Caramel Cake

Life's a little busy right now, but I've been wanting to post this caramel cake recipe from Paula Deen.

I followed the recipe exactly and I thought it turned out great. It was kind of messy, but from a techincal standpoint it's very easy to make. If you don't like sweet desserts, this isn't the cake for you, but as long as you do it is nom nom nom.

Magic Cake

I can't remember if I've talked about this cake from Ina Garten before it's friggin' amazing y'all. I've made three really different and really great tasting cakes using this same recipe as a jumping off point. Though, I admit I've never actually made the recipe as it was originally written because something about poundcake in the shape of a loaf seems unnatural to me.

The first time I tried it I made a lemon cake in two 9-inch round pans (which changed the cook time to around 30 minutes, start checking at 20), and frosted it with this cream cheese icing. (I had to double it.)

It was for my husband's birthday and it was really big hit. It is really, really lemony the batter is going to taste a touch to tart but it sorts itself out in the baking especially after you pour the syrup over it. It just says relaxing afternoon tea to me. It's a happy cake.

Next, for my birthday I used the same recipe and 9-inch rounds but I substituted oranges for lemons and used this chocolate sour cream frosting from the Smitten Kitchen. I was a little concerned the sour cream would add too much twang so I substituted one stick of melted unsalted butter for a half cup of the sour cream. The recipe makes plenty to frost the entire cake. I even had a little left over, and I am a thorough froster.

The result was wonderful. The flavor of the cake itself was very smooth and subtle and the frosting tasted like dark chocolate, flavorful but not too sweet or too rich. You will have to keep it refrigerated though, due to the two cups of sour cream in it.

Lastly, for Thanksgiving with the in-laws I made this orange poundcake in a bundt pan which put the cook time at around 45-50 minutes, more true to the original recipe and did the glaze in the original recipe which I left out of the other two, substituting lemons for oranges. In this one I did add a bit more zest and juice than the recipe calls for at every opportunity because I wanted a brighter flavor.

I got it. It was sweet and the orange flavor really stood out without being overpowering, plus the glaze is really simple but easy to do and looks impressive. In all cases I took the commenters suggestions and poked the cooled cakes several times with a toothpick to allow the syrup to soak in more easily.

If you're looking for a holiday dessert option, and don't mind taking a little time, any of these would be great choices.

Psst!

Hey y'all as it turns out, brussels sprouts are freakin' delicious!

Via the How to Cook Everything app on my iPhone I bring you the recipe that made me love this much maligned vegetable. (So maligned in my life in fact, that I have never bothered trying them before.)

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Ingredients:

6 Ounces Bacon, Chopped

1 Pound Brussels Sprouts (trim off hard edge of stems and remove first layer of leaves)

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon thyme

( I added one handful of parmesan cheese at the end)

Steps:

1) Put the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When it starts to sizzle, reduce the heat to medium and cook until crisp and the fat is rendered. (about 5-10 minutes). Meanwhile, cut each sprout into thin slices or shreds, or cut them into quarters.

2) Add the sprouts and 1/4 cup water to the pan with the bacon; sprinkle with salt and pepper, turn the heat to medium, and cover. Cook, undisturbed, until nearly tender, about 5 minutes.

3) When the sprouts are ready, uncover and raise the heat back to medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until any remaining water evaporates and the sprouts are fully tender, about 5 more minutes. Stir in the vinegar and thyme. Sprinkle cheese over top if desired.

Dew it!

ETA: OMG I just realized this isn't a Rachael Ray recipe!

Recipe Review: Buffalo Chicken Chili Mac

I made this Chili Mac recipe for dinner tonight.

Surprise! Surprise! It's a Rachael Ray recipe! I know. I'm eventually going to have to branch out, but there's a reason they call it a comfort zone.

Anyway, I'd recommend giving this a try if you like spicy stuff. It is pretty economical, simple, and makes a lot of food. It's even the kind of thing you could make the night before and then just pop in the oven for a little while after you get home. I used regular macaroni instead of whole wheat because that's what I already had, but I think whole wheat would work just as well in this kind of dish.

That being said, there were some problems for me.

1) For me, it was bit too spicy. The recipe calls for 1/4 to 1/2 cup hot sauce and I only used 1/4 and it still overwhelmed the rest of the flavors. I did leave it simmering for a really long time because I started making dinner early when I convinced myself it was an hour later than it really was so that could have been a contributing factor. You be the judge.

2) It needed more cheese. Next time I make it I'll probably add close to two cups worth of cheese to it. I'll probably pick a milder cheese (like either cheddar or mozzarella) for the additional gooeyness and while I'll definitely keep the pepper jack and blue cheesy crust on top ( I added some parmesan to that even), I plan to poor the chili mac mixture into the baking dish a little at a time and add cheese to each layer. I think that would balance things out and hold things together better.

3) There could have been more chicken. Budget-wise this probably stretches a buck pretty well with less meat and less cheese plus more pasta, and it is definitely filling. I just think that even one more chicken breast would have made it feel more substantial. But I think that's just a personal preference issue. It's totally fine without it too.

Totes Easy Recipes: Delishus Sauce

I've been trying for a while now to figure out a nice recipe for an easy cream sauce. Up to now all of my attempts have fallen short. Something always seems missing.

As it turns out, what was missing was dry onion soup mix.

Delishus Sauce

Ingredients:
2 tbs olive oil
2 cups heavy cream (or milk you can always thicken it with corn starch)
8 cloves minced garlic (4 tsp from my jar)
2 cups grated parmesan cheese
1 packet of dry onion soup mix (2 ounces)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat.

2. Add garlic, cream, soup mix, and salt and pepper. Heat to bubbly.

3. Add the cheese a little at a time stirring as you go to prevent too much clumping.

4. Lower the heat and allow sauce to simmer until desired thickness is achieved. (IMO it is already fine by this point but a little reduction never hurt)

As with everything I make, I believe this to be flexible with the measurements and generally user-friendly. So far I have used it over the top of some Lobster Ravioli that we got at Costco (highly recommended) and a chicken, spinach, mushroom, fettucini dish that I made tonight that was freakin' awesome that I'm going to post the recipe for as soon as I make it again to get a better idea of the measurements. Did I mention I don't measure things?

Totes Easy Recipes: Stovetop Meatloaf

This recipe is so easy and so forgiving, the ingredient amounts are pretty much just guidelines. It's like cooking for pirates! Also, we pretty much always have all of this stuff around at all times especially because we buy or ground beef in bulk and freeze it, so it's pretty much our go-to "Holy crap it's dinner time?" dinner. We usually put it with risotto or sweet potato fries as a side but it really would go with most anything in my opinion. I would say this quantity would serve three hungry adults with a side dish. Two adults if you just wanted to have Stovetop Meatloaf with a side of Stovetop Meatloaf.

It started off life somewhat predictably as a Rachael Ray recipe which I highly recommend trying including the pasta side dish, but doing it this way was easier and incorporated more ingredients that I generally have on hand. And in case you're noticing a pattern, yes Garlic and Cumin is to me as Butter and Mayonnaise is to Paula Deen.

Anyway, without further ado:

Stovetop Meatloaf

1.5 pounds lean ground beef

4 cloves minced garlic

1 cup dried cranberries

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

6 slices provolone cheese

Steps:

1. In a skillet on medium-high heat, add the ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, salt, cumin, garlic, and cranberries. Cook until the beef is browned.

2. Stir in parmesan cheese.

3. Lay the provolone slices across the top of the ground beef mixture and cover, allowing the cheese to melt. After the cheese has melted, fold the rest of the ingredients over until everything is all mixed together.

Totes Easy Recipes

Okay I give up some food is just too good to photograph and apparently I will never remember to take pictures of my food before I eat it. This should not be surprising to me as evenings are the most hectic time of day around here. It pretty much is a non-stop flurry of OMG FINISHDINNERBEFOREMELTDOWNGETABATHGOTOBEDSORTOF!

So anyway, this is a family favorite and it is the easiest thing I have ever made except maybe toast. The amount of ingredients here is just a suggestion, basically just put in as much chicken as you think you want and then enough salsa to cover that chicken.

Crockpot Chicken Tacos

Ingredients:

16 ounces medium salsa

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts

Flour tortillas

Your choice of toppings

Steps:

Place salsa and chicken in crockpot, cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or low for 6 to 8 hours. When chicken is done it should shred easily with a fork. I like to shred all the chicken up and then let it sit a little while so that all the little bits soak up some salsa before serving. We eat these all the time. We like to put shredded "fiesta cheese" or "mexican blend" as it is sometimes called and Gallo Pinto (which is a rice and beans recipe I'm including as well) on the tortilla along with the chicken and wrap it up like a burrito. I don't remember where I found the original recipe for this, but it included adding an onion and a packet of taco seasoning to the crockpot ingredients which I used to do until I didn't have those on hand and I couldn't tell the difference.

Gallo Pinto is a Costa Rican dish that I picked up when I lived there for a very short time. In fact, I just learned from Wikipedia that it's the national dish. There are as many ways to make it as there are fish in the sea so pretty much as long as you include rice and beans you've done it right. I've experimented a lot to get it as close to what I remember tasting in my area at the time and think I've finally gotten the taste (if not the exact ingredients) correct.

Gallo Pinto

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked basmati (or whatever) rice

1 can black beans, drained

1 tablespoon butter

4 cloves minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon cumin

salt to taste

Steps:

1. Cook rice to package instructions.

2. Melt the butter in the rice. This will help keep it from getting clumpy.

3. Add drained beans and spices, and stir it up nice.

It's totally easy and delicious and the measuring of ingredients is not that necessary as it's also very forgiving.

Adirondack Redwing Burgers

I just wanted to do a quick review of these turkey burgers from Rachael Ray. I had hoped to make a more substantive recipe post but as time passes by I just want to get this one up before I forget all about it. (And for some reason I now feel I may have already posted about it, but here it goes anyway.) They are really easy to make as long as you have a food processor and very very good. I think combining the onions, celery, and carrots into the ground turkey helps keep the patties from drying out. I was never able to find "sandwich sized" English muffins so I used whole wheat Sandwich Thins instead which are just in the regular grocery store bread section. Also, I don't know how it will taste with blue cheese since I forgot to buy that and Husband won't touch blue cheese anyway. The hot pepper sauce I used was plain Tabasco sauce and I mixed in a little bit of Worcestershire sauce for good measure. Reviews were split 50/50 on the addition of the pickle relish but as with any toppings you're always free to pick and choose without particularly dire consequences.

Oy. That's all for now, but I'm hoping to catch myself up this week.

Photo by Marcus Nilsson

Totes Easy Recipes

Check it out everybody I'm actually blawging something useful!

I found Alaska Salmon Bake with Pecan Crunch Coating on AllRecipes.com. I didn't change any of the ingredients or amounts. The only thing I did differently from the original recipe instructions was I brushed half of the honey mustard mixture on the salmon and then put the pecans and breadcrumbs on the salmon and then I drizzled the rest of the honey mustard mixture on top of that. It was super easy to make and it tasted great. Even my husband liked it and he's not really a fish guy. I suspect the topping would work well on just about any fish. I'm planning to try it on a tilapia sometime soon.

TIP: I'm morally opposed to paying someone to crumble up bread for me. I save the end pieces from my sandwich bread in the freezer and food process it up whenever I need bread crumbs. I've always thought that works pretty good.

Next: (Picture to come)

As you might be able to tell I'm trying to get more seafood in our diet. I didn't grow up eating it so I have basically no frame of reference for taste combinations. If you're looking for an easier version of this, the inspiration recipe used green onions and no peas, butter, or garlic simmering. Just mix together the green onions, shrimp, pasta, and ranch dressing.

Shrimp Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

1 pound cooked shrimp, tails removed

1 cup frozen or fresh green peas

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 small white onion, chopped (or 3-4 green onions)

4 tablespoons butter or margarine

14.5 oz angel hair pasta

2 cups ranch dressing

Directions:

1. Melt the butter or margarine in a skillet on medium heat.

2. Add peas, onions, and garlic to the butter and simmer for approximately 15 minutes. Meanwhile bring the water for the pasta to a boil.

3. Cook pasta to al dente per package instructions.

4. 2 minutes before the pasta is done add shrimp to the skillet with the peas and onions.

5. In a large bowl mix together the ranch dressing, pasta, and skillet ingredients. You can serve immediately but it is actually meant to be chilled and served cold.

Meal Planner

Yay! Two more new recipes this week and both turned out great! I especially feel like dancin' because after many tries with many different recipes I have finally found a crockpot "beef stroganoff" recipe that actually tastes like something someone might want to eat!

First though, let's talk about pork. Rachael Ray has a recipe called Roast Pork with Orange Pine Nut Sauce that is probably very good, but involves way more patience and dishes than I am willing to sacrifice, so I have tweaked it and come up with something that I think is rather tasty and incredibly easy to make.

Here's how I do it:

Ingredients:
2-2.5 pounds boneless pork loin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp thyme
2 tsp oregano
approx 10 cloves minced garlic (I use the kind in the big jar soaked in olive oil, but wevs)
1 orange
1/4 to 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1.5 cups chicken stock or broth (I don't think it makes a difference in this case)

Directions:
Place the pork in a a big plastic freezer bag or whatever container you have on hand. Pour in the chicken stock, and squeeze the juice from the orange into the bag. Add the cumin, paprika, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, and cranberries. Close the bag and shake it up to combine everything and coat the pork. Marinate the pork in the refrigerator for 1 hour or overnight. (Or if you're pressed for time, not at all. I've done this and it just isn't quite as flavorful but that's not the end of the world.)

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Transfer the contents of the plastic bag to a baking dish (I use a glass 9 x 13.5.) and cook in the oven for 35-40 minutes.

Let the meat rest about 5-10 minutes before cutting it. Slice the pork and spoon sauce over slices when serving. It looks really pretty and tastes great. Perhaps most importantly, there is no chopping and it only uses one dish. I highly recommend it when having last minute guests that you want to wow with your Holly Homemaker fabulousness.

And now for the main event: Beef Stroganoff! (sort of, in a non-authentic sort of way)

I found this recipe at AllRecipes.com. I used some of the tweaks that the commenters suggested and also made a few of my own. Here's what I ended up with.

EDIT: This recipe works well for two adults. Once I added a third adult who is not my Mother-in-Law, and therefore eats a reasonable amount, I realized that when making this for a family one might want to increase the amount of the crockpot ingredients accordingly.

Ingredients:
1.5 pounds stew meat (approximately, more or less works too)
21 ounces condensed golden mushroom soup
1 package dry onion soup mix
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
8 ounces sliced mushrooms (I use baby bella, but not necessary)
4 ounces cream cheese
1 pound bowtie pasta
shredded parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:
Combine stew meat, soup, soup mix, Worcestershire sauce, and water in a crockpot. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.

1 hour before the crockpot is finished add the sliced mushrooms.

Just before serving, combine the cream cheese with the crockpot mixture, and cook the noodles on the stovetop. Serve stroganoff over noodles. We also put some shredded parmesan cheese on top of each serving as a last minute impulse, but that's just us. It was super tasty, and it definitely made leftovers.

Note: Definitely use Golden Mushroom soup. Do not try to substitute cream of mushroom, it will not give you a good result, I promise. I had never heard of golden mushroom and thought it would be hard to find, but in fact it is right next to the chicken and stars so it should be easy for you to locate. Also, the picture while still pretty accurate, is of another person's attempt at the original stroganoff recipe. One day, I'll remember to take pictures of the food I make before eating it, but today is not that day.

Meal Planner

I'm always trying to find "family friendly" meals. To me, this means cost-effective, easy to make, and nutritious. This week I had two recipes that I think are really good in these areas. I made one old favorite, and one new recipe. (I try to use a new recipe each week.)

My new recipe for the week was Emeril's Chili-Mac as featured on Jon & Kate plus 8. I've never tried anything from Emeril before, but I've been a Jon & Kate fan since the first documentary so ever since their 100th episode I've wanted to try it. I can't find any pictures of it to share which aggravates me because I always like to see what something will look like in the end, but life goes on I suppose.

As it turns out, despite the "Slap Yo Mama" prefix Emeril gives this Chili-Mac recipe, I didn't notice any particularly distinct flavor. It tasted fine, but it just tasted a lot like Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger macaroni. I actually consider this to be in the "Pro" column as I think this kind of mild flavoring would probably appeal to younger kids. And to be fair to Emeril, I did not add the optional jalepenos because they are a pain to work with in my current state of never having enough time. It makes a very large quantity. I fed three hungry adults and still have at least another dinner I could get out of it. The ingredients are not expensive or difficult to find.(I already had a lot of them.) It already has a good amount of vegetables in it and I actually think that some food processed mushrooms would go largely unnoticed but add even more protein to the dish. The only thing I can definitively say against it is that, while there is nothing difficult or time-consuming about making it, you do have to use three separate pans to prepare it and the final product is difficult to handle so there is definitely a high clean-up factor.


For my next trick...

Lentil Sausage and Kale Soup from Rachael Ray is something I've made quite a few times now. I know some people have strong feelings about Rachael Ray but I love her and I have never been disappointed after making one of her recipes.

This one is great because not only does it taste great, it is SUPER easy to make and to clean up. There is minimal chopping and it's not one of those fake "one-pot" meals you see sometimes where one or two of the ingredients is something that has secretly been prepared ahead of time in a totally different pot. In addition, it is packed with vegetables. Onions, one baking potato, mushrooms, tomatoes, kale, and lentils are all packed into this soup with especially yummy results. The quantity makes it pretty cost-effective as well. This is another dish that makes at least two meals in this house, and it is just as good the second time around. The warmth from the spicy sausage makes this a great cold-weather comfort food, that I think kids and adults would both enjoy.