I’m always looking for new and interesting things to do with chicken. For years, practically the only thing I cooked was chicken with some lemon pepper on it. As you can imagine, I have no desire to make (or eat) boring lemon pepper chicken anymore. So when I saw this recipe, I definitely wanted to try it and I’m glad I did because I know this is going to be a new staple in our house. It’s really easy and fast to make. It’s low fat and it results in a moist, tender and flavorful chicken. That’s everything I could ever want in a dinner.

The initial recipe says to use chicken breasts, but the second time I made these I only had tenderloins and I thought they were still really good (and even faster to make because the cooking time is only about 12 minutes). If you have picky kids that would look at yellow chicken in disgust, making tenderloins instead might make them a bit more palatable.

I was initially worried that it would taste too ginger-y, but it really didn’t. In fact, I thought the flavor was pretty tame. So in my second attempt I added some more spices and flavors that I found from similar chicken recipes, which helped amp up the flavor. Also, this recipe benefits from some marinating to make the flavors even deeper, but if you don’t have the time, it still tastes great.

In the cookbook, this recipe is accompanied by a recipe for a yogurt sauce, which is supposed to be similar to “raita”, a traditional Indian sauce. But when I made it, neither my boyfriend or I thought it was anything like a sauce. It’s way more like a slaw. And I say that as a lifelong hater of any kind of slaw. Which is why both Brandon and I were really apprehensive about this at first. Basically, it’s grated apple mixed with yogurt. I mean, I like apples and I like yogurt. But I’ve never heard of grated apple in yogurt. It just seemed weird. But I have to say, it really surprised me. It’s one of my new favorite things. It’s just really simple and tasty and it’s a great, cool (and I mean that in every sense of the word) side dish if you are eating something, like this chicken, that’s a bit spicy (especially spices like ginger or cumin).

Tandoori Chicken with Apple Slaw

Adapted from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tsp. tumeric
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 12 chicken tenderloins or 4 bone-in skinless chicken breast halves

Apple Slaw

• 2 small granny-smith apples (I’ve used 1 large golden delicious with success as well, it’s sweeter but less tart)
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1 tbsp. fresh cilantro (I didn’t have any fresh so I omitted it, I think this is mainly for added color)

Process

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees (F) for tenders or 475 degrees for breasts.

2. In a large bowl, stir together yogurt, garlic, tumeric, ginger, salt and pepper.

3. Add the chicken and coat with mixture.

Note: If you have the extra time, cut some slits into the chicken, cover the bowl or else put everything in a large plastic bag and let marinate for at least an hour or up to a whole day.

4. Place chicken on a baking sheet. For tenders, bake for 12-15 minutes (be careful about overcooking, they’ll get dried out). For breasts, 25-30 minutes or until the internal temperature is 160 degrees (F).

5. While chicken is baking, peel the apple and grate (larger/courser is better, so don’t use a microplane grater) into a bowl.

6. Add the lemon juice, yogurt and cilantro. Mix well. Keep chilled in fridge until the chicken is ready. If it gets too watery from sitting for too long, put in a strainer and drain some of the liquid out.

Serve with rice and the slaw on the side.

Serves 4

Related posts:

• Maple Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes
• Chicken Paprikash
• Garlic Roasted Chicken with Gravy
• Chicken Parmigiana
• Chicken Pot Pie Soup – two ways

I just had to pop in today and post these cupcakes that I made on a whim last night. They are so good and super easy to make. And I have to tell you, they’ve kind of changed my world view. Or maybe just my…food view?

Anyway, on twitter last night someone posted that pumpkin and chocolate should never go together and until I made these, I totally would have agreed. In fact, this whole month, I’ve been turning my nose up as pumpkin flavored anything. I don’t know when I got it in my head that I don’t like pumpkin, but I think it’s just one of those things that I decided as a kid and I never challenged it. I’ve been overcoming a lot of these prejudices lately, it’s a wonder I ever ate anything with how picky I was!

I had read about the pumpkin shortage that is going on and despite the fact that I don’t ever make anything with pumpkin in it, when I saw a big can of it at the grocery store a few weeks ago I couldn’t help but buy it. I just felt it was something I had to do. What if I find a recipe that calls for it and I can’t find anymore at the grocery store? I’d have been kicking myself for not buying it when I could, right? Well…maybe not, but this is how my mind works.

So last night, after being practically doubled over in pain from cramps all day (I know, TMI, sorry) I had an insane craving for some chocolate cupcakes. But I didn’t want just plain boring cupcakes. I wanted to make something fun. That’s when I remembered the canned pumpkin sitting in my pantry and since it’s Halloween, I decided it was the perfect time to try it out. I googled chocolate cupcakes and pumpkin and one of the first recipes I found was on Nicole’s blog (our fearless BBA leader). The recipe sounded good and I had enough cream cheese for the frosting, so I printed it out and started making them right away.

I’m really glad I did because these cupcakes are some of the best I’ve ever had. They don’t taste strongly of pumpkin. In fact, they pretty much taste like chocolate cupcakes, but there’s a hint of the pumpkin in there that works so well with the chocolate and adds a depth of flavor that plain old chocolate cupcakes just don’t have. And then you add in the cream cheese frosting with just a tiny bit of cinnamon and nutmeg in it and that adds a sweetness and a tangy-ness that just works so well with the chocolate cupcake and helps bring out the pumpkin flavor even more. Plus these cupcakes are super moist. If you eat them when they are still a little warm and the chocolate chips are still gooey, they practically melt in your mouth.

