Banana and Peanut Butter Muffins

OMG I'M BACK!!

I think I officially win the worst-blogger-ever award. It took a LONG time to move and finally get somewhat settled in, and while there are still a few boxes to unpack and pictures to hang, I am happy to say that my house is definitely coming along nicely. And as you can see, I have an amazing new kitchen.

Complete with a busted pipe and hole in the ceiling.

The joys of home ownership! (This has since been fixed, and my shockingly handy boyfriend has already patched the hole! But needless to say, it caused some mild headaches.)

So for the first time in a long time, I had a little bit of time to bake! I decided to try the most delicious sounding banana and peanut butter muffins. For this you need:

2 and 1/3 cups flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line your muffin pan with cupcake liners and set aside. This recipe makes about 18 muffins, so if you have a 12 cup muffin pan like I do, you will have to make a couple batches.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, and then set aside.

Beat the butter (which I microwaved for a few seconds first to make softer - lesson learned from the coconut meltaways), with the peanut butter (which, by the way, is impossible to know if you have 1/4 a cup of, since it sticks to the measuring cup and you have to just spoon a bunch in, although I guess there's no real fear of too much peanut butter, ever) in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Already delicious. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy and even more delicious. Beat in eggs, then alternately beat in flour mixture, milk, and bananas with mixer on low speed until blended.

Evenly spoon the batter into the prepared pan(s) to make 18 muffins, and carefully fill the empty cups with water.

Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pan to cool completely.

A couple things about these muffins - first of all, I think if I make them again, I will use more peanut butter. They were good but kind of had a generic muffin flavor and the peanut butter was a little more subtle than I wanted it to be. Second, for some reason they were like 90% better the next day than they were that night. So if you make them, I recommend waiting until the next day to eat or serve them. Maybe the flavors need time to settle in. Or something.

Anyway I'm happy to be back to blogging and hope to start updating once a week again. Hope everyone is enjoying the last few days of summer!

Cheeseburger Pie and Brownies

This past week, I decided to make dinner AND dessert - a grammy double whammy!

For the meal, I made cheeseburger pie. For this, you need:

1 pound ground beef (I used ground chicken)
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup pancake mix
1 cup milk

First heat the oven to 400 degrees and grease a 9 inch pie plate. Then cook the beef (or turkey or chicken) and the onion until the meat is brown(ish, for the chicken its more of a light tan). Drain, and then spread in a pie plate. The sprinkle the salt and the cheese on top.

In a bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients until blended. Pour this mixture into the pie pan.

Bake for 25 minutes. When I took it out of the oven I was surprised it was very much like a pie - I had expected it to have to kind of be scooped out with a spoon, but you cut it into pieces and served it. It had a kind of quiche like consistency, and it tasted very breakfast-y. It was delicious!

For dessert, I made walnut brownies. For these, you need:

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 tspn vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups walnuts

First put the butter into a 13x9 inch pan and melt it in the oven (which should be set at 300 degrees). At the same time, mix the sugar, flour, and cocoa. Take the butter out of the oven and pour it into the mixture, and also add the vanilla and eggs.

Mix well, and then stir in the walnuts.

Pour into the already buttered pan and bake for 30 minutes. Then allow to cool before eating.

These were so simple and amazing. We ate them warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, which I highly recommend.

Next weekend I will be away at Penn State for vacation, where I will be eating some macaroni and cheese and grilled stickies, and other foods that I'm sure Grammy would approve of. Look out for another recipe when I return!

Coconut Meltaways

Well I was going to make brownies, but then when I turned the brownie recipe over, there was one for coconut meltaways, which seemed way more interesting. We will save the brownies for another time!

You need:

1 stick of butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 tbspns sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup angel flake coconut

Combine all the ingredients except for the coconut.



This seemed more difficult than it should have been, because everything was so dry. It didn't really mix, it just formed little clumps. Maybe I should have melted the butter beforehand? But you wouldn't think that would make this big of a difference. In any case, afterwards you add the coconut and mix well, and then roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet. When you actually picked up the mixture and squished it in your hand, that's when it finally all mixed together. Flatten the balls with a fork.



Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.



I did 20 minutes, and the bottom rack came out a little burnt, but not too bad. When you take them out of the oven, sift powdered sugar onto the tops of the warm cookies.

The taste was complicated. At first they seem bland, unless you get a good chunk of coconut and then it's delicious. The aftertaste though is excellent. I feel like the recipe was missing something but I don't know what. I mean, I will still totally eat them.




Next week maybe we will take a shot at those brownies!

Why Worry?

