Play-Date Fare - S'mores Brownies... take 1...

So little miss and I are invited to a friend's house tomorrow after preschool for lunch and a play date. I figured we could bring dessert.

The only problem was that today was a pretty busy day here in the C household, so I didn't really have much time to be overly clever or creative.

So I thought I would try to spice up simple with a little bit of fun.

The simple? Brownies. The fun? I happened to have half a package of mini-marshmallows laying around (seeing as we usually have our home-made ones, the store-bought ones tend to be forgotten...). I love s'mores, so figured I could figure something out...

Ordinarily, I would have hopped online, googled and foodgawked and checked out allrecipes to see who has had this idea before and what they have tried. Not that I would have done what they did, necessarily, but it would have provided a springboard. But I didn't today. I really just winged it.

I was a little worried about mixing the marshmallows right into the batter, or putting them on top for the whole cooking time, since I thought that they would burn being in the oven for that long. So I popped the brownies into the oven themselves, and set my helper to work counting marshmallows. Honestly, this was more as an activity than a necessity, but she took her job very seriously. And only snuck marshmallows when my back was turned... I couldn't tell you how many marshmallows there really were, because we were chatting the whole time, so she would constantly forget where she left off and start over.

About 7 minutes before the brownies needed to come out of the oven, we sprinkled the marshmallows on top and put the whole thing back in to finish up. The brownies were more done than I'd hoped at that point... I was hoping that the marshmallows might sink in a little bit... but hey. Timer beeps, and:









Hmm... not bad, but not quite what I'd hoped. So... one minute under the broiler:









Closer... so I tried to (gently) spread them out, so it would at least be like a marshmallow frosting on the brownies... and this was the result:









Not what I'd had in mind, which is why this post is titled "take 1" - because there will definitely be a "take 2" on these. I have no doubt that these will be yummy. I mean, brownies and toasted marshmallows - how bad could it be? But next time, hopefully they'll me more s'mores-y. We shall see!

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Guacamole

In case you haven't heard, today is kind of a big day for football fans... And, wouldn't you know, in our family, the Super Bowl is included in the listing of holidays that are celebrated together. So in place of our regular Sunday family dinner, we had kind of a smorgasboard of goodies, snack foods and treats, most of which were eaten in front of the big game.

A standard in the snack department for these types of gatherings is the ever-popular chips and dip. Today we had a larger variety of chips than usual, so I thought that maybe we should also have a wider variety of dips, too. Not that there is anything wrong with our usual - Heluva Good French Onion dip is awesome. But for five different kinds of chips, more than one dip can't hurt.

And, wouldn't you know it, we happened to have the following right at our fingertips:









Little miss is actually pretty funny. For the longest time, she insisted that she didn't like avocados. Until I finally got her to consent to actually tasting one. Now she's a big fan. She was totally game for helping me make some guacamole.

Guacamole is SO easy to make. There are a bunch of different recipes for all different tastes - from the purists, who insist that the best guacamole is made with avocados and nothing more, to the totally extravagant, with mile-long lists of ingredients. I devised my own recipe as somewhere in the middle, though I do my best to not overpower the delicious avocado.

The other fun thing about this recipe is that, other than chopping the onion, little miss can practically make this herself. Mash the avocados, mix in the onion and the juice of half a lime, and season to taste - for us that means a dash of garlic sea salt. Then just mix. That's it. You can add tomatoes, if you would like, and cilantro is usually added... but go with your own tastes.

The result? Smooth, creamy, avocado-y goodness that goes well with most of the chips provided at the C family Super Bowl celebration.

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Amish White Bread

Well, the weather-people actually got it right. We were completely and totally snowed in today. Not sure what the official measurement was, but we had about two feet, give or take a couple of inches. There was so much snow that we didn't even know where to put it as we shoveled ourselves out.

Seeing as I'd finished off our bread yesterday making the bread pudding muffins, I decided that a snow day is as good a day as any to make a new batch of bread.

I actually only started making bread this past year. So every time I make it, I still marvel at the process - at how simple it really is, and how much better homemade bread tastes than its mass-produced, store-bought counterpart.

Making bread is always a multi-step process, with many periods of waiting. The first step involves allowing the yeast to activate and bloom. Both little miss and I are always disproportionately excited to see the yeast get all foamy. For me, it means that it's working, and that the bread should rise nicely. For her, it just looks pretty cool. And, seriously, she's right.

