TWD: mixed berry cobbler

A berry cobbler was just what I needed as I’ve been trying to clear out my freezer recently.  Seriously, it was so full we had no room for ice cream!  Now that is a crime!  So we ate the last of our tilapia and chicken this week and I had several bags of berries hiding in there too that I was able to use in this cobbler.  I used a mixture of mostly blueberries, with some raspberries and blackberries thrown in.  Many people had complained that the topping was a bit bland, so I added some vanilla and cinnamon to jazz it up.  The end result was excellent!  What I really liked about it was the dough came together easily and was not difficult to roll out.  If you’ve read my blog for long you’ll probably remember that I do NOT get along well with traditional crusts, or pretty much any dough that involves rolling out.  This was a pleasant surprise.

I did make one big mistake.  I should have listened to Dorie when she said to place the pie pan on a COOKIE SHEET.  Halfway through baking I peeked in the oven and saw the juicy filling spilling over the edges of the pie dish onto the bottom of my oven, uggggh.  Big sticky SMOKEY mess.  I quickly slipped a cookie sheet under the pie plate but the damage was done.  Before I bake anything else this week I need to scrape the cobbler goo off the bottom of my oven, or do the self-cleaning but that takes hours, which I do not have!

I had my cobbler with vanilla ice cream, Tyler did not because he’s weird like that.  No cool whip or ice cream is to touch his desserts.  We both really enjoyed it, in fact, Tyler rated it an 8 and said it reminded him of his favorite blueberry pie.

Mixed Berry Cobbler (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours)

Read Full Post »

More Risotto

Ever since I learned to make risotto at Cooking Club last week I had been hankering for more, but this time made with mushrooms.  Mmmm mushrooms, I am so sad I did not learn to love you until my 20s.  Tyler and I ate some bread and goat cheese and drank some wine as we prepared the risotto.  It was a great Wednesday night meal!  I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and just made a couple of changes, primarily, reducing the amount of mushrooms.  Their recipe called for 2lbs of mushrooms!  Umm I love mushrooms but that is insanity.  I used about 3 cups, half white mushrooms, half baby bellas.

Gourmet Mushroom Risotto (adapted from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

6 cups chicken broth, divided
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1.5 cups baby bella mushrooms, thinly sliced
1.5 cups white mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 shallots, diced
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
sea salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
3 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a saucepan, warm the broth over low heat.
2. Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the mushrooms, and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Remove mushrooms and their liquid, and set aside.
3. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to skillet, and stir in the shallots. Cook 1 minute. Add rice, stirring to coat with oil, about 2 minutes. When the rice has taken on a pale, golden color, pour in wine, stirring constantly until the wine is fully absorbed. Add 1/2 cup broth to the rice, and stir until the broth is absorbed. Continue adding broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring continuously, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente, about 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, and stir in mushrooms with their liquid, butter, chives, and parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Read Full Post »

Deviled Eggs

For Father’s Day we gathered with Tyler’s parents and my parents to celebrate together.  I had been looking for an occasion to use the egg tray my mom gave me for Christmas and this was the perfect opportunity!  This was only my second time making deviled eggs, and although I love to eat them, I find making them to be a frustrating process.  Cracking and peeling the shell of the eggs is the most difficult part, I always seem to screw it up somehow and lose a few eggs in the process.  I don’t really have a recipe for these. I hardboiled them, then soaked them in ice water, peeled and halved them, and then mixed the yolks up with some mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a bit of pickle relish.  Then I loaded that into a ziplock bag, cut off the corner, and squeezed it into the egg white.  Sprinkled with paprika and voila, deviled eggs!  The egg platter showcased them nicely!