My mom gave me a bunch of new recipes she found in a photo album. One of them is for my most favorite dessert - rainbow cookies - so I am pretty super pumped about that one (although it looks really complicated). I was looking through them all tonight, and saw that hiding in there with all the cookies and cobblers was a clipping from an old newspaper. Kind of like a poem, and it was called: Why Worry?

There are only two things to worry about -
Either you are well, or you are sick.
If you are well, then there is nothing to worry about.
But if you are sick, there are two things to worry about -
Either you will get well, or you will die.
If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about.
But if you die, there are only two things to worry about.
Either you go to heaven or to hell.
If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about.
If you go to hell, you'll be so darn busy shaking hands with old friends,
You won't have time to worry.

It made me smile to think she liked that little poem so much, she cut it out and put it in this photo album, who knows how many years ago.

This weekend, I am going to try a brownie recipe from the album!

Biscuit Calzone

You will need:

1 package (tube) of refrigerated biscuits
1 egg
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup cooked ham (I used pepperoni instead)
Crushed red pepper to taste (I used a real chopped up red pepper)
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon milk

The directions say to separate the biscuits and roll them out, and I think the idea was to make 8 separate mini calzones. Instead, I mashed half of them together and rolled it out flat to make the bottom of the calzone, and did the same with the other half to make the top. So instead of 8 tiny ones, we made 1 giant one.

Rolling the biscuits out was way hard. It was kind of elastic-y, and when you rolled it flat it would just bounce back to its smaller size. But after I had them both a decent size, I beat the egg slightly in a medium sized bowl, and then stirred in the cottage cheese and mozzarella.

Then, I coated the bottom biscuit with the pepperoni, then this cheese mixture, and then the red pepper that I had cut up. I put the other biscuit layer on top, and pulled the bottom edges over and folded them together. It looked just like a pie.

Before you put it in the oven (oh, which by the way should be preheated to 425 degrees), you brush the top with the egg yolk and milk mixture, and then cut small x shapes in the top to allow steam to escape (and then it looks even more like a pie). I put it in a pan that I had lined with foil, and baked it for 15 minutes.



It was life changing. So delicious and easy, and I realized you could put absolutely anything inside and make a meal out of it (or more like four meals).



I actually just made another one today that had tomato, basil, and mozzarella (picture below), and I plan to make another one this weekend with chicken, broccoli, and cheese. The biscuits are so sweet and flaky and amazing. This was definitely one of my favorites so far.



Next week, I haven't decided yet, so it'll be a surprise!

Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

It’s been a busy couple of weeks; I work at a college and it was graduation time so that pretty much consumed my entire life for a little while there. I did manage to cook one dinner, but I tried to find the easiest one I could, and I came across this chicken and broccoli casserole (similar to the crab and broccoli one I did a little while back, with a few small differences). This recipe came from someone named Linda Reilly.

You need: 1 lb chicken cutlets, 1 box of broccoli spears, 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, 8 slices of American cheese, 1 large sliced onion, salt, pepper, and paprika.

First, line the pan with the sliced broccoli spears, and place the chicken on top, and then the onions on top of that.

Then, cover with cheese, and pour the soup over top. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika (no amount was given, so just do it to flavor).

Now it says to bake it for 30 minutes, but it doesn't say what temperature. I tried it at 350, and when I took it out the chicken wasn't cooked all the way through yet, even though I had spiced it up into cubes. So I would recommend 45 minutes to an hour.

It tasted great, with a comfort food kind of feeling to it. And it was so simple, I could definitely imagine making this again many times in the future.

We are also in the process of buying a home, which is exciting and anxiety producing all at once. The one we are looking at right now has an enormous kitchen, which would allow for all sorts of new cooking adventures.

I’ve also been having to deal with my grammy’s house being sold this past month. It is painful to think of it not being in my family anymore, not spending holidays eating shrimp cocktail in the kitchen, taking walks through the woods, or feeding deer off of the front porch. My pop pop built the house, and it felt like home the minute you walked in, even if you were a stranger.

This has been especially difficult for my mom, who has held up quite well under the pressure. A death in the family is always sure to cause conflict and tears, and she has been graceful through it all. I wish I could do more to help. But the most I can do is bake her a cake and offer her an ear when she needs it.

And maybe in my new house, I will put cushions on the dining room chairs and then immediately rip them off and throw them on the floor, a favorite activity of mine when I was a child at my grammy’s house for who knows what reason, in memory of the house. At least we have these memories. And maybe another family will get to create some of their own in that house.

Next week - biscuit calzone!

Cherry Bread

Still no spaces, ugh. For cherry bread, you need: 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt (I completely forgot to include this), 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans and walnuts), 2 eggs, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 cup buttermilk (I used 2 percent milk, because I had some for something else I was making), 1/4 cup cherry juice, 1/2 cup marashino cherries. First heat the oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a loaf pan. Mix all the ingredients except for the cherries together.