I tasted the canned pumpkin while I was making these and discovered that I like it a lot, so now I’ll have to find some more pumpkin recipes to try. I wish I hadn’t been turning my nose up at the all month when all the food bloggers were posting them! At least I know now. This has made me think that I just need to give up all my past food prejudices and try everything from now on. I’m sure I’ll find out that I like a lot more than I thought I did.

I made these cupcakes while I carved my pumpkin. Cute, huh? If you’re wondering, I got the pattern from The Pumpkin Lady. Happy Halloween!

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

from Pinch My Salt

• 1 1/2 cup cake flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup plain lowfat yogurt
• 1 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (15 oz. can)
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup lightly-packed light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Line 24 cupcake cups with paper liners. Or spray with cups with cooking spray if you don’t want to use liners.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together; set aside. In a separate bowl, stir together the yogurt, pumpkin, vinegar, and vanilla extract, set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, and using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Alternately beat in the flour and pumpkin mixtures in thirds (for example, beat in 1/3 flour mixture followed by 1/3 pumpkin mixture and repeat until everything is combined). Fold in the mini chocolate chips.

4. Working quickly, spoon batter into cupcake cups, filling each about 3/4 full. (An ice cream scoop works perfectly for this.) Place cupcake pans in the center of the preheated oven and bake approximately 20-25 minutes. Cupcakes are done when they spring back when lightly touched or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool pans on wire racks for 10 minutes then remove cupcakes from pans and let cool completely on the wire racks.

5. While cupcakes are cooling, prepare cream cheese frosting (recipe below). When cupcakes are cool, spread with frosting.

Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used low-fat)
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4. tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

1. In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. If frosting is too soft, chill in fridge for 15-20 minutes.

2. Spread on top of cupcakes. Top with your favorite Halloween candy!

Related posts:

• Black and White Cupcakes
• Black and White Chocolate Cheesecake Supreme
• Molten Chocolate Cakes
• Black and White Cake Cookies
• Triple-Chocolate Cheesecake

Late last week I finally got the island I ordered for my kitchen, which adds almost 4 glorious feet of counter space, so on Saturday I had an itch to break it in with some type of fun recipe that involved rolling out dough. Scanning through my cookbooks, I saw this recipe and it definitely fit the bill. I wound up modifying it to fit the ingredients I had in my pantry (mainly I substituted raisins for figs and added cinnamon and ginger), but it turned out really, really good.

And seriously, what’s not to love? It’s a giant cake-sized cinnamon roll. Let me say that again: a cinnamon roll the size of a cake! It’s taken a lot of effort to eat this thing like an actual cake (ie you cut a small section from it) instead of just unrolling and eating the whole thing the way I usually eat cinnamon rolls.

One thing I like about this recipe is that it’s a slightly healthier version of a cinnamon roll, but it doesn’t taste like it all. It totally tastes like it should be really bad for you, but it has whole wheat flour (mixed with equal parts AP flour) and the raisin filling is sweetened with orange juice instead of tons of sugar. I also added cinnamon and ginger, which the original recipe didn’t have. Finally I added orange extract to the icing to make it even more orange-y.

There’s a lot of steps involved in this recipe and it’s a yeast bread, so you need about 2 hours to let it rise, but I don’t think this is a terribly complicated recipe. If you’ve ever made cinnamon rolls before, this is pretty much the same. You can even make the dough the day before (through Step 7), refrigerate it overnight and do the shaping and final rise the next morning.

The way you shape this recipe is interesting and different from anything I’ve seen. Normally with cinnamon rolls, you roll up the dough then slice off pieces, width-wise. This recipe is the opposite: you roll up the dough and slice it in half across the whole length of the piece. Then you take those two halves, which are full of the layers of filling and coil them around in a big swirl. It was a lot of fun to do and I think it creates a really pretty cake (which the icing kind of hides…I guess I could have gone lighter with that, but I love icing!). I usually don’t put process photos because I find it distracting to have to take photos while I’m working on something–plus the lighting always sucks–but I’ve included some below so you can see how it’s supposed to be done. I’m a more of a visual person and didn’t really understand until I saw a picture, so if you are like me, hopefully they help!

Orange Cinnamon-Raisin Swirl Coffee Cake

adapted from Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast (1 package)
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup warm water (100 -110 degrees)
• 1/3 cup fat-free milk
• 2 tsp. vanilla, divided
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 tbsp. cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups raisins, plus 1/4 cup
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. orange extract
• 2 tbsp. fat-free milk

Process

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1/2 tsp. sugar in the warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes.

2. Stir milk, 1 tsp. vanilla and egg into the yeast mixture. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl (or a food processor), mix both flours, 1/3 cup sugar and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or pulse about 5 times in your FP) until blended.

4. Slowly pour in yeast mixture and stir (or process) until dough forms into a ball.

(Note: Mine was pretty dry so I added a bit more milk until it formed a ball.)

5. Place dough on a floured surface and knead lightly 4-5 times.

6. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray and place the dough inside. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place (85 degrees) for 1 hour or until almost doubled in size.

(Note: It’s pretty cold in my house these days, so I turned my oven on to 150 degrees for 1 minute and then turned it off. I waited another minute and then put bowl in the oven. Even doing that it still hadn’t risen completely after an hour, so I took the bowl out and turned the oven back on again for 1 minute and put the bowl back in there for about 30 minutes more. If you gently press two fingers into the dough and indentation remains, it has risen enough.)

7. Punch dough down, cover and let rest for 5 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, in a blender or food processor, place 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 1/2 cups raisins, cinnamon, ginger and orange juice. Blend until the raisins are chopped up but the mixture is still thick and chunky, about 1-2 minutes. You can add in a little bit more orange juice if it gets hard to blend. Set aside.

9. On a floured surface, roll dough into a 15 x 10 inch rectangle.

10. Spread the raisin mixture evenly across the dough but leave a 1 inch space across the top (long) edge. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup of raisins.

11. Roll up the dough tightly starting at the bottom (long) edge. Pinch the seam to seal well.

12. Roll over so the seam is down. With a serrated knife cut the dough in half, lengthwise.

13. Spray a 12″ round pizza pan with cooking spray. Take one half of your dough and coil it around itself with the cut side up. Then take the other half, making sure the cut side it up, join the end with the end of the first half and continue coiling it around to create one big swirl. Cover with plastic wrap and left rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size (Note: I used the same warm oven method as I noted above).

14. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Remove plastic wrap and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and put on a plate.

15. Mix powdered sugar, milk and orange extract until smooth. The consistency should be thick, but pourable. You can add a bit more milk if it’s too thick. Drizzle over the warm cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

12-16 servings

Related posts:

• BBA Challenge: Cinnamon Rolls and Raisin Bread
• Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
• BBA Challenge: Artos and Bagels
• Chocolate-Filled Mexican Wedding Cookies
• Black and White Cake Cookies

I’m finally back from my little hiatus. We’re settled into our new apartment in Virginia and I’m ready to start cooking again. I was ready to start last week but after two things I tried to bake burnt to a crisp and set off the smoke alarm, it became apparent that the oven was broken. Luckily, the maintenance guy was able to fix it after he ordered a new part and now my oven stays at the right temperature (which I verified with an new oven thermometer, I’m not taking anymore chances with burning the house down).

But while I work on getting some new recipes under my belt, I wanted to finish posting things that I made this past summer. You may have noticed I have a thing for black and white desserts (see Black and White Chocolate Cheesecake Supreme, Black and White Cupcakes and Cheesecake Brownies), so when I saw Black and White Cake Cookies in my new Cooking Light cookbook, I knew I had to try them.

These cookies are extremely simple to make. They are soft in the middle (hence being called “cake” cookies) and a little crisp around the edges. The frosting is really what makes them good, otherwise they’d just be boring vanilla cookies. After eating a few, I started referring to them as “Poor man’s Milanos”. They don’t have the same crispy texture of a Milano cookie, but they have the same kind of taste and they are definitely much lighter than a Milano (2g fat, 100 calories). Basically, if you are really craving a Milano, but don’t want to totally ruin your diet, these are a really good substitute.

But what I think really takes these from just-ok cookies, to these-are-so-good cookies is the flavor of the white frosting. I left the chocolate alone, but the recipe says to use almond extract to flavor the white icing. I don’t like almond and substituting vanilla sounded really boring to me, so I decided to divide up the white frosting into two bowls and I added orange extract to one and peppermint extract to the other. Both of those flavors paired really well with the chocolate and I couldn’t decide which one I liked more. The flavoring is really what brings these cookies to a whole new level so you should have fun with them and use whatever extracts you like best.

The recipe is below, but one little bit of housekeeping that I wanted to mention is that during my little hiatus I was asked by the lovely people at SpringPad to partner with them, so now the majority of my recipes are on SpringPad and you can easily add them to your own account by clicking on the little yellow box icon at the bottom of each post that says “Save it”. And if you have an account, you can follow me here: http://my.springpadit.com/Emiline220, I’ll follow you back!

And if you don’t have a SpringPad account, I would highly recommend checking them out. I used to use a bunch of different applications to organize work stuff, personal stuff and cooking stuff and with SpringPad I finally found a place where I can put it all together. I started using it to share and find recipes (there’s a big community of food bloggers on there already), but it has all these other great apps to help you get organized and I’m using it more and more lately. I store my personal and work to do lists there, I keep track of all my work project notes and how much time I work on each project. I’m also using it to keep track of my diet, my wishlist, and my grocery list. If you are looking for something to help organize your life, SpringPad is a great tool.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress…

Black and White Cake Cookies

from Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup applesauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 large eggs whites

White Frosting:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp. 2% reduced-fat milk
• 1/4 tsp. extract of your choice (almond, orange, mint, etc.)

Chocolate Frosting:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp. 2% reduced-fat milk
• 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa

Process

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). Spoon applesauce into a fine sieve over a bowl and let sit for 15 minutes until the liquid has drained through. Discard the liquid.

2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

3. Combine butter, sugar and drained applesauce into a large bowl and beat with a mixer until well blended. Beat in vanilla and egg whites. Add in the flour mixture and beat a low speed until blended.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Drop level tablespoons of dough onto sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes or until set but not browned. Cool on sheet for 2 minutes and then transfer to wire racks to finish cooling.

5. When the cookies are mostly cooled start making the frosting. For the white frosting, combine sugar, milk and extract in a bowl and stir until smooth.

6. Take one cookie at at time and spread about 1 tsp. of the white frosting over half the cookie. Put it back on the rack to set and repeat with the rest of the cookies.

7. When the white frosting is set (after at least 10 minutes), make the chocolate frosting by combining the sugar, cocoa and milk and stirring until smooth. Spread 1 tsp. over the other half of each cookie and put back on the rack to set.

Servings: 2 dozen

Related posts:

• Black and White Chocolate Cheesecake Supreme
• Black and White Cupcakes
• Recipe Round-up
• The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Cheesecake Supreme with Oreo Cookie Crust

I’m still here! I just looked at the date on my last post and realized I haven’t posted anything since Sept. 1 and I can’t believe it’s been that long. This month has been a wash due to the fact that I’m moving. Again. Less than a year after I moved back to Orlando. Ugh. But I’m moving to the literal greener pastures of Virginia, which I’m extremely happy about it because it suits me much more than Florida ever did. We weren’t planning to move but my boyfriend found a new job in Charlottesville and we both hate Florida, so it seemed like the best decision for us, despite being incredibly inconvenient. We’re moving up there next week and once I finally get settled in my new apartment — which I chose entirely because of it’s large, well lit kitchen — I’ll be able to start cooking again and posting regularly.

But first I thought I would give an update on the BBA Challenge since I haven’t posted about it in forever. I’m still plodding along with it, though most people are WAY ahead of me. For awhile I was keeping up with our fearless leader,Nicole but then I got behind since I haven’t had the time to bake in a few weeks. I’ll have to catch up next month.

For now I wanted to post about the three recent breads I made, which I’m calling The European Trifecta (because I think that sounds cool). They are: French Bread, Italian Bread and English Muffins. I’ll also mention the other previous breads, some of which I don’t have too much to say about, but I wanted to make sure to post about each of them anyway.

Most recently I made French Bread and Italian Bread. I was really worried about getting the French Bread right, but ultimately I didn’t find it terribly hard to make. It was the first time we’ve had to shape the dough into baguettes and since I always seem to have issues with shaping, I thought I would mess it up, but they turned out pretty good. You have to be very careful because you have to shape the loaves in a pretty specific manner (rolling back and forth to stretch them out) while still being very gentle so you don’t degas them too much. I thought my bread turned out to be fairly holey, so I think I did an ok job of that, though I know it’s definitely something I’m going to have to practice to get really good at.

It was also a return to hearth baking, which we haven’t done since Ciabatta and that whole process makes me really nervous. I’m always scared to death I’m going to burn myself or catch the house on fire. In fact, I was so nervous about making sure that my oven was set up right that I forgot to score the bread. See how mine is completely smooth? Well, it’s supposed to have marks in the crust. Oops. Despite that, I thought the bread turned out fine and tasted great.

Italian Bread (pictured at the very top of this entry as well) is basically just sub bread. It’s more moist and has a tighter crumb than french bread, but honestly I didn’t think there was that much of a difference. It’s also made fairly similarly, hearth baking and all. I shaped it into smaller hoagie rolls instead of big loaves and it made for some really great sandwiches. And I actually remembered to score the bread that time, though I was so scared I was going to mess it up! I think I just need to buy one of those special scoring knives or a straight razor because none of my knives really worked. They caught on the bread a bit too much and pulled, whereas the knife is supposed to slice cleanly through. I did ok on some of the rolls, but other ones I didn’t cut enough and a few I cut too deep and they started deflating. So that’s another thing I will have to practice at. I think the key is making a confident slicing motion with your hand, if you go too slow or are too light it’s just not going to work. It almost felt like surgery at times!

English Muffins were definitely the easiest of the bunch to make. I think they might have been one of the fastest breads we’ve made so far. I’m not entirely sure how this recipes compares to the kind you buy at the store, though. The big thing about english muffins is that they are supposed to have all those nooks and crannies and I made these twice and I didn’t really have much in the way of nooks or crannies either time. Though I fully admit that could be my fault. Either way, they tasted really good, so I didn’t mind. And the fun thing about english muffins is that you actually cook them on your stove top or on a griddle to get that nicely browned flat top and bottom. I will be making these again.

Also fun to make was Foccacia. It started out similarly to Ciabatta as it’s a very wet dough that needs to be stretched and folded multiple times. But then comes the fun part where you get to pour herb oil all over it. I made the oil by heating up olive oil and throwing in tons of chopped up fresh herbs and letting it steep. I pretty much used everything I had plus garlic and it was a bit of overkill. Next time I’ll limit it to 3 or 4 things because I think less is more with the herb oil. And I’ll pour on less oil, as well. The dough absorbs all the oil, but I thought it was a bit too oily in the end, though it tasted very, very good. Foccacia is really versatile and you can put pretty much any kind of topping on it, so I’ll definitely will be making this again and trying out different combinations of cheese and vegetables.

The Cranberry Celebration Bread was fine, but I’m not sure I’d make it again. It was supposed to have walnuts which I omitted, so maybe if I liked walnuts I’d like this bread more. It was fun to shape it into the double braid, though. But I totally screwed it up by placing the smaller braid off center of the larger braid, so as it rose it started leaning more and more to one side and it turned out extremely lopsided. Oh well!

The cornbread was surprising because I was not expecting to like it at all and actually kept putting it off because I was so not looking forward to eating it. As I mentioned before, I’m not a fan of southern-style cornbread. I figured this was going to be same kind of cardboard and sand textured bread that I hate, but it turned out really moist and sweet enough to give it a nice taste, but not be overpowering like a dessert bread. Brandon declared it his favorite cornbread ever and I did like it better than my previous recipe mainly because while that recipe tastes good, it falls apart really easily. I made these into muffins instead of making a big dish and they stayed together nicely while still maintaining that melt-in-your-mouth-ness. I did omit the bacon topping mainly because I was weary about bacon in bread after the Casatiello which I did not like at all. I wound up accidentally omitting the corn because it was the last step and I just plain forgot. But I told that to Brandon and he said that sounded gross anyway, so I guess it’s good I forgot or he probably wouldn’t have eaten any. Sometimes I think he’s an even pickier eater than I am!

Despite the fact that I’ve slowed down in the challenge lately, I’m having fun making these breads and I’m still motivated to keep on going. I’ve finished 15 recipes already and am excited for more. I can’t wait for this move to be over so things can get back to normal again.

Related posts:

• Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge: Anadama Bread
• Quickie: Whoopie Pies
• BBA Challenge Catch-up: Brioche, Casatiello and Challah
• BBA Challenge: Cinnamon Rolls and Raisin Bread
• Pineapple Stuff

Thanks to twitter I recently discovered it’s possible to make ice cream without an ice cream maker. I honestly had no idea this was possible and have been actively contemplating buying an ice cream maker this summer after seeing so many great homemade ice cream recipes. But then my popcorn popper died (after weekly use for almost 2 years it was worth it’s $30 price tag) and I decided it was much more important to replace it than to buy an ice cream maker. But just as I had given up on being able to make ice cream, someone on twitter complained about not having an ice cream maker and another person replied with a link to instructions for making it by hand. I did some googling and found some more tips. Turns out it’s really easy. No, not as easy as pouring it into a machine, but for the most part with this method you are letting your freezer and a hand mixer do all the work, so it’s still not especially labor intensive.

First, I had to decide what recipe I was going to use. But after going through a bunch of recipes nothing really stood out. Plus everything was full of heavy cream/sour cream/whole milk, etc. and since I’m trying to stick to my diet, I knew those would not be good at all. But I had also read how important fat and sugar are for good, creamy homemade ice cream so I knew attempting to make something with fat-free yogurt was just not going to work either. After looking around at lots of low fat ice cream/frozen yogurt recipes I compromised by using low-fat Greek-style yogurt (supposedly the best kind to use) and adding some half and half to up the creaminess factor.

As for the flavors, I wanted something fruity and summery. I had a pineapple sitting on my counter that was begging me to use it. It’s no secret than I love anything with pineapple. One of my most favorite desserts is pineapple upside down cake. Pineapple just goes so well with that buttery brown sugar mixture, it’s one of my favorite combos. And in fact, that mixture is very similar to the butterscotch sauce I made for my brownie tart and boy, do I love that sauce. That sauce is so good, I just wanted to pour it into a glass a drink it. I am not exaggerating one bit when I say that.

So this is my version of pineapple upside down cake, but in ice cream form. I made up the pineapple/vanilla yogurt mixture and froze it following the instructions I found. I made the butterscotch separately, using half and half instead of heavy cream to lighten it up. It was thinner, but still tasted just as good. When the frozen yogurt was thick and creamy and mostly frozen I swirled in the butterscotch (it’s kind of hard to see in the pictures because it’s pretty much the same color as the ice cream, but you can sure taste it) and chilled it for a bit longer. Then I scooped it out and topped it with even more butterscotch.

This is one of my favorite things I’ve ever made. I’ve never seen pineapple ice cream before and after making this, I don’t really understand why. It was Just. So. Good. And the pineapple frozen yogurt was great by itself, but mixing it with the butterscotch took it to a whole other level of flavor. The tartness of the pineapple combined with the buttery sweetness of the butterscotch, melting together in your mouth… It was amazingly good.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake Frozen Yogurt

adapted from David Lebovitz

Ingredients

• 16 oz. fresh pineapple, cut into chunks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. vodka (This is optional, it’s supposed to help make the ice cream softer after it’s frozen, but I didn’t use any and mine turned out perfectly soft)
• 1 cup low-fat Greek-style vanilla yogurt (you can use regular instead of low-fat to get an even creamier consistency)
• 1/2 cup half and half (I’d reduce this to 1/4 cup if using regular yogurt)
• 2 tbsp. orange juice

Butterscotch Sauce
from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

• 3/4 cup half and half (use heavy cream, if you’re not concerned with keeping the fat/calories down)
• 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• Pinch of salt

Process

1. In a medium bowl, mix together pineapple, sugar and vodka (if using). Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 2 hours (at room temp), stirring a few times.

2. After the 2 hours, pour pineapple mixture into a blender along with the yogurt, half and half and juice. Mix well.

3. Pour mixture through a fine-mesh strainer (to get out any pulp, seeds, etc.) into a medium metal or plastic bowl, preferably one with a cover. If you don’t have a cover for it, then cover with plastic wrap.

4. Place in freezer to chill. After an hour, take it out and use a hand mixer or a sturdy whisk to whip it vigorously (you’ll get the best results with the mixer). Make sure to break up all the frozen sections around the edges. This may seem counter-intuitive, but this helps make it really creamy in the end. Put back in the freeze.

5. Keep checking every 45-60 minutes and whipping/breaking it up. It took me 4-6 hours of total freezing time to get it to the right consistency. It depends on how hard you want it to be.

6. When the frozen yogurt gets to a consistency you are happy with, start making the butterscotch. (Though you can make it earlier and just heat it up when you need it. It keeps up to a week in the fridge.) Combine half and half and butter in a small saucepan, cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted.

7. Add in sugar and salt. Stirring frequently, cook until the mixture is thicker and shiny, about 10 minutes.

8. Set aside to cool off. You want it to be warm (so it’s smooth and easy to pour) but not hot (you don’t want to melt the frozen yogurt too much).

9. Slowly pour in 3/4 cup of the butterscotch (that’s about half of what you made), gently folding it into the frozen yogurt using a spatula. Don’t whip/stir anymore or it’ll just get mixed up in there. You are aiming for swirls of butterscotch throughout.

10. Put back into the freezer to harden for another 30 minutes to an hour. Scoop out into bowls and top with the remaining butterscotch sauce (warmed up).

Makes 1 quart

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• This weekend in food
• Pineapple Stuff
• On Failed Recipes
• Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
• Chicken a la King

This is a fun one! I recently got a new Cooking Light Cookbook so I’ve been trying out lots of different stuff in it. I was looking for something meatless because I decided we should have at least one day a week without meat, as it would be good for our diet as well as our bank account. This just looked like a fun and interesting way to lighten up lasagna and it didn’t disappoint one bit. There was so much good stuff going on, that I didn’t care one bit that there was no meat in it.

The dish is fairly easy to make and doesn’t take too long to prepare. You prepare the three different components separately (the noodles, the cheese filling and the sauce) and then you combine them. I was weary about the sauce since I’m still in the process of accepting peppers into my life after years and years of shunning them for no good reason (ahh, the logic of a picky eater), but in the end I really loved it. It was sweet with just a little bit of heat to it. And it was super easy to make, you just put everything in a blender and mix it up. I will definitely be using this sauce for other pasta dishes in the future.

I also really liked the cheese filling. And I rarely like ricotta cheese, even in lasagna. In fact I had some stuffed pasta shells a few days ago that had a similar ricotta filling and I didn’t like it at all. It was really overpowering. This recipe only calls for 1/2 cup and I think that’s just the right amount. It was good and the whole recipe didn’t scream RICOTTA, you could still taste all the other ingredients as well.

One thing this new cookbook has made me realize is that since I’ve started cooking again I’ve developed a prejudice against using the microwave. You know, like: *hoity-toity* “This recipe uses a microwave? Real cooks don’t use the microwave.” But, why not? You use the microwave to heat up the dish after you’ve put it all together and I’m finding lots of other recipes in the cookbook that utilize the microwave as well. If it will heat the sauce and pasta through in 5 minutes instead of having to cook it in the oven for a lot longer, then why not use it? I’m not saying I’m going to be cooking turkeys in the microwave anytime soon, but it’s a tool and I might as well use it for things that it does well.

Since I had the oven free, I made oven-roasted green beans along with the lasagna rolls. Confession time: I don’t think I’ve ever eaten green beans that weren’t from a can before. I guess I just thought they would be hard to cook? I don’t know, maybe I was just being lazy. Either way, eating these for the first time was like an epiphany. I’m not even joking. They are so much better than canned green beans it’s not even funny. And I like canned green beans. Plus they are less than a dollar for a big giant bag of them. Why the hell am I just discovering this now? I could have been eating these for years! I completely over-salted them this first time and we still ate every single one. Brandon actually asked me to make them again and he never asks me to make vegetables. I went back to the grocery store and bought another bag and we’ve eaten them 4 or 5 times in the past two weeks. I’d eat them for every single meal if I could. They are dead simple, just toss with oil and salt and roast for 10 minutes. Voila: awesomeness.

Lasagna Rolls with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

from Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

Ingredients

• 8 uncooked lasagna noodles
• 4 tsp. olive oil
• 1/3 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 (8 oz.) package sliced mushrooms (I left these out)
• 1 (6 oz.) package fresh baby spinach
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
• 4 tbsp. fresh basil, minced
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

• 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (7 oz.) bottle roasted red bell peppers, undrained
• 1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper

Process

1. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain and gently rinse with cold water.

2. While the noodles are cooking, prepare the sauce. Put all ingredients for the sauce in a blender and process until smooth. Set aside.

3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute onion, mushrooms, spinach and garlic for 5 minutes.

4. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses, 2 tbsp. basil, salt and crushed red pepper.

5. Place the cooked noodles on a flat surface and spread 1/4 cup of the cheese mixture on top of each noodle. Roll up each noodle and place seam side down in a shallow 2 quart microwave-safe dish. Pour 1/4 sauce over each roll.

6. Cover dish with plastic wrap and microwave for 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tbsp. of basil.

4 Servings

Oven-Roasted Green Beans

from Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1 lb. green beans, trimmed
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Process

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees (F). (Note: I think this is a bit too hot. I’ve been doing it it 450, but I my oven might run hot.)

2. In a large bowl, combine beans, olive oil, salt and pepper and toss well to coat.

3. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake for 10 minutes or until tender, turning once.

4. Remove from oven, add lemon juice to beans and toss. (Note: I’ve made these 4-5 times already and have forgotten to add the lemon EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I think when they come out of the oven my mind goes blank and all I can think is WANT TO EAT NOW. Anyway, these still taste absolutely wonderful without lemon if you don’t have any.)

4 Servings

Related posts:

• Pam’s Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
• Maple Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes
• Garlic Roasted Chicken with Gravy
• Grilled Lemon Herb Pork Chops with Parmesan Roasted Potatoes
• Balsamic Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic-Roasted Potatoes

Well, summer is almost over and strawberry season has ended, and every time I go to the grocery store they always seem to be having a sale on their strawberries, obviously trying to get rid of them as fast as possible. But looking closely at the strawberries, many are bruised or mushy and just don’t look that great. Definitely not something I’d want to display on a strawberry tart. But I have a hard time passing up such a good deal, so I buy these sad looking strawberries and immediately freeze them when I get home for use in smoothies or granita.

But sometimes this means I’ll look in the freezer and see that I have way too many strawberries. I came upon this recipe a while ago when I was looking for a recipe to use up some of these strawberries. It’s pretty much the easiest recipe in the world. You mix up the wet ingredients, including the strawberries, in a blender and combine that with the dry ingredients and you’re done. It’s takes about 5 minutes to make these.

And they are light (184 calories, 4g of fat), which is nice if you’re trying to watch your weight but still want a treat. If I hadn’t known they were supposed to be light, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. It seems like they reduced the amount of butter from a normal muffin recipe, but these are still very moist and sweet. You could probably health them up even more by substituting all or some of the flour with whole wheat flour.

I honestly have no complaints about this recipe. It’s insanely easy, it’s fast, it’s light, it tastes good. What more could you want? I did modify the original recipe and used lemon rind instead of orange. I did this mainly because I had lemons in the fridge, not oranges. I’m sure they would taste just as good with orange rind.

Strawberry-Lemon Muffins

adapted from Cooking Light, May 1999

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups strawberries, halved (thawed if frozen)
• 3 tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
• 2 tsp. grated lemon rind
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Topping:

• 2 tsp. sugar

Process

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F).

2. Mix strawberries, butter, lemon rind and eggs in a blender. Don’t over-process, you only need to blend for about 15-30 seconds or until the ingredients are just mixed.

3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Pour in strawberry mixture, stirring just until moist.

4. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove from pan immediately.

Related posts:

• Gingerbread Mini-muffins
• Pink Grapefruit and Strawberry Granita
• Glazed Lemon Cakes
• Lemon Glazed Strawberry Tart with Pastry Cream
• Butterscotch Brownie Tart

Diet? What diet? Oh, yeah, actually I made this right before I started the diet and am only getting around to posting it now. I guess it was sort of my last hurrah and it was oh so worthy. I was looking for something to make in my new tart pan and found this recipe on Epicurious.com, but had also come across a recipe for butterscotch sauce that I really wanted to make, so I decided to combine the two into one glorious dessert. Ok, well maybe not glorious, but if you like chocolate, brownies and butterscotch like I do, then it’s pretty damn close. The brownie part is rich and fudgey and the butterscotch sauce is buttery and sweet and silky and I just wanted to lick the whole saucepan clean after I made it. It’s especially great when still warm or rewarmed in the microwave. But even at room temperature the sauce never hardens.

As a whole this recipe is very easy to make. There’s some waiting time while you freeze/cook/cool the components to get them ready, but I think that’s pretty much par for the course with tarts? The actual assembly is easy and fast.

I think the only complaint I had about this recipe was the crust. It’s kind of…lacking. It wasn’t bad, but not fantastic either, it was just kind of there. I even added extra sugar to the original recipe and I still didn’t think it was sweet enough. But with the brownie filling and especially the butterscotch sauce, it’s not like the dessert doesn’t have enough sweetness to go around. I don’t have tons of experience with tart/pie crusts, so I’m not sure what else you could do to it other than add more sugar and maybe switch to a semi-sweet chocolate? If anyone has suggestions, I would love to hear them.

I was thinking when I made this again (because I will be making this again), that I might try the same crust I used for my Strawberry Tart, but add in cocoa or chocolate? That crust was really good, but it was hard to handle because it was so buttery. That is one good thing I can say about the crust for this recipe, it was very easy to put together (even if, like me, you don’t have food processor) and press into the pan.

Chocolate Butterscotch Brownie Tart

adapted from Epicurious.com

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1 cup flour
• 3 tbsp. packed light brown sugar (maybe add another tablespoon?)
• 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped (maybe try semi-sweet/bittersweet instead?)
• Pinch of salt
• 6 tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 2 tbsp. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Filling

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 3 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted (optional)

Butterscotch Sauce
from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• Pinch of salt

Process

Crust

1. Chop the chocolate finely in a food processor or blender. Mix in the flour, sugar and salt. Add butter and cut in using on/off turns or manually using a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk and vanilla; process/mix by hand until moist clumps form.

2. Press dough over bottom and up sides of 10 or 11″ diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Freeze for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 350 (F). Bake crust until just set and beginning to brown around edges, about 8 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool.

Filling

4. Melt butter and chocolate in medium saucepan over low heat. Cool slightly. Beat sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt in medium bowl until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add in chocolate mixture. Mix in flour and nuts.

5. Pour batter into cooled crust. Bake until filling puffs around edges and toothpick inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 30 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool.

Sauce

6. Combine cream and butter in a small saucepan, cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted.

7. Stir in sugar and salt. Stirring frequently, cook until the mixture is thick and shiny, 5 – 10 minutes. (Bittman says you can add in more sugar at this point if don’t think it’s sweet enough, but uh…I have about the biggest sweet tooth around and can’t imagine it needing more sugar.)

8. Immediately pour over cooled brownie tart. You may not need/want to use it all (I LOVE butterscotch, so I used it all), if you have leftovers you can refrigerate it in a covered container for up to a week and rewarm to use it on other things.

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• Cheesecake Brownies
• Lemon Glazed Strawberry Tart with Pastry Cream
• Light Strawberry-Lemon Muffins
• Pink Grapefruit and Strawberry Granita

I started making a meal plan every week and now that I’ve been doing it for a little while, I have to wonder why I haven’t been doing this all along. It’s saving me so much trouble. Here’s an example of a typical nightly exchange between me and my boyfriend pre-meal plan:

Me: What do you want for dinner?
Him: I don’t know, what do you want for dinner?
Me: Whatever you want.
Him: I want whatever you want.
Me: I forgot to take any meat out of the freezer.
Him: So…pizza or chinese?

It was just unbelievably frustrating and there was no excuse for it other than laziness on our part. Now I’ve been making a meal plan for the upcoming week on Sunday and then I go to the grocery store and buy only the ingredients I need (so I’m saving some money as well since I’m not buying produce or anything that goes bad before we get a chance to eat it). I have it written out on a big white board in my kitchen, so the night before I’m reminded of what I’m making the next day and can take out any meat that needs to be thawed. It’s making my life so much easier. Even though I’m planning so much in advance it feels like I don’t actually have to think about food as much as I used to, which is a nice thing when you’re on a diet. (Almost 10 lbs. down in my first month, yay!)

I plan at least a couple of new recipes to try every week, ones that might be time consuming, but I balance that out on other nights with recipes that are fast and easy and that I know will be really good. This meal is one of the latter and I’ve had a really hard time not scheduling it every single week because I like it so much and it’s just so easy to make. I’ve mentioned before that I’m always looking for pork recipes and this is my new favorite. The panko bread crumbs combined with asiago cheese makes the pork so crispy and tangy. I don’t think I’ve ever even had asiago before, but now I want it on everything.

The sweet pea and pepper toss surprised me. First of all, a confession: I don’t I had ever eaten any kind of pepper before last year. At some point I had gotten it into my head that all peppers were hot and I don’t like really hot, spicy foods, so I just avoided them. But then I started this blog and found out that bell peppers aren’t hot at all. Sigh. I’m such an idiot sometimes. So anyway, I specifically chose this recipe because I’ve been trying to embrace foods I didn’t like (or never even tried) in the past. I didn’t even think peas and peppers sounded like they would taste good together, but the other thing that swayed me was that this whole thing takes about 10 minutes to make (prep and cook) and I’m all for easy sides. But it was really surprising to find out how much I liked this stuff. I wanted seconds. Hell, I wanted thirds. The sweetness of the peas and onions combined with the peppers just works really well together. I started throwing in some corn as well, just because I like corn and it adds some additional crunch. It’s pretty rare that I find a vegetable side dish that I love and the fact that it’s so simple only makes it better.

Asiago-Crusted Pork Chops

from Cooking Light: Fresh Food Fast

Ingredients

• 4 boneless center-cut loin pork chops
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
• 1/4 cup grated Asiago cheese
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 lemon wedges
• 2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme

Process

1. Put pork between sheets of plastic wrap and pound to about 1/4″ thick (or you could be lazy like me and just buy thin sliced pork chops).

2. Put egg white in a shallow dish. Combine the panko, asiago and salt and pepper in a separate shallow dish.

3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat.

4. Dip one piece of pork into the egg and then press both sides of into the cheese mixture until it’s covered. Place in skillet and repeat with remaining pork.

5. Cook 3-4 minutes per side or until lightly browned and cooked through.

6. Plate the pork and squeeze 1 lemon wedge over each piece followed by a sprinkling of thyme. (Sometimes I forget about the thyme, but don’t forget the lemon!)

Sweet Pea and Pepper Toss

adapted from Cooking Light: Fresh Food Fast

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped green pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped red pepper
• 1 (8 oz.) can green peas, drained
• 1 (8 oz.) can corn, drained
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Pepper, to taste

Process

1. Heat oil in large non-stick skillet of medium heat.

2. Add onion and cook 2 minutes. Add peppers and cook for 3 more minutes or until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned.

3. Stir in peas, corn and salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, about 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

Related posts:

• Grilled Lemon Herb Pork Chops with Parmesan Roasted Potatoes
• Parmesan Pork Cutlets and Mashed Potatoes
• Chicken Adobo
• Maple Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes
• Lasagna Rolls with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce