Happy (Simple) 2014!!!!

Happiest of New Year's wishes to all.  :) :)

Have you chiseled those 2014 New Year's Resolutions in stone yet?  

This year, I am embracing the idea of the New Year's Resolution.  Really, it's more like a 2014 theme than resolution.  I've never really done the whole New Year's Resolutions thing--I tend to make and fail at resolutions throughout the year.  Mazel Tov right?

Lately though, I've felt tied down and overwhelmed by...well, my own stuff.  I try to put dishes away and have to move them to storage shelves in the basement.  I put my laundry away and wonder how i can really need a full bureau, dresser and two closets.  Books fall off of shelves randomly and I have looked around my home many times and wonder how one human can own so much stuff. 

Not to be be pseudo-profound really but lately I've noticed how the more I have, the fewer choices I feel I have.  I cannot decide which cookbook to cook from because the selection overwhelms me so I walk away without looking at any of them.  I wear the same 40 garments always and I often don't cook or bake because the thought of digging through the pans tires me.  

Maybe it's mid-life crisis, but I often think how freeing it would be to be able to pack up a suitcase, all of my photography gear, electronics and only my favorite things that will fit in my jeep, and just drive to Alberta, Canada to work on a horse ranch and whisper to horses.  Ok so that might be attributed to watching too much Heartland on Hulu, but even if I really wanted to move to a horse ranch, I couldn't because I have too much stuff and I've only ridden a horse once.  (I also just watched R5 Sons Alaska so a life offgrid and accessible only by bush plane seems like a perfectly reasonable aspiration as well.  I could totally fix a broken septic tank or build a cabin from just trees and stuff.)

Yeah, I know I'm not fooling anyone.  I'm hardly minimalist material and if you know me, you are nodding your head.  Even the word minimalism conjures up images in my head of sparse modern furniture in sterile looking homes -- I don't ever see myself there. Heck my list of items to take when I run away leads to the conclusion that I'm hardly about moving into a tent and living without wifi.  Life needs wifi.

Maslow it seems, wholeheartedly agrees. 

Even though minimalism to me doesn't mean a house filled with 7 items, I am  embracing the idea that minimalism is more about being deliberate in what I own, my stewardship of my money and how that impacts my personal time and values.

So welcome 2014---the year of simplicity,  quality and love over quantity and lukewarm attachment to crap.   I hope.  

This first quote that is my 2014 motivation is from becoming minimalist, a fantastic and inspirational site!  Apologies on the others but I don't know who to attribute them to unless Pinterest counts. :)  

The Perfect Sandy Shortbread

I acknowledge that this recipe is hardly earth-shattering and you already had a glimpse of the shortbread cookies in the last post.  I actually took the pictures for this post but so this is really more their rightful home.

I also know shortbread and other classic cookies have been done about forty hundred times but I've come across a shortbread cookie secret that has rocked my world.

Doesn't shortbread rock everyone's world?

The quest started after a backpacking trip in the UK where my friend and I spent a lot of time eating our weight in Millionaire's Shortbread Bars.  I found that my favorites always tended to be a lighter bar that was almost sandy in texture rather than than a thick crunchy cookie.

I craved that melt in your mouth texture but every time I made shortbread it was thick and crunchy.  While that's definitely not so bad, I was on a mission and I tried everything from cutting the butter into the flour, using cake flour and adding graham cracker crumbs in place of some of the flour.  Nothing produced that texture I was looking for....until now.

I  found this version in a little cooking booklet I bought in the UK--why it took me so long to read through I cannot say.  And the secret ingredient?...cornstarch.  Before I have the ghosts of a thousand English and Scottish grandmother's haunting me forever, I'll throw out there that I know it's probably not the most traditional and I know that the sexy kilted Lairds of eons past probably weren't grabbing corn starch on their way home each night.

I'm telling you though that the cornstarch made these awesome.  Well actually, the clean pure flavors of butter and vanilla made these awesome, but the cornstarch bumped it up a notch.  The recipe is the same as about a zillion other recipes--I'm just excited that I'm now in the secret society of people who know how to make sandy, melt in your mouth, shortbread.

I used a molded shortbread pan because I could but obviously these can be pressed into any 9x9 square or a 9" circle and cut into wedges.   It's probably better that way so you can cut shortbread into more than 9 ginormous cookies.

I can't help myself.  It's a sickness.  I know it.  In my defense, she really, really likes sitting for the camera.  She sat here for a a good 10 minutes after we were finished, just waiting for me and the camera to come back.  Or rather waiting for me and the treats to come back.  

