I come from a culinary arts background, but have since left that industry. I am now working on my writing, and enjoying cooking for family and friends.
I know you're thinking, hey this is a baking project, why is there recipe soup? That's because I made two recipes today, and the pumpkin biscuits, sadly, were a fail. But the pumpkin soup I made was amazing! So, I'll share it here. Since I was unable to find the source of the recipe, I'll write it out, but it's not mine!
Pumpkin Coconut Soup
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, chopped(1 cup)
2 carrots, chopped(1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 (14oz.) cans chicken broth, divided
2(15oz.) cans unsweetened pumpkin
1(140z.) can coconut milk
2 Tbsp. lime juice
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1.) Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add onion and carrot, and cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir in garlic, and cook 30 seconds. Add 1 can chicken broth; bring to a simmer, and cook 10 minutes or until vegetables are very tender. Remove from heat; cool 10 minutes.
2.) Use a hand-held blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return to the heat and add pumpkin, coconut milk, and remaining can of chicken broth, stirring with a whisk. Bring to a simmer over medium heat; stir in lime juice and next 3 ingredients.
Note: Can be made 1 day ahead. Reheat when ready to eat.
Makes 8 (1 cup) servings
This recipe is really easy to cut in half, and since I'm only one person, I don't need 8 cups of soup, so I made a half batch.
It doesn't puree as well as it should with the half batch, but I did what I could until the next step.
After mixing this, I used the blender to blend it all again and this worked well to finish pureeing everything. I ended up using one whole small lime, and I did not add any of the sugar. I recommend holding off on the sugar until you taste it to see how it is. The carrots can be very sweet, and so is coconut milk. You may not need it.
Here is the very autumnal-looking finished product! It's really tasty, and I can tell it's gonna be even better tomorrow! I'm not a big fan of squash recipes that lean sweet or use desserty ingredients. If I want to eat pumpkin pie, I'll make one, I don't don't want pumpkin pie soup...But if you want to experiment with herbs and spices, go for it! Curry is a very common addition to soups like this. If you don't want the cayenne, that might be a great addition.
This is the perfect soup for the start of autumn. It still has a couple hold-outs from summer, but the finished product is all autumn!
So, this week I put off doing the baking until after a work day, for some reason, but I had time and energy, and luckily this ended up being a ridiculously easy recipe to make. It was also fun in that I was able to try out my Princess Tiana flour sifter for the first time and it worked really well! She makes everything more delicious. I am also reminded that while I have the big fancy Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, sometimes the cheapo electric hand mixer just makes life so much easier.
This particular recipe is one that I cannot track down the source of, so I will write it out here.
Pumpkin Cookies
1 cup butter or shortening(I used butter)
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp. double-acting baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1 cup chopped nuts(I used pecans)
1 cup raisins(I used golden raisins)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix well.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice, and add to the other mixture. Stir in the nuts and raisins.
Drop cookies onto a well-greased cookie sheet and bake about 15 minutes.
Makes about 5 dozen
The creamed butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin don't look very good at the start, and don't worry if some of the liquid starts coming out of it, it'll all mix together again.
So, I made a judgement call on this one. The ingredients say to use sifted flour, and the instructions say to sift the flour with all the dried ingredients. Sometimes they just mean to do it all in a single sift, but I took the instructions literally. I sifted the flour after measuring it, and then sifted it with the other dried ingredients. This made it all very airy and fluffy, I think. It's worth it.
I didn't bother chopping the pecans. They're pretty flimsy, so I just crushed them with my hands. Why waste a knife and cutting board and having to wash them later when you don't have to!
Here is how the batter looks after it's fully mixed. My sister doesn't like raisins, so half the dough remained raisin-free, and the rest got raisins.
Here is the finished raisin-free product. The cookies are small, but this is actually the size cookies are supposed to be. I got 64 out of my batch, if I did the math right. The amount you use per cookie is basically a rounded teaspoon. A literal teaspoon measure, though I just eyeballed it. These were light and fluffy on the inside, but actually a little crispy on the sides. They were amazing!
Here's the interior of the raisin version. These are great too! The smell of these cookies makes the whole place smell like autumn! A great dessert for a chilly, cloudy day today!
I highly recommend these. They are so easy and not time-consuming. Well worth the time and effort! Happy baking!
I made pumpkin muffins today because it was too hot to use the oven over the weekend. This recipe was suuuuuuper easy to make. The hardest part was grinding the flax seed, and even that I used an electric coffee grinder to do and it it took a total of about 1.5 minutes! This recipe is also about as healthy as a muffin recipe can be. Thankfully, they turned out really tasty! Since I cannot find the source of this recipe, I'm going to go ahead and write it out, but know that this is not my creation.
Pumpkin Muffins
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup flax seed, ground
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar + extra for topping, if desired*
1/2 cup milk
3 egg whites
1oz. canola oil
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put all ingredients in a bowl. Lightly grease a muffin pan, and using an ice cream scoop, put a scoop into each muffin cup. Bake for about 20 minutes. About two minutes in, sprinkle each with a little additional brown sugar, if desired.*
Cool in pan for about 15 minutes over a wire rack, then transfer each muffin to a wire rack. Let cool again until ready to eat.
Makes 14 muffins-157 calories, 6.9g. fat, 3.9g. fiber
*I added the notes about the additional sugar, not 100% verbatim from recipe.
I know the recipe says you can dump everything into one bowl, but I just didn't want to try that. Baking always seems to do better when you mix dry and wet separately and then mix them together.
So, I went with the tried and true method.
And I think it worked great, like always!
The batter is pretty dark, and it might have to do do with the color of the flax seed. Mine was the darker brown kind, but if you used the lighter kind, the batter would probably be lighter too.
This was the first time I got to use my new silicone muffin mold. I read up on it and the consensus was the baked good still tend to stick to the bottom and sides, so I used liners anyway.
Because silicone conducts heat differently than metal, it took about 10 minutes longer for these to bake, so a full half hour.
Here is the finished product. The texture is really nice and chewy.
The flavor grew over time, the spices become pronounced once they're fully cooled. And as always, they're tasty with butter on them!
I'm going to freeze some of these to share with coworkers and my parents later this week.
So here I am, two for two so far this baking project. I'm hopeful the rest of the recipes will be winners too!
Last year, I felt robbed of our descent into autumn here in Seattle. Summer never ended till the middle of October, and we even had a 90 degree day that month! When autumn finally arrived, the leaves changed pretty much overnight and we went right into the less fun part of autumn, when the leaves fall off the trees. This year, it's more normal. The leaves are slowly changing, the weather is slowly cooling down. I can finally use the oven again!
Since I have to start my 12 Weeks of Christmas in October, this gives me a short window of time to truly enjoy autumn baking and all that it entails. This year I am focusing on pumpkin-based baked goods. Today's was this recipe for pumpkin bread. I thought it would be a good, easy way to get this started. It's a very basic recipe and I had all the ingredients except the pumpkin, which I got at the store this weekend.
Here is the visual breakdown of how it went.
The wet and dry ingredients in their separate bowls. This is a very basic recipe, but there's a lot of spices in it, so it doesn't taste plain at all.
Blended ingredients, but not mixed together yet.
And post blending of the wet and dry ingredients. It almost has the consistency of pumpkin pie filling.
My sister hates raisins, but I love them, so instead of one large loaf, I used smaller loaf pans and did half with raisins and half without. All of it had walnuts, though.
Here we have them out of the oven. When you use smaller pans like this, it only takes about 40 minutes to bake, instead of over an hour, so that's nice to use less time and energy this way.
Buttering the inside of each pan makes so easy to take them out, but keep the pans because once they're cooled off, you can put them back in to keep them from drying out as much.
The texture is really soft, and the flavors are strong. I really liked this with some butter on it. I am going to go out on a limb and assume that if properly packaged, these could be frozen and thawed at a later time if you can't eat all of this by yourself at one time.
Well, there you have it, a really easy and delicious way to get back into the swing of things for baking in the autumn. Buy a can of pumpkin the next time you go to the store and try this one out. You won't regret it!
So, I wanted to try this out for a while, and 4th of July seemed like an ideal time for it. It's super easy, and I'm not even going to bother writing out the recipe. Basically, make the traditional recipe for rice krispie treats, the marshmallow kind. Instead of using 6 cups of the cereal, use one regular-size box of graham crackers that you crush up gently. You aren't going for powder, but you want the pieces to be smaller than bite size. They crush really easily in your hand and I measured, one box makes exactly the 6 cups you need. When the butter and marshmallows are melted, fold them in like normal. You'll need a strong spoon or spatula because they are more solid than the cereal and need a bit more strength to mix properly.
After putting them in the 9x13 pan, melt regular Hershey's milk chocolate bars, the kind that usually go in a S'more, then pour it all over the top and spread out evenly. That's it, that's all you do! I had to put them in the fridge for a while to get the chocolate to harden cuz it was too hot out, but definitely take them back out again when you're ready to cut and let it come to room temp. The crackers get hard in the fridge and are hard to cut and eat.
These are super easy and super delish. Highly recommend them!
The Twelve Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 12
A Christmas Carol
Well, I couldn't end this year's project without touching on the most prolific story this time of year, aside from, you know, the birth of Christ...Everybody has a favorite version of this story in movie form, and I have three! Scrooged, a fun modern retelling, A Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol, who was born to play Scrooge, and A Muppet Christmas Carol, which isn't one I grew up with, but has quickly come to be one of my newer faves.
Since I was not going to do a goose, one of the main entrees mentioned in the story, I was going to do turkey and mince pies. Then it was turkey and steamed pudding, also mentioned. And then I busted both my knee and and my foot this week and it would be irresponsible for me to spend more time on my feet than is necessary, so it became just the turkey, which I had purchased last month and was in the freezer.
So, roast turkey lunch it was! And then it started snowing right as I was dishing up, so it was pretty perfect. The meal was delish too, so it was a great note to end the project on. Since I can't find the source of the recipe, I'll go ahead and write it out.
Scarborough Faire Turkey
1(12-14lb) turkey
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh sage leaves+12 sprigs
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves+2 sprigs
1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves+2 sprigs
1/2 cup butter, softened
salt/pepper
1 med. onion, cut into eighths
1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
1.)Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2.) Drain juices from turkey, discard neck and giblets and pat turkey dry with paper towels.(My note: Don't discard that stuff, make stock with it if you plan to follow this recipe exactly, but never just throw that away...) Place turkey, breast side up, on wire rack in large roasting pan (17"x 11 1/2") Into pan, pour wine and chicken stock.
3.) In food processor with knife blade attached, pulse the herb leaves, minus the sprigs, until very evenly chopped. Add butter and pulse until well-blended.
4.) Working from large cavity end of turkey, gently run fingers between skin and meat to loosen skin from flesh. Using rubber spatula, place 3/4 mixture under skin on both sides of breast bone. Gently massage skin to evenly distribute butter. Spread remaining herb butter all over outside of turkey. Sprinkle 1 1/2 Tbsp. and 1 1/2 tsp. pepper all over outside of turkey and inside cavity.
5.) Place onion, garlic, and herb sprigs in cavity. With kitchen string, tie wings against body and tie drumsticks together.
6.) Roast turkey 1 1/2 hours. If turkey breast is getting too brown, cover loosely with foil. Roast 1 hour longer or until it reaches 170 degrees in thigh and 160 degrees in breast.
7.) Carefully lift turkey from roasting pan and tilt slightly to allow juices to run into pan. Place turkey on large platter; cover loosely with foil and let stand 15-20 minutes.
8.) Remove rack from roasting pan. Strain pan drippings into 4-cup liquid measuring cup or medium bowl. If desired, let drippings stand 1 minute to allow fat to separate from meat juices and discard fat. Carve turkey and serve with pan juices.
12 servings-495cal, 22 g fat, 0 g fiber
The final line up of ingredients for this project!
Here is the pan with the tray in it. Chicken broth and wine on the bottom
Because I don't need a whole turkey, I bought just the breast, which is enough for a couple meals and some leftovers. It's perfect for a small amount of people.
When you mix butter with stuff, it's called a compound butter. I ended up using dried herbs instead of fresh, and it was just fine. This recipe is called Scarborough Faire, after the sing with the lyrics "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" and this uses all of those herbs.
With just the breast like this, you don't have as much skin to get the herb mixture into it. I only made half of what it called for, but still managed to get it all in/on it.
Here is the onion and garlic before putting it in the oven.
And out of the oven. This was about 2.5 hours at 325 degrees and it was perfection!
Here's what the juices look like after you spoon off most of the melted butter. It's very flavorful and would be great drizzled over the turkey. I used it as the base of turkey gravy that I just made from the packet and it was fine that way.
Here's the final product, on the plate! Because we'll be doing mashed potatoes with Christmas dinner and we had them last week with dinner, we did steamed red potatoes instead. And fresh green beans. This was a really good and easy recipe.
I could definitely see the Cratchett family enjoying this turkey recipe after Ebenezer Scrooge sent them one on Christmas Day after learning to be a better person.
And now, as Christmas is in exactly one week, and this project officially draws to a close for the year, I say to us all, God bless us, everyone!
The Twelve Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 11
Home Alone
There are a couple of food scenes in Home Alone, but the one that stands out the most, is the cheese pizza Kevin wants so badly and was unable to get at the family dinner. He comes up with a hilarious, if cruel, way of finally getting his own pizza. Because of this, I decided to try making my own cheese pizza. It turned out to be half successful. The sauce was great, the dough, not so much. Because of that, I will only be sharing the sauce element, because I don't want to share a recipe that didn't work!
I used this recipe, which claimed to be easy, and turned out to be true. This was a super simple recipe, using ingredients most people have in their pantry. It made far more than I needed for the pizza, so I will portion and freeze the rest to test out other pizza dough recipes in the future.
This is it for the ingredients. I don't have garlic salt so I made a combo of salt and granulated garlic and that's all garlic salt is, so don't waste your money on a product you could just easily make yourself.
Here it all is, ready to mix. It's a well-seasoned sauce!
This is perfectly thick, as pizza sauce should be. If you didn't want to use the leftovers for more pizza, you could always thin it down and use it for spaghetti sauce.
The pizza was a very unround shape, it just ended up being whatever shape it wanted to be. I put TONS of cheese on it, including feta. If you have not had feta cheese on a pizza, you are missing out!
Here was the final product. The sauce does soak into the dough and toppings, so I recommend putting a lot of sauce on the dough.
This pizza would not have made Kevin happy, and I want to keep looking for the perfect pizza dough recipe, but when I find it, at least I'll have a sauce I like, ready to go!