Read Full Post »

Cooking Club: Risotto

For our first official Cooking Club meeting, we chose risotto as our dish of choice. Most of the members of our group had never made risotto but were interested in learning. We had a small turnout for this get together but that gave everyone a chance to stir the risotto, which takes forever so it was good that we were able to trade off! Thanks to Carli for doing the shopping and opening her kitchen to us, and teaching us how to make some fabulous risotto! It was delicious and I can’t wait to make some at home. I encourage anyone that’s interested in learning new cooking styles and skills to gather a group of friends and teach one another, it is way cheaper and more fun than paying for cooking classes!

Sweet Pea Risotto (from Real Simple)

Summer Time Risotto (from Food Network)

and some pictures of the preparation! We had a good time and a couple of glasses of wine

Becky chopping up some tomatoes (FDA approved cherry tomatoes!)

Carli and Lara stirring and stirring and stirring…

Audrey demonstrating the proper way to test for risotto doneness

eating our finished product.

Carli and I managed to dodge the camera most of the night We had a great time together and I really look forward to our next get together where hopefully we will gather even more friends and spend time getting to know one another while we learn another cooking skill and try more delicious food!

Read Full Post »

TWD: La Palette’s Strawberry Tart

I’ve almost forgotten how to update my blog it’s been so long!  Sorry about that!  I was determined to make this week’s recipe even if it was late due to my being out of town.  I spent a long weekend in D.C. last weekend where it was very very VERY hot.  A cool strawberry tart is just what I needed when I got back to Kansas!  I took this tart to my cooking club meeting and had a little leftover to share with Tyler.  Tyler rated this tart a 7, which is pretty good!  Thanks to Marie of A Year at Oak Cottage for picking this fabulous summer recipe!  This was my first time making Dorie’s tart crust and even though it filled my mini-food processor to the brim, it still came together nicely and had a great flavor!  I added a few raspberries to the tart since they were on sale and the tart didn’t seem full enough with just the strawberries.  I think it was a great combo!  I may have to make another one soon, maybe for 4th of July!  We are no longer posting the recipes for TWD, so you’ll have to go out and get a copy of Dorie’s fabulous Baking, From My Home to Yours to try this recipe for yourself!

Read Full Post »

TWD: French Chocolate Brownies

It is rare that I make brownies from scratch. Box mixes are just so easy, inexpensive, and usually taste good enough (especially when you sprinkle with Andes mints!) But I was excited to see that Di’s Kitchen Notebook chose this recipe for Tuesdays With Dorie because I was hoping for a simple recipe that would not take much time but would still yield a delicious dessert. This recipe was definitely quick to mix up, especially since I skipped the flaming raisins and opted for raspberries instead. Tyler and I love the combination of chocolate and raspberries and I’d been in search for the perfect chocolate raspberry brownie recipe for awhile now. This one that I tried last year was good but almost too rich. Dorie’s brownies are more cake like, and will fall apart in your hands so I recommend eating with a fork (and with a glass of milk!) They are not too dense or too fluffy, kind of hard to explain but they are in-between You could make a pretty amazing brownie sundae with these brownies, and I think the possibilities for add-ins are limitless, just throw in a little of whatever you like, be it raisins, nuts, blueberries, Andes mints, etc. Tyler rated these an 8 out of 10.

French Chocolate Brownies (Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours)
- makes 16 brownies -

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons; 6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 12 pieces
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar

1/3 cup raisins, dark or golden (omitted)
1 1/2 tablespoons water (omitted)
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum (omitted)

Instead of raisins I used half a bag of frozen raspberries (thawed) but I did not soak them in water or set them on fire, I just defrosted them and stirred them in before I poured the batter into the pan.

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon, if you’re using it.

Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum, let it warm for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside until needed.

Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It’s important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you’ve got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it’s better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.

Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated—you’ll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won’t be completely incorporated and that’s fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, then fold in the raisins along with any liquid remaining in the pan.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.

Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.

Serving: The brownies are good just warm or at room temperature; they’re even fine cold. I like these with a little something on top or alongside—good go-alongs are whipped crème fraiche or whipped cream, ice cream or chocolate sauce or even all three!

Storing: Wrapped well, these can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

Read Full Post »