The Perfect Sandy Shortbread

1 c softened butter, softened
1/2 c powdered sugar
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c corn starch

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. 
2. Mix butter, sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix well
3. Add flour and corn starch and mi well
4. lightly grease a 9x9 square or 9" round pan
5. Press dough evenly into pan.  If using a shortbread mold, no need to spend a lot of time flattening it perfectly as you'll be flipping it over.  If not, make sure you smooth the dough well and then prick all over with a fork(optional but pretty)
6. Bake  for 25 to 30 minutes, or until edges are golden brown 
7. Cool for 5 minutes and turn onto cutting board.
8. Cut and move to cooling rack and allow to cool fully. 

Bananas Foster Breakfast Strata

I love bananas foster.  There's just something about that brown sugar goodness that is irresistible. I'm not the world's biggest ice cream fan but throw some bananas foster on top and I'm there.   

Needless to say, when I saw this bananas foster breakfast pin on Pinterest, it went straight to the front of baking line.  It makes a lot of breakfast though so I'd recommend making it for a crowd--I made it at my sis's house when I was out there for Thanksgiving.  The Mountain Dew bottle is the dead giveaway.  Where my brothers are, the Dew abounds.  

I'm not delusional enough think that using whole wheat bread will somehow make this kind of healthy.  It was a firm bread though and held up in the strata well. 

The result?  It was good, full of banana and brown sugar flavors and definitely reminiscent of bananas foster. I'm not gonna lie though...it was ridiculously sweet.  Of course I acknowledge that my sweet tooth rarely wants play in the mornings.  I think this would be a phenomenal bread pudding type dessert after dinner with a big scoop of ice cream.  If you don't mind your sweets at breakfast, then this is one to try.

Bananas Foster Breakfast Strata

adapted from MyRecipes.com

Strata:
1 tablespoon butter
4 medium bananas, sliced

1/3 c OJ
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 c half-and-half

1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 (12-ounce) cans fat-free evaporated milk
1 (1-pound) French bread baguette, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Streusel:
1/3 c all-purpose flour (about 1/3 cup)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. To prepare strata, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. 
3. Add 1 tbsp butter and swirl until foamy. 
4. Stir in bananas; sauté 1 minute. 
5. Add OJ, 1 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook 1-2 minutes until bananas are soft. 
6. Spoon the banana mixture into a large bowl, and press bananas with a pastry blender or fork until chunky. Combine half-and-half, sugar, eggs, and evaporated milk in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add banana mixture and bread cubes, tossing well to coat. 
7. Place bread mixture in a 13 x 9-inch lightly greased pan. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
8. To prepare streusel, combine flour, brown sugar, oats and salt and mix well with a whisk. 
9. Stir in 1 tablespoon melted butter and toss well to coat and form crumbs.
10. Remove strata from oven; sprinkle evenly with streusel. Bake an additional 30 minutes or until golden and set. 
11. Remove and let set for 5 mins.  
12. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Southwestern Chicken Soup

Do you remember Ross's Thanksgiving sandwich with the "moist maker?"  Oh Ross...I miss him.  And while he and most people I know fall into the camp that is super duper excited to eat those Thanksgiving leftovers, I'm pretty much in the opposite camp. I've never been a huge leftover fan--In  my opinion, Italian is the only food that remotely tastes delish reheated.   And reheated poultry--can't stand it.   I will leftover chinese straight from the fridge before I will ever reheat chicken.

Soup is the exception. 

Yep, soup is the perfect way to eat leftover chicken or turkey. 

My friend made this soup for me years ago and it was love at first bite.  When she told me it was as easy as opening a couple of cans and jars,  I knew it was destined to become a quick kitchen staple.  Even if you love your day after Thanksgiving sandwich, this soup  is the perfect  easy and tasty way to use up the day three turkey leftovers.  

Who doesn't want easy eats after a some serious Thanksgiving cooking?

Southwestern Chicken Soup
adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cumin 

1 12-ounce jar salsa verde
3 cups cooked leftover chicken or turkey
1 15-ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 quart container of chicken stock
tortilla chips and sour cream for serving

Directions

1. Heat stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add cumin and stir, cooking until fragrant.
2. Pour salsa verde into pan
3. Cook for 2 minutes then add the chicken, beans and broth. Bring to gentle boil
4. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for 20-30 mins.  Soup can be eaten after 5-10 minutes but I like to reduce the broth a bit.
5. Serve with tortilla chips and sour cream if desired.

July 4th Celebrations

Independence Day falls right behind Christmas in the race for my favorite holiday.  Now, nothing can ever compare with Christmas so it's not even a real race, but that's not the 4th of July's fault.   If Christmas wasn't so warm and festive and jolly and snowy and cozy, well, the 4th would easily slide into first place. 

What's not to love?  Flags, americana, sparklers, fireworks, barbecues, parades and watermelon--yes, this is a happy day of the year indeed.  When I lived in NY, my friends and I always had a little 4th of July road trip each year...DC, Boston Pops, Virginia Beach, Philly, NYC...all cities that know how to celebrate the 4th in style. 