Once the other ingredients are added, that is when I become increasingly grateful for my Kitchenaid mixer. Like most breads (though certainly not all), this one involves quite a bit of kneading. The stand mixer makes that much easier. Because trust me - that is a lot of flour. And that takes a lot of muscle to knead. I have much respect for people who do this by hand.

After the dough is nice and smooth, it has to rest. This is usually the time for, well, doing the dishes, But other than that, this is when we play games and do crafts and otherwise make an hour go by as quickly as we can. Today our hour was passed playing board games. Little miss is amazingly good at Memory. Like, when we first started playing, I tried to throw the game a little in her favor... not cheating (though, when it is so that your opponent can succeed, is it still called cheating?), but trying to make sure that the games were close. Not anymore. This kid doesn't need my help to win. Quite impressive.

Anyway, an hour later is when little miss's favorite part comes. You got it - the dough needs to be deflated. Or, in three year old speak, it is the punching-down-the-dough part. This is the part that makes the waiting worthwhile for her. And I just like to see how big it rose during its rest.

The dough is then lightly kneaded, divided in two, and shaped into two loaves, which are set to rest once again, though for a shorter amount of time this time. One more rest, half an hour in the oven, and, magically, you go from this:









to this:









And it makes the house smell SO good.

This bread is so good for, well, everything. For sandwiches, for toast, for french toast, even just for snacking on.

Do yourself a favor - try it.



Amish White Bread

INGREDIENTS
2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cups bread flour (give or take, so add carefully after the first 4 cups)

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast.
Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam (about 10 minutes).
Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth.
Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth (I cover it with plastic wrap). Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half.
Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans.
Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Bread Pudding Muffins

Well, it's snowing! Between tonight and tomorrow, they're actually predicting over a foot of snow. And you know what that means - everyone in the area rushes to the store to buy storm staples - milk, eggs and bread. I always laugh... somehow snowstorms make everyone crave french toast.

I was thinking about that today and, well, you know... power of suggestion... suddenly really felt like french toast. Knowing I had some bread cubes in the freezer, as well as two bread-ends waiting to be cubed, first I thought about making french toast casserole for us to have for breakfast for the morning, but then decided on something very similar, yet a little different - bread pudding muffins.

I love these muffins.

Little miss helped a lot with these.

She added the cinnamon:









whisked the dry ingredients:









poured the dry ingredients into the bread-cube mixture:









She wanted to mix the whole thing up, too, but it is pretty thick, so I handled that part...

Half an hour in the oven, and viola:









Little miss had one for dessert tonight. She loved them. When told that maybe we could have them for breakfast tomorrow, too, she thought that was a pretty good idea, telling us that these are "breakfast-able!" I definitely agree.

Bread Pudding Muffins

(from joyofbaking.com)

7 cups of bread cubes cut into bite sized pieces

1 cup half & half or light cream

1 cup milk

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set rack to middle of the oven. Spray 12-well muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.

Place the bread cubes in a large mixing bowl and add the cream and milk. Let stand for five minutes. Then stir in the beaten eggs, sugar, vanilla and melted, cooled butter.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon. Stir this mixture into the bread cube mixture.

Evenly divide the mixture amont the 12 muffin cups, using two spoons or an ice cream scoop. Place the muffin tin on a parchment lined baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Place on wire rack to cool.

Dust with confectioners sugar before serving, if desired.

Enjoy!

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Monkey Bread

Today I had the pleasure of going to preschool with little miss to do a cooking project with her class. The teacher invited me to come and make Monkey Bread with the class, and I love the opportunity to help out, and to see what her school life is really like.

Let me start by saying that I had heard of Monkey Bread before, but had no idea what it was. Or how it was made. Yet I still said yes when asked to come make it with the class. Because if a preschooler can do it, I figured I had a shot.

There are many different recipes for Monkey Bread, with different levels of home-made-ness, but the thing they all have in common is ooey, gooey, cinnamon-sugary goodness.