Thank god for this mixer. Then you fold in the cherries, and then pour into the loaf pan.

Recently my uncle told me a story about my dad always eating all of the marashino cherries they would have in the house. My grandmother (my dad's mom, not my grammy) said she always forgot they had gotten then, and just thought they were out. When they got a new jar, my dad would eat the entire thing right away. I ate a couple right out of the jar myself while baking this. It's in my genes.

Cook for an hour, and then remove from the pan immediately, and place on rack to cool.

The loaf should then be wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge. First I had a slice, and it was delicious. A fun, different option instead of banana bread. The only thing now is that I have all this cherry juice - I had to buy a giant container when I only needed a quarter cup. Better get some vodka. Next time - chicken and broccoli casserole!

Pork Fried Rice

Blogger still isn't letting me put spaces in the blog!! I tried to adapt it as best as possible. For this one, you need: 2 eggs, lightly beaten ** 3/4 lb lean pork leg steak (i just used the other half of the ham steak I had left over from the soup) ** 1 large green pepper ** 1 large red bell pepper ** 3 scallions ** 2 tsp oil, divided (so, one 1 tsp and then another 1 tsp) ** 3 tbsp light soy sauce ** 3 cups cold cooked rice ** It actually also called for 2 tbsp dry white wine. I thought I had some at home but when I started cooking, I realized I didn't, so I just left it out. First I had to cook the rice, which believe it or not I had never done before. I had cooked rices out of bags or in the microwave, but not like this. So I just followed the directions on the package and everything turned out just fine.

After that, you heat a skillet over low flame, and then add the eggs. Cook it undisturbed until set.

This was also probably my most successful egg cooking ever. I don't usually have the patience to leave the egg alone until it is cooked through before I try flipping it. Since this was spelled out so clearly in the instructions, I really made an effort to give it time, and it completely worked. When it was all done, I shredded it and set it aside.

The directions say to cut the pork into 1/2 inch cubes, but mine were a little smaller since it was the ham steak instead of the pork leg. You are also to seed the peppers and cut them into 3/4 inch squares, and cut the scallions into 1/2 inch slices. Add one of the tablespoons of oil to the skillet and cook the pork cubes until the meat is cooked through. Remove it and set it aside, and then add the remaining oil and cook the peppers for about one minute.

Add the scallions and then cook for about 30 seconds more. You should be stirring the entire time. Stir in the soy sauce, wine (if you have it), pork, rice, and shredded egg. Toss to combine; cook and stir frequently until completely heated.

The recipe said it made 4 servings but I would say it made much more than that, and it was definitely a meal all by itself. It was delicious! Leaving out the wine didn't seem to make a difference (or maybe it tastes 10 times better with the wine, who knows). I was cautious of the soy sauce because I had high blood pressure, and soy sauce is ridiculously loaded with sodium. But I found the best option they had at the grocery store, and it wasn't too bad especially considering how many servings this made. This is a super easy recipe, healthier than it sounds, and you can stock up a few days worth of meals with it. I see this one happening many times in my future. Next time - cherry bread!

Potato Cheese Soup

**Disclaimer - blogger is not publishing the spaces I put in the blog (list of ingredients, before and after photos, etc.). So, I apologize if it is a little difficult to read.** Dave loves soup. So, when he was here last week I searched through my recipes to find one (I was sure there would be some in there) and found this one with BEER as one of the ingredients. Jack pot. You need: 1 tablespoons butter 4 ounces lean ham, chopped 1 cup chopped onion 1 cup chopped carrot 8 cups peeled and chopped Yukon gold potatoes (about 3 pounds) 3 cups reduced sodium chicken broth (Grammy must have known I had high blood pressure) 1 cup beer 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese 1/2 cup 2 percent milk (I used skim) Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the ham, onion, and carrot, and saute for ten minutes.

Then cook, covered, for another ten minutes. Add the potatoes and broth, and cover and simmer for twenty minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. I am in desperate need a a "large" saucepan. My pans are small, and we had to split it up into two of them. It worked out okay, and the next direction was to pour half the soup into a food processor (in my case, a blender) and process until smooth, so that worked out. I actually put slightly more than half, and after that I was able to pour it all into the larger of the two pots. Then you add the beer and the cheese.

Cook it until the cheese melts, which was literally less than two minutes. Next it said to add milk until the desired consistency is reached, so I poured the soup into one of my bigger mixing bowls to do that. It took a little more than the 1/2 cup listed in the directions.