This year I was craving a little 4th of July road trip and headed back to America's heartland to visit family in Iowa.  Different kind of feeling than DC, but there's a lot to be said for small town charm. 

This was the first place I have full memories of as a child.  We lived exactly where I am standing to take this photo.  I remember the lake being more massive and well, lake like. Needless to say, I grew up with a fishing pole in my hand--a Snoopy one to be precise.  While the charms of fishing have eluded me since then, there's nothing like visiting old haunts to stir up a little nostalgia. 

And this is just a ways up the road....

I love a great worn barn.

And of course the food part of the post.  This is another Pinterest special--who of us didn't pin the bacon wrapped corn onto one of our boards?  This is one of the few Pinterest pins I've actually executed and it was yummy as bacon always is.  

It did however make a ginormous mess and grease fire in the barbecue.  Just  a little warning for you. 

Hope all who celebrated had a wonderful and safe 4th!

Strawberry Cooked Flour Frosting

Yes, I know cooked flour frosting sounds a little weird but this recipe solves two of baking's biggest conundrums: 

1.  How do you make a super creamy buttercream frosting that isn't sickeningly sweet?

2.  How do you get fantastic strawberry flavor into cupcakes without super smushy strawberry blobs through out your divine deliciousness?

I like when recipes solve enormous problems like these. 

So first the strawberries.  I'm not going to lie to you...the idea to throw dried strawberries into the food processor to make a powder came straight from Pinterest.  Yep, yep.  It's genius really.  Since I have a great love for my dear Laura Ingalls Wilder and life on the hard and unforgiving prairie, you can only imagine what comes out of my dehydrator.  My dehydrating is a little bit obsessive really. 

But the sickness does manifest in lots of yummy dried fruit.  I ground up dried strawberries in a coffee grinder until I had 2/3 of a cup.  Unfortunately these were previously dried berries so I couldn't tell you how many fresh berries were needed.  Just keep drying fruit until you have tons--it's pretty awesome to eat as a snack as well. 

Then onto the cooked flour frosting.  The basic premise of cooked flour frosting is that you make a cooked flour roux that you add to a mixture of butter and....wait for it.....a single cup of granulated sugar.  The reduced sugar results in a less sweet frosting and the cooked flour helps the frosting hold shape.  You'd think you should be worried about using granulated sugar but if you beat it for the full time, all of those sugar granules melt right into the frosting. 

I too, was skeptical the first time I made this and as it turns out, it's the only frosting recipe I've ever made that has people always asking for the recipe.  Once, I man who I happened to know never baked in his entire life asked for the recipe.  True enough. 

Strawberry powder is pretty cool stuff.  You can bet I'll be grinding up all different types of fruit next.  

And the taste?  It's definitely reminiscent of strawberry ice cream.  I think strawberry frosting paired well with lemon cupcakes-- I'm guessing it will pair well with many of your favorite cupcake recipes.  

Strawberry Cooked Flour Frosting

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup dried strawberry powder

Directions:

1. Blend flour and about 1/4 cup of the cold milk in a saucepan and whisk well and place on stove over med-low heat. 
2. Add the remaining milk, whisking constantly. 
3. Cook flour and milk until very thick. 
4. Remove from heat, and cool. 
5. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla until very light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes. 
6. Add cooked flour, vanilla and strawberry powder to butter mixture.  Turn mixer to medium-high and beat ingredients together until sugar crystals are completely dissolved and frosting is light and creamy (about 5-6 mins)
7. Frost cupcakes while frosting is soft.  Refrigerate remaining. 
8. Cupcakes with this frosting should be refrigerated. 

Oreo Peanut Butter Cups

Are you in your post holiday sweets aversion phase?  Does the very sight of Christmas cookies and goodies make you a bit nauseous?  Yeah me too, but I couldn't not post these little guys.  File it away mentally for next Christmas maybe or pick up some Valentine's muffin cups and make these sweets for your sweet in February.  If you love PB and chocolate, definitely make them sometime. 

The recipe itself is not innovative or ground breaking--it's pretty similar to buckeyes but with some graham cracker crumbs thrown in.  The crumbs add some pretty awesome texture.   

It's the Oreos that take these over the top.  Do you feel like a cookie or candy?  No need to decide. 

If you want to make these without the Oreos you just pat them into the muffin tins and then you'll top with chocolate.

I say O-R-E-O makes everything better.  Yes, I have a not-so-secret love affair with Oreos.  I keep the family pack in the house for my family of one.  If you ask I'll tell you it's because they package them in 5 stay fresh packages that last longer.  If you press me I'll admit it's because Oreos are the greatest store-bought cookie in the world.  Universe perhaps.  

Double Stuf of course.  The only thing that would heighten my love affair with Oreos would be if they were to spell "stuff" correctly.  Maybe even change it to a past tense verb.  Does Nabisco mean these cookies have double the stuff(ing) or that they've been double stuffed?  Noun? Verb? Should food really be so ambiguous?  I look the other way only because, well, they are Oreos. 

No need to press the PB filling on the bottom if using Oreos.  Just plop one small scoop in the tin and press your Oreo in pretty firmly.  The PB filling should ooze up and around the Oreo to fill in all the crevices. 

Drop another scoop of PB filling on top and press all around the Oreo and then smooth out the top. 

Top with melted chocolate and refrigerate until firm.  I think these are so much better eaten cold-they get a little mushy at room temp. 

Without the Oreo.  Tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me. 

Oreo Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups melted butter
2 cups graham cracker crumbs(about 1/2 box or 2 sleeves)

1 2/3 cup peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Oreos

Chocolate Topping
2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Directions:

1. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.  This recipe will make 15-20 depending upon thickness, whether you use regular Oreos, double STUFFED Oreos or no Oreos)
2. Combine graham cracker crumbs, peanut butter and powdered sugar in larger bowl.  Pour melted butter over and stir until well mixed.
3. Drop one teaspoon into each cupcake liner.  Place an Oreo on top and press down.  Top with another scoop of peanut butter filling and press down well around the edges to fully wrap filling around the Oreo.  Smooth out top.
4. Combine chocolate and pb chips in a medium glass bowl. 
5. Melt in the microwave for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave and stir.  Microwave for additional 30 seconds, stirring once midway through.  Stir until smooth and spread on top of the peanut butter cups
6. Refrigerate cups until firm

Bourbon Sea Salt Caramels

The more I make caramels, the more I am convinced that these are one of life's culinary surprises....so quick and easy to make, but packs a punch with a definite "wow" factor.  Did you catch that first part?  Yes, SO quick and easy to make.  They fall into the same category as creme brûlée--people will think you worked so much harder than you really did. 

There are however two lessons I learned along the way:

Lesson 1: Don't stir while the caramel is cooking. It seems scary and when I first started making caramels, I thought this was a suggestion.  I had a block of rock solid grainy mess within minutes of of stirring and never stirred again.  This recipe calls for cream while cooking so stirring might be okay, but the horror of that first time my candy turned instantly into a rock has place the fear of stirring in my heart forever. 

All of the ingredients in the pan will melt together and blend all on their own.  Trust me she said. 

See.  Not a spoon in site. 

Lesson 2: Learn your candy thermometer.  I used to follow caramel recipes exactly and always found my caramels to be too hard and chewy.  I started using the ice water method (drop some of the caramel in ice water to cool it down and then roll it between your fingers to gauge the firmness) with the thermometer and found that 225 degrees was the caramel sweet spot on my thermometer. Turns out altitude plays a role in caramel temps... makes sense since water boils at a lower temp at altitude.  Duh me.  I don't know the exact science, but I do find 225 to the be perfectly chewy caramel temp when I make these now.  At a mile above sea level.  

The bourbon adds a pretty subtle flavor to this. If you are not so much a bourbon fan, you can substitute a tsp of vanilla extract.  Take care when stirring the bourbon or extract in as it will spit and bubble as you stir. 

Dipping in chocolate is optional if you happen to be in the category of people that think chocolate is really a choice and not a necessity.  I dipped of course. 

These seriously take about 10 minutes of stove time, two hours to cool in the refrigerator and then just the time it takes to dip.  So easy it doesn't have to be a holiday or special occasion to whip them up. These could definitely be dangerous. 

Bourbon Sea Salt Caramels

1 2/3 sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 tsp sea salt
3 tsp bourbon
2 cups melted and tempered dark chocolate
sea salt for sprinkling

Directions

1. In a heavy bottomed pot combine butter, sugars, cream and 1 1/2 tsp salt.  
2. Bring mixture to a gentle boil over medium heat without stirring. Attach a candy thermometer to pan.
3. Prepare an 8x8 inch pan by lining with parchment paper (wax paper will not work).  Set aside. 
4. Continue cooking caramel mixture until caramel is 225-230 degrees and mixture is a warm golden color (about 7-10 minutes)
5. Remove from heat and stir in the bourbon taking care as mixture will bubble and spit as you stir. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then pour into prepared 8×8 inch pan 
6. Cool caramels to room temp and then refrigerate until set (about 1 hour). Cut into small squares.
7. Dip squares into melted tempered chocolate.  Set on wax paper or parchment paper and sprinkle with sea salt.  Allow chocolate to harden before serving. 
8. Store in refrigerator but allow to come to room temp before serving.