The Monkey Bread that we made today involved three cans of Pillsbury biscuit dough, cinnamon sugar, and a syrup made from brown sugar and butter. I cut each uncooked biscuit into four little pieces, and the kids helped me shake them up in a bag of cinnamon sugar. All of these little pieces were then put into a bundt pan, and topped with the syrup. This was then baked in the oven. (If you want actual measurements, google, allrecipes, foodgawker, cooks.com... they all have recipes, but for convenience's sake, I found a version of the recipe that pretty closely resembles what we did today, and it can be found here.)

Oh. My. Gosh.

I don't know how I made it so long not knowing about this stuff.

So. Good.

Despite not having a bundt pan, I can safely tell you that I will be making this at home.

See? I learned something new at preschool!

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Apple Crisp

Apples are usually a Fall thing. Every Fall, we go apple picking and make lots of yummy things out of them. But this week, apples happened to be on super-sale at the supermarket, so I picked up a bag. Even though I already had some in the house... Now, apples are both good and good for you, so it's not like I was upset to have them, but I did realize that I should probably do something with some of them, just for variety.

I didn't want to make a pie crust, nor did I want to use all the apples, so that ruled out pie and applesauce... so apple crisp was the answer.

I never use an actual recipe when I make apple crisp. I mean, I am sure I base what I do on some recipe I must have seen somewhere at some point, but I don't actually use the exact same measurements of everything every time. I mean, not on purpose...

Little miss thought it was fun to be using oats for something other than breakfast, so was all game to help. And, of course, permission to mix the topping with her hands was just a bonus.

That made and set aside, I also had to make dinner. On our plan this week, my husband requested "artichoke chicken" for dinner one night this week. I am not a huge artichoke fan, and therefore don't have an "artichoke chicken" recipe anywhere... so I didn't really know what he had in mind... but oh well, as long as the finished product contained both artichokes and chicken, I figured it would mean I'd delivered what was requested. Right? The other trick was that, despite the fact that little miss is a total rock star when it comes to tasting new foods, I was pretty sure that she wouldn't eat artichokes, so had to ensure that whatever I made could be three-year-old safe, also. What to do...

First I cut the chicken (boneless, skinless breasts) into about 2 inch strips and cooked that in a pan on the stove until it was done, using just some garlic sea salt for flavor. Pulled that out of the pan. Then made a butter-garlic sauce in the same pan, adding artichokes and halved grape tomatoes. That's it. Most of the chicken made its way back into the pan, though I kept some separate for the kiddo. Served over pasta, with a side of broccoli, it actually looked like I knew what I was doing! And I have to say, this was pretty tasty, even to a non-artichoke fan. Not too shabby for a punt, huh? I would even make this again.

Once dinner was done, though, we could get down to the real business of the evening - dessert. The apple crisp was ready and waiting for us, and it definitely did not disappoint. The topping-to-apple recipe was a little higher than usual, meaning more topping than I'd intended for the number of apples that I used, but, hey, there are worse problems to have, so I won't complain. And definitely know that this picture was taken before the scoop of double vanilla ice cream was added on top. Yum.

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A Tale of Two Cupcake Pans...

I am not sure what it says about me that this is what I find interesting these days, but oh well, I am okay with it.

I baked some cupcakes to bring with us to my brother and sister-in-law's house today. Nothing overly ambitious, and I didn't even frost them (I thought that would be fun to do with little miss and the other little girl who would be there, too). So this isn't even a post about the actual cupcakes...

Instead, I am really just talking about the pans. There was enough batter for 24 cupcakes, and each cupcake pan I have makes 12 cupcakes. These are the two pans:









(this is an after-shot of them, in case you were curious...)

Anyway, as you can see, one is dark, the other light. Light and dark pans cook differently. Most recipes actually tell you that, if you are using a dark pan, you should lower your oven temperature by 25 degrees. I had a few options. I could bake one pan, change oven temp, then bake the second pan. Or I could bake one pan, clean it, and re-use it for the other half of the batter. I was too lazy for either of these options and chose, instead, to just bake them both at the same time. Halfway through the baking time I rotated the pans and switched which oven rack they were on, so each one got equal heat distribution.

Here is how they turned out:









They are on the cooling rack the way the pans are laid out in the picture above. You can actually tell the difference between the ones cooked in each pan! Huh!

Okay, so maybe you won't find it as interesting as I did... And I should probably use just one of the pans next time...

But in case you were wondering, both sets of cupcakes tasted delicious. And you couldn't tell the difference once they were smothered with chocolate frosting.

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