Tiramisu

I worked at Bella Italia, this cute Italian place downtown, all through high school and college.  A pastry chef named Pat worked there too and made all of our desserts in house; whenever she leveled off the layer cakes, she'd leave a huge platter of cake shards and whip up 3 or 4 flavors of frosting for us to dip it in.  She was amazing!  Before I left, Pat graciously wrote out her recipe for my mom's favorite dessert, a Tiramisu layer cake.  I make it every year for Mother's Day and again for my mom's birthday in July.  It's not at all a traditional Tiramisu, with the ladyfingers soaked in espresso; but I really like the traditional Tiramisu flavors in a layer cake format (I think the ladyfingers get soggy!).  

This cake is a process, a labor of love!  My favorite way to cook it is to assemble each component separately the week before I'm serving the cake, that way you're just left to whip the whipped cream and assemble the cake.

Components all ready to go!

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes Duncan Hines white cake mix
• 1 pint heavy cream
• Powdered sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons Kahlua (depending of course upon how "spiked" you like your cake)
• 1 tablespoon corn syrup
• 1/2 cup leftover coffee
• Vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (or 1 cup if you really dig ganache)
• 8 oz. cream cheese

Step 1:  The cake layers.

You'll be making 4 round cake layers total.  I only have 2 9" round cake pans so these get made in 2 batches.  I grease the pans really well with Crisco and then flour them thoroughly; that combined with Calphalon coated pans makes my cake layers slide right out (for the most part).  

Once your 4 cake layers are baked and cooled, flip them over so they're right side up.  Even off the layer; shave it down so the top of the cake is a relatively even, flat surface.  At this point, I wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them;  they're sturdier to handle when frozen.

Step 2:  Ganache

I make 1/2 the ganache Pat's original recipe called for, as the cake is so rich as is.  If you are a big chocolate fan, then make the ganache using the full cup of chocolate chips.  Melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I use 1/4 cup milk chocolate and 1/4 cup dark chocolate, Ghiradelli chocolate chips) with a splash of heavy cream; 45 seconds in my microwave does it.  I make this and then keep it in the fridge until Cake Day.

Step 3:  Cream Cheese

Mix 8 oz. cream cheese (this goes easier if it's softened) with a couple of teaspoons of powdered sugar (or to taste).  Package and keep in the fridge until Cake Day.

Step 4:  Coffee Mixture

Mix 1 tablespoon corn syrup with 1/2 cup coffee and 1-2 tablespoons of Kahlua.  If you do this with hot coffee it all blends together nicely.  Package and keep in fridge until Cake Day.  (You can make all of the different components on one day if you really wanted to; I've done it before, but you will end up with a crippling amount of dishes.)

Cake Day:  Assembly Time

First you're going to whip the whipped cream.  Dump your pint of whipped cream (minus that splash you used for the ganache) into a stand mixer; add a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons of vanilla and 1 tablespoon of Kahlua.  Mix on medium until you get whipped cream(4-6 minutes in my mixer). Also heat up your cream cheese mixture (until it's softened and easy to spread) and your ganache (until is liquidy). 

Get out whatever plate you want to serve the cake on; or you can get real fancy and use one of those stiff cardboard rounds, whatever floats your boat.  For Mother's Day yesterday I used a milk glass dish we used at our wedding.  

Get your cake layers out of the freezer and place one on the bottom of the plate.  Drizzle a few spoonfuls of the coffee mixture onto the cake layer, letting it soak into the cake.  Spread a thin, even layer of cream cheese onto the cake.  Add about 2 tablespoons of the whipped cream and spread it thinly and evenly onto the cake.  Now drizzle some ganache, like so:  

Now add your next 2 cake layers, drizzling on coffee, then cream cheese, then whipped cream, then ganache on each layer.  For your final cake layer, crizzle on the coffee and cream cheese.  Then add a big "plop" of whipped cream to the top and start icing that bad boy!  I ice the top, then do a thin layer on the sides, then I go back and add to the sides as whipped cream allows. 

Don't go for perfection with the icing, you've made a gorgeous, delicious homemade cake!  After you get the whipped cream situated, drizzle ganache on the top.  Here's yesterday's finished product:  

Whew!  Now eat a piece, you've earned it :)

What are some of your traditional family desserts that got associated with you or a certain holiday over the years?

The Stockings were hung....

...on the buffet. No chimney in this house!

The buffet is new, Ryan found it on Craig's list. LOVE IT and it holds a ton, so it's really freed up some cabinet space. Ryan's stocking is on the left, mine is on the right. I made them from a Butternick pattern, I think? Had to get mom to help, couldn't figure out the cuff part. Then I forgot all over again when I made the second one. Genius, right here. I'm really happy with these. Next year, tree skirt! My snail like pace will eventually result in decorations. Eventually.

Ok, you should make these and then eat them. Because they are SO GOOD and then you feel all virtuous that you just ate a ton of veggies for dinner.

Zucchini Cakes:

This is about to get realllll scientific up in here.

Shred a zucchini, then squeeze out the water. Mix squeezed, shredded zucchini with 1 egg, a generous handful of fresh, grated parmesan, some fresh garlic, a couple sprinkles of bread crumbs (I've used panko and Italian seasoned, both with success), and a dash of seasoned salt or paprika. Now heat up a skillet with some olive oil, and drop in some of the zucchini mixture. Press it down all flat and wait until it's all brown and crispy on the bottom to flip. Flip. Cook other side. Then stand by the stove and devour the ones you just made while you wait on the second batch. Maybe give your husband one or two.

Definitely a new go to recipe. Have you made any Christmas decorations this year? And new go-to recipes for nights when you don't feel like thinking?

Kitchen DOMINATION

I am having some serious cooking/baking triumphs this weekend, I'm on a streak!

First up I made this Cake Batter shake courtesy of Oh She Glows. I'm been very doubtful of the "frozen banana soft serve ice cream" stuff. I figured it was nonsense, that it would be healthy food poorly masquerading itself as ice cream. Which is just mean. But yesterday I had 2 bananas going bad so I figured, "why not?" If it turns out good then I have a whole new breakfast.

Holy crap you guys, this was SO GOOD. I made it this morning too, and while I was waiting for the oatmeal to soften in the fridge (the oatmeal soaks in 1 cup milk for an hour to soften it up) I was like "is it shake time yet, now? Now? SHAKE TIME!" There's 1/3 a cup of oatmeal in the shake, and today I upped it to a half a cup, which is the serving of oatmeal I normally make myself on the stove. It is a light breakfast that kept me full all morning. I added chocolate syrup instead of carob powder and used skim milk instead of almond milk. Oh also I used peanut butter instead of cashew butter. SO GOOD.

Then I made my husband and I spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, who was just getting back from an overnight cross country meet. I used this recipe from Julia's Healthy Italian Cooking and Ryan has already asked that it make a repeat performance, so they are officially on the rotation! I love adding stuff to our meal rotation that we normally have things on hand for-I suck at trying to buy and use up specialty/out of the ordinary stuff before it goes bad. Or I forget about it. I made so much we both have portions for lunch this week which excites me so much that I know I'm getting old.

Still riding high off of frozen-bananas-tasting-like-cake-batter, I made Oh She Glow's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls in preparation for a "blizzard". You basically make up some banana soft serve and blend in these cookie dough balls for a DQ-esque Blizzard, according to the recipe. These might not last long enough to make it into any blizzard, they are so delicious and the perfect little snack. I used almonds instead of cashews, white sugar instead of cane sugar and honey instead of maple syrup. These are the perfect little sweet bite that I don't feel guilty about.

Also yesterday I made Ryan homemade vanilla bean caramels, as he's a huge caramel fan. I would say that I wouldn't cook the caramels to such a high temp again-I'd pull them off the heat after they hit 335/340, because these caramels are so hard and chewy that they could yank a filling out! They soften up after you jaw on them for a few seconds, but I like a softer caramel. This was my first time making candy and using a candy thermometer, and it was much more straight forward than I thought it would be! I won't shy away from similar recipes in the future.

Whew! I've had some major cooking failures lately so it's nice to have some new recipes that work for us.

What have you cooked lately?

Hot Chocolate

My sister is in her Block 4 of student teaching, and she is going at about 100 mph for 14 hours out of the day, everyday. The school where she is student teaching is also a 45 minute drive, so she is at max capacity right now. She tried to drink coffee to help get her going in the mornings, but she hates it. So last night we made homemade dark chocolate hot chocolate for her to reheat before she drove to school this morning. It was out of control good, and I will never be able to drink the powdered stuff again. She even saved me a cup, which I look forward to sipping this afternoon at work!

Source

Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate
Makes a little over 2 cups

2 cups milk (we used skim and it worked just fine)
1/4 cup water
1/6 cup sugar (about 2.5 tablespoons)
1/8 cup cocoa (we used Hershey's Special Dark) (2 tablespoons)

Throw everything into a pot, stir to combine, heat at medium heat until boiling.

That's it, and your house will smell lovely and chocolaty. I think there were some directions about combining something first, but the policy in our house is "it all gets combined eventually anyway," so we just threw it all in at once and stirred. I know the powdered mixes for hot chocolate are terrible for you, so I was surprised to see that this really isn't horrible for you. If you wanted to make it healthier you could cut down on the sugar. The cocoa only has 5 calories a tablespoon, and the skim milk is fat free.

Enjoy!

Finally!

I have made countless duds of whole wheat pizza crust recipes, but this my friends, this is a recipe to hang on to, to memorize, to make regularly!