It tasted great! You could definitely taste the beer in it, and the flavor made sense. I always remember a cooler of beers on my grammy's porch, and while I was cooking with my apron on sipping a Miller Lite, Dave commented that he could imagine Grammy doing the same thing in her kitchen.

Next time, pork fried rice!

Chicken Cacciatore

Sorry for the long break! Among other things, I was on vacation playing a whole lot of Mad Libs and enjoying these little guys...


But now I'm back and I'm trying to catch up on my recipes. I decided to embrace my Italian roots and try out chicken cacciatore. For this you need:

1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup boiling water
1 eight-ounce can tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 chicken breast halves, without skin

First you cook the onion in the boiling water until tender, and do not drain. You then add the tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic, oregano, celery seed, and pepper.


Simmer for ten minutes to blend the flavors. Then place the breast halves in a heavy frying pan.


Pour the tomato mixture over the chicken. Then cook, covered, over low heat until the chicken is tender.


This will take about 30 minutes. Remove the garlic clove and serve. We made some pasta to go with it.


It was pretty good! Maybe not my favorite but a nice, simple meal that definitely tasted good. The celery seed really gave it an interesting flavor; I'm not sure I've had it much before. It wasn't the most interesting dish ever, but I am sure I will make it again.

Next time (there might be a special mid-week post to try and catch up) - potato cheese soup!

Break

Well, the sweet potato biscuits are going to have to wait. This past week and the next two are extremely hectic and I just didn't get to it. Next week I think I will have a guest blog from my mom, and for now I will leave you with this picture of me and Grammy. Enjoy :)

Mystery Cake

This recipe has a note on it - "Came from Aunt Ruth's." There is no title; nothing signifying what you are actually making, so I had to call my mom and read the ingredients to her. I got as far as "one of the ingredients is hot coffee" and she knew right away it was one of her favorite cakes.


For the topping, you mix together 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Beat until soft, and then add 6 ounces chocolate chips. I finally got to use my new mixer, and it made my life so much easier.


In another large bowl, you need to mix the following:

2/3 cup oil (I used vegetable oil)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups hot coffee (or water, but I would definitely recommend the coffee)


After you mix this, pour it into a 9x13 greased pan.


Then pour the topping on top, and then sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar on top.


Next it says to bake at 350 degrees, but it doesn't give an amount of time. I searched online for typical cake baking times for a 9x13 pan at 350, and the average seemed to be around 35 minutes. My mom suggested I leave it in about that long, and then turn the oven off but leave it in for a few more minutes, which is what I did. I also tried to put a toothpick in and see if it came out smoothly. It did in some areas and not in others. I always have a tough time with that one.


It was delicious. The only thing I think i will do differently next time is take a knife and swirl in the topping after I pour it on, so it covers the entire surface. And I probably could have left it in the oven a few more minutes (my mom said she found a copy of the recipe she had, and it said to bake for 45 minutes).

My mom confirmed, it tasted just as it should, while we had some wine and read each other trivial pursuit questions. It was like old times.


Next week - sweet potato biscuits!

Peanut Butter Candy

For this very challenging recipe, you need:

2 cups sugar
1 can canned milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp butter
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup peanuts, chopped

I was baffled right from the start. First of all, I had no idea what kind of candy this was. Fudge, brittle, hard candy? The first line says, boil sugar and milk together over low heat until mixture forms a soft ball in cold water. I had no idea what that meant, so I looked it up and it was explained to me that if you put a small amount into a cup of cold water it would form a small soft ball that you could pick up and squeeze. It also indicated that if this was the first step, the candy was more of a fudge consistency. Of course, it would have been helpful if there was some mention of how much time this would take, because I stared at this for about 20 minutes.


When I tried the cold water test, nothing happened. But I thought, there's no way it takes this long, I must have missed the small ball phase, or just have no idea what I'm actually looking for, so I removed it from the heat and added the vanilla, butter, peanut butter and peanuts.


Stir it all together and when it becomes glassy, pour into a greased pan.


I let it sit for a very long time and it didn't start to set or firm up even a little bit. I thought maybe I had removed it from the stove too soon, and once again checked online to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. I found another cooking blog that said even though I had already mixed all the ingredients together, I should be able to reheat and then pour back into the pan. I put the mixture back into the pot and on the burner, and almost immediately it bubbled over.


Now with a nice sticky stove, I poured the mixture back into the pan, and I left it overnight thinking maybe it just needed more time. I had also poured it into a bigger pan, thinking that maybe if it were thinner it would set faster.


But I woke up in the morning to the same runny mess I fell asleep with. It tasted great, but it was like a sauce. I thought it would probably be a good ice cream topping, