I did do that the first time but as I considered making this today, I thought to myself that instead of using water that maybe a couple egg whites would not only help with thinning out the batter, but maybe it would help with the rise of the cake as well.  When I made the muffins they did not rise too well and were pretty much the same shape as they were when I plopped the batter down into the muffin tins...they did not mound up and have that typical muffin top shape.  Secondly...the nuts...I love nuts and knowing that this tends to make a more dense type of cake, it seems appropriate to me to throw some in like you'd throw nuts in brownies.  You don't have to add either of these last two ingredients but they are my addition to the basic recipe just because I like nuts and was experimenting with the rise of the cake.  If you want to do it the way the recipe generally gets told, you just take the cake mix and the can of pumpkin and mix it up...simple as that...you add nothing more at all.

Okay...so...I threw everything into the bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer and mixed it up till it was thick and smooth.  I sprayed a 9x13 glass baking pan with Baker's Joy trying to mostly just get the bottom of the pan hoping to help again with the rise of the cake.  Then I spread it out evenly and gave the pan a few good shimmies and shakes to help even the batter out before I placed it in a 350 degree oven.  I set the timer for 20 minutes and then checked with a toothpick in the middle of the cake...it was still wet.  It looked done all over but the toothpick did indicate I'd need to cook it longer...I was hoping I was not going to have a problem getting the middle done as I had been warned.  I set the timer for another 5 minutes, tested again and voila...DONE!

I pulled it out of the oven and it had a nice rise to it...as you can tell, that was very important to me.  The one thing about altering cakes when you are making them "better-for-you" is that sometimes you lose what makes them cakey...I hate a flat cake.  I let it cool a bit and then could not resist anymore...carefully cut a piece and sprinkled some powdered sugar over it.  It was a bit crumbly which may be because it was not completely cooled but I have a feeling it will be more crumbly than a regular cake even when cooled completely.

So...how does it taste?  YUM!  I like this SO much better than the diet soda cakes I'd made for years.  They somehow never quite hit the spot.  The texture was off and they always seemed mushy instead of having a nice crumb to them.  Don't get me wrong...I'd eat it...but it never filled the cake need that I so often get.  The pumpkin cake is very moist and like I said, a bit crumbly but it has a very good texture to it.  You cannot taste the pumpkin while eating it but I do have to say, there is the teeniest of a tiniest bit of aftertaste that indicates something is not typical about it and I'm guessing it's the pumpkin.  Other than that...wonderful.  The nuts are subtle as there are not that many of them in there and I chopped them up pretty small.  It would easily take some Cool Whip or a smidge of whipped frosting on the top...I just put some powdered sugar on my piece so I could really get an idea as to how the actual cake turned out and not have it covered by something that would cover up the taste or texture. 

I will definitely make this again and in the 9x13 pan.  I'm not sure what made mine get done in the middle when so many have apparently had issues with it.  The only thing I can think of, is that I took a couple steps to help it rise more (the egg whites and not spraying the sides of the pan) and that helped it to somehow help with making the cake being less dense and therefore, cooking more evenly...maybe...it makes sense in my head anyway!

Enjoy........



 

Bubble Pizza

I received this recipe in an Allrecipes.com newsletter and it looked pretty good.  It does used canned biscuits and all but I really wanted to give it a try anway.  Sometimes when I see stuff like this I feel like it is a shortcut to the real thing but sometimes that stuff turns out be so very good despite not being the real thing.

Here's the recipe:

Bubble Pizza

I did not get any pictures of it the nite I made it.  I was going to when we got into the leftovers but tossed the rest before I did.  It did look pretty much like what the picture on the recipe page looked like...nice melty cheese!

I have to tell you, I tweaked this recipe so much so that the ingredients I used barely resembled the ingredient list.  I basically used this as a guide and did my own thing with it based on our likes and what I had here at the house since I decided to make it on a whim.  Here are the changes I made:

~I did not have the correct biscuits to start off with.  I ended up using Pillsbury's Buttermilk Biscuits that are in the 7.5 ounce tubes.  I used 3 of them to get close to the 24 ounces of biscuits it called for.

~I did not use ground beef and pepperoni.  Instead, I used turkey Italian sausage for the meat...I cooked up two links of it and cut it into small, bite-sized pieces.

~I did not use onions or olives on it.  If anyone knows me, they know I absolutely HATE onions...so, I skipped them.  I would have loved to put some green olives in this but my husband does not like them so I skipped olives all together.  I did, however, use mushrooms.  I would have prefered fresh mushrooms but used a couple of small cans.  When the sausage was cooked through, I put the mushrooms in with it and put a small spoonful of crushed garlic in with it and stirred it around a bit to flavor it all.

~For the sauce I used 14 ounces of Pastene tomato puree and added oregano, basil, salt, pepper, granualted garlic and honey to taste...I just added a bit of each at a time and kept tasting until it seemed right.

~The cheese was a nightmare.  I usually have all kinds of cheese in my fridge.  Not so on this day that I decided to make this.  I had a partial bag of 2% mozzarella, a tiny bit of 2% colby-jack, some parmesan and some asiago.  I pulled out my big measuring cup and dumped the partial bags in, then all my parmesan in and then shredded the asiago into it until I had the full 2 1/2 cups of cheese.  It actually turned out to be a pretty good mix afterall...I'm just lucky that the cheeses I had were, for the most part, those that you typically put on pizza.

This looked wonderful when it came out of the oven...but when does melted cheese not look wonderful?  It smelled wonderful too...again, I ask...when does something like this not? 

I bet you are wondering if it tasted wonderful as well....it did.  The biscuits were interesting as a pizza base, I'll give you that.  It was very bready but that made it hearty and you were full after you ate it.  Everything that was on it blended very well and was quite satisfying.

The leftovers were a whole other story.  I went ahead and made the 9x13 pan of this instead of making half of it and putting it in an 8x8 or 11x7 pan because I thought the leftovers would be great over the weekend.  This is where I was wrong.  I cut a piece last nite and then cut that piece into two so when I microwaved it, it wouldn't take forever for the middle to get warm.  I put it on 50% power and cooked it until it was warm.  The biscuits dried out and the cheese did not get properly melty again.  I ate it but tossed the rest of the leftovers. 

If I were to make this again, I would make the smaller pan of it and enjoy it that nite.  I would like to try it with different toppings and maybe get those green olives on it...maybe I will put them on top and only on half so that we we can clearly see where they are so we can make sure no one gets them who doesn't like them.

Two Bread Projects

Earlier this week I rediscovered the joys of making yeasted breads.  I try to stay away from it because warm, fresh baked bread never makes for a good weigh in.  I think that I want to play with finding more healthful ways of making bread over this winter.  I really find a lot of enjoyment from the whole process...especially eating it!!

The first foray into baking bread this week was pita bread.  I used to make this once in a while from an old Weight Watcher's cookbook.  I had forgotten all about it until the AllRecipes.com newsletter came with a recipe for Traditional Pita Bread.  It inspired me to pull the yeast out of the freezer and give it a try.

Here's the recipe:

Traditional Pita Bread

Very, very easy recipe.  Everything went well with this one.  I only subbed half the flour and used a white whole wheat instead for that half.  The dough rolled out very nicely and they puffed right up when I baked them.  I let them rise on parchment paper and then used a pizza peel to slide the dough, on the paper, right on my pizza stone which had been sitting in the oven as it preheated to 500 degrees and then for an additional 20 minutes or so just to make sure that the oven was really, really hot.

Here is the result.....

A couple days later I decided to try to recreate a roll that we have bought at Whole Foods in the past.  It's a whole wheat roll with dried cranberries and walnut in it.  I did a search and was surprised to find so many recipes for this type of thing.  I thought for sure I'd have to piece together bits and parts of recipes.  I eventually went with one that really seemed to have everything I needed to recreate it and even more importantly, one that called for ingredients I happened to have here already.

This is the recipe:

Cranberry Walnut Bread Rolls

This recipe was much more involved than the pitas but then again, I think that most other bread recipes are...the pitas were so very simple.  The only things I did differently was add about 4 tsps of vital wheat gluten to the dry ingredients and I sprinkled a bit of Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Hot Cereal Mix over them after I formed them to give them a bit of texture and crunch on top.  It was hard to knead the cranberries and walnuts into the dough after the first rising but they eventually mixed in evenly....there may still be a few stray walnuts or cranberries on my floor or the far reaches of my kitchen that popped out as I was very patiently working them in.  The rolls baked up very nicely and seem to be a hit with the rest of the family.

Here is the result:

Would I make either of these again?

The pitas...yes, for sure.  In fact, I do want to try to find other recipes to play around with and maybe try some other kinds of flours too.  As for the rolls, probably but they may be reserved for holiday dinners or a special dinner occasion.  I think the cranberries kinda lend themselves to giving these rolls a harversty type of feel and can easily see making them for Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas if we are having turkey. 

One Point Muffins

At my Weight Watchers meeting last week, a woman talked about making one point muffins. She told us that all she did was do a search for "one point muffins" and found a fabulous one that she makes all the time. It got me thinking about making something like that to have around when I *need* a baked good. Would I make them again?

This morning I made the One Point Muffins I found when I did a search for them. I have no idea if these are the same as that woman had found or not but figured it was worth a try.


This is where I found them:


One Point Muffins

I was not so sure about it being an applesauce based recipe. I've made enough low-fat baked goods in my day to know that subbing your fat ingredients (oil/butter/shortening) for applesauce does not usually produce a pleasant result. However, I do love things that are applesauce based that are NOT low-fat....like applesauce cake....yum! I decided to give it a go anyway.


The changes I made to the recipe are as follows:


~I did not use raisins. Not only did they add half a point to the muffins, I have never liked raisins at all. They're a cruel joke...they look so similar to chocolate chips at a glance when baked into something and when you bite into and find it is not a chip but a chewy raisin...yeah, you know what I mean, right?!?


~I did not use 5 packets of Splenda because I did not have 5 packets of Splenda on hand. I did however have a big bag of Splenda on hand. I kinda followed the suggestions in the comments and I decided to use 2 tsps per packet. As I doled out the first 6 tsps of my 10 tsps to my mixture, I decided to make the last 4 tsps regular white sugar. I've also had bad experiences with Splenda baking and felt that adding just a wee bit of granulated sugar might somehow counter anything bad the Splenda might do to the taste or texture.


~I had some frozen blueberries on hand so I put in a 1/4 cup of those and then added just a few more, probably no more than another tbsp or so.


~Once I had these in the muffin tin, I put a little sprinkle of turbinado sugar on each muffin. It was not much at all...I was using a 1/2 tsp measure to sprinkle it and was getting about 3 muffins covered per 1/2 tsp. So, at best there was 1 whole tbsp on the entire pan.


The verdict?



They are so-so. When I think of muffins I think of that super moist, bakery sized muffin with streusel topping that all just kinda melts in your mouth. Well, these are about as far away from that as possible but they aren't horrible. They are what they are...a pretty much fat free 1 point muffin. The blueberries were a good decision for them...went well with the spices that were called for. I would probably prefer them a bit sweeter as long as it did not increase the point value at all....they were sweet enough I suppose, it all just goes back to the *ideal* muffin and not the tweaked out version that I can eat on a more frequent basis.


Would I make them again?

 
Perhaps...like I said, they aren't horrible but I honestly cannot see myself getting a craving for these and breaking out the muffin tins to throw these together.  They will serve their purpose as I get through the dozen of them and then, maybe someday, I will make them again when I have a need to have something like this around.
 
If you are brave enough to give them a try after my mediocre reveiw of them, please post your thoughts on them and let me know if you did anything different to the ingredients or prep!

Best Baking Wishes To You!!!