This recipe is so handy because you can make it ahead of time and throw it in the freezer for later. So if I wanted pizza for dinner, I could take the dough out of the freezer in the morning before work and pop it in the fridge, and come home to pizza dough ready for the oven. Ingenious! I love home made pizza, but I don't have time to wait for yeast to rise when it's late and I'm starving. Another handy thing about this recipe is that it makes enough for 2 large pizzas or for 8 individual pizzas, so by making the recipe once you have a whole other pizza to save for later. Love it. Here's the recipe by the way, it's over at Martha Stewart's Every Foods.



Can I just say that when I read the recipe to make sure I had everything I needed, I saw "2 packets yeast" and ignored the "1 ounce each" part. All of the yeast packets I've ever bought are 1/4 of an ounce. I discovered this after the grocery store run, unfortunately, so I dumped every yeast packet in the house I had into this recipe. And by every yeast packet, I mean there was instant yeast and rapid rise yeast and just plain yeast...it was a miracle this dough rose at all.

I topped the pizza with lots of tomato sauce, mozzarella, and mushrooms. 25 minutes later, this popped out of the oven....






Henry really, really wanted some pizza too.



Awww, how can I resist that face?

Anyway, this is the best whole wheat pizza crust recipe I have tried, and trust me, I have tried a few in my time! I think what makes it so successful is the amount of yeast in there, because there is a lot, and the amount of olive oil-1/4 cup. I've got an extra ball of dough in the freezer, and I guarantee you it will get eaten this week. Without a doubt, so good!

What have you cooked lately? What are your favorite always-have-on-hand recipes?

Late Night Snack, Anyone?

I love the late night snack trend I've seen in some weddings lately.

Source

This is exactly what I had in mind-milk and cookies! The only thing holding me back from doing this was my total inability to make cookies come out right. I just don't have the right touch with them, I guess. A weekend or so ago, I made a batch of peanut butter cookies and a batch of chocolate chip cookies that actually turned out, even in my iffy-at-best oven. I'm thinking, start baking every weekend in April and freeze the cookies, and by July 24th, I'll have plenty for the late night snack! I'm not sure how difficult the milk would be to procure. I found the recipes for the cookies over at Allrecipes. You'll find the chocolate chip recipe here and the peanut butter recipe here.

This is a DIY project I am confident about! I'll have plenty of time, so if something goes wrong all is well, and I can work ahead, which is huge. I had kind of ix-nayed the late night snack idea because I figured it would be too expensive, but this wouldn't be a big investment at all.

Are you doing a late night snack, or are you baking anything for you wedding?

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini is in season, and zucchini bread is a great way to use it up! 2 slices of this bread with a smidge of butter and a big glass of milk is one of my favorites breakfasts.

The recipe is from a Catholic Church cookbook. My MeeMaw attended the church in Leopold, MO, when she was little.

Zucchini Bread

2 cups grated zucchini

3 eggs

1 cup oil

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup chopped nuts

Beat the eggs. Add the oil, vanilla and sugar; mix well. Sift together flour and soda; stir into egg mixture. Add the zucchini and nuts. Mix well and pour into 13x9 inch oiled pan or 2 oiled loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Oh yum!

This recipe makes 2 loaves, by the way-one for you and one for a friend! I made this last week and brought a loaf up to Ryan's mom. Zucchini in bread used to weird me out, but it makes the bread really moist and delicious.

I did make some variations to make this recipe a little healthier. I only used 1/2 cup of oil and I used 1/2 cup of applesauce. This made the finished product more crumbly than it normally is, but oh well! That doesn't really bother me. I also used half whole wheat flour and half white flour, and this hardly made a difference at all. It tasted just a touch nuttier. I always use pecans in this recipe, but I'm lucky--my Aunt Mary lives on my Meemaw's old farm and lets me and my mom pick up all the pecans we want every fall.

What have you made lately?

Wonton Ravioli

I made spinach and ricotta raviloi the weekend before last, but I deviated from the recipe so much that I'm not even going to post it! This recipe is super easy and very accomodating of variations, so don't feel like you have to stick to it 100%.

Ingredients:

Frozen spinach, thawed, drained, chopped (do not skip the draining part, or you will have some watery ravioli!)

Wonton Wrappers

Ricotta Cheese

Garlic powder

Parmesan Cheese

Sauce (I used marinara, but I'm sure a cream sauce would be good too)



Mix the ricotta (I used about 1 cup for about 20 ravioli), parmesan (to taste, I used maybe 1 tablespoon), and spinach (I used about 2 cups) in a bowl. Add garlic powder and mix.



Place about 1 teaspoon of filling on a wonton wrapper, and wrap it up. Wet edges with water or egg white to make sure the sealing sticks. (You can wrap it hundreds of different ways. Ryan made his look like little presents, and I just went for a plain triangle).



Boil ravioli for 4-5 minutes. Be sure that you don't crowd the pot or ravioli will stick together.





Draining the spinach.




Wonton wrappers! They have very little fat in them, and are very light.

Ryan's wrapped ravioli.

I drowned mine in marinara, it was really good. Ryan and I were on the hungry side, and these were not particularly filling. The next time I make them, I am going to add some seasoned and cooked ground turkey or chicken, to make it a more substantial meal.

What have you cooked lately?

The Art of Greek Cookery

I picked up The Art of Greek Cookery at a random used book store in Ryan's hometown mall while he was getting his hair cut a weekend or so ago. The cookbook is published by the women of St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church. I have found that the best cookbooks typically come from church women, so I knew this had to be good.



I found some great recipes I cannot wait to try. The braised eggplant looks good, as does the baked zucchini and the moussaka. I will definitely be attempting some of these recipes in the next few weeks, so we'll see how that works out! I love greek food, so hopefully I will end up with a new dish to add to my repertoire.



Ryan said the Caramel Custard sounded good. I read through the recipe and it looks hard. It involved carmelizing sugar and pouring it into a warmed pan. This sounds deceptively simple, but the recipe warns you: "don't let the sugar get too dark or it will become bitter." What's too dark, and what's too light? I am pretty sure that you have to add butter in order to carmelize sugar, but the recipe doesn't mention that. I do want to attempt it the next time I have an afternoon off.

I love ethnic food and I am excited to try some of these recipes.

I was surprised to find that there was no hummus recipe! Maybe it's not such a greek thing?

Stuffed Portobello Mushroom

Last week I made Cheese-&-Spinach Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms, and they turned out so well! I am definitely adding them to my repertoire of meals. I found the recipe at Eatingwell.com, which has lots of other recipes that are on my list to try.

Cheese-&-Spinach Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

4 large portobello mushroom caps
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, divided
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup finely chopped fresh spinach
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
2 tablespoons finely chopped kalamata olives
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
3/4 cup prepared marinara sauce


1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Place mushroom caps, gill-side up, on the prepared pan. Sprinkle with salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Roast until tender, 20 to 25 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, mash ricotta, spinach, 1/4 cup Parmesan, olives, Italian seasoning and the remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl. Place marinara sauce in a small bowl, cover and microwave on High until hot, 30 seconds to 1 1/2 minutes.

4. When the mushrooms are tender, carefully pour out any liquid accumulated in the caps. Return the caps to the pan gill-side up. Spread 1 tablespoon marinara into each cap; cover the remaining sauce to keep warm. Mound a generous 1/3 cup ricotta filling into each cap and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan. Bake until hot, about 10 minutes. Serve with the remaining marinara sauce.



Doesn't it look yummy? I am happy I finally remembered to take a picture of something I cooked!




I am not a mushroom fan, and I thought this was delicious. First of all, I googled "how to clean mushrooms," because having never cooked with them, I had no idea. Some recipes mentioned cutting the gills out, which I was tempted to do, but didn't. It seemd like the whole purpose behind cutting the gills out was to cut down on the amount of gray juice, but that happens when you cook the mushrooms on their own in the first part of this recipe. I did make some changes to the recipe. I only used 2 mushroom caps, as it was just Ryan and I, and I made some pasta and garlic bread to go with it. I also steamed some snow peas that I had just gotten at the farmer's market, but those were in a separate dish. I really just eyeballed the amounts here. I wanted the mushrooms to be really full, so I used about the full cup of ricotta. Ryan and I use the part-skim kind, so I didn't feel guilty about it. I didn't put any parmesan into the dish, and I skipped the olives. I also used lots of marinara sauce, because I love it. I think I put at least 3-4 tablespoons on one mushroom cap alone. I used double the spinach, too. I am really happy with how it turned out, and probably will stick with the changes I made. This seems to me to be a very adaptable recipe.

I chopped off a chunk of my finger when I was chopping the spinach for these, and I was cooking at Ryan's while he was helping out at cross country camp. I couldn't find a band aid, so I had to tape a paper towel to my copiously bleeding finger. I had to wear lots of band-aids for the next week or so, because it was on the side of my finger, which is not fun to cover with a band-aid.

What have you cooked lately?

Mango Mojito

Last Friday, I had a crappy day at work. I stopped off at the store before I headed home because I had to have a Mango Mojito, my absolute favorite drink in the world.




I chopped up some mint and crushed some lime, and added Sprite and Mango Rum.







I poured the delicious concoction into my Orla Kiely for Target glass and slurped away. You can mix this drink totally by taste--I like lots of mint, so I had more of that in there. It will look like a jungle in your glass, with all of the mint leaves floating around. This is a very flexible drink--you could easily switch out the flavor of alcohol or add other flavors that sound good to you.




If you've had a bad day at work, this will make it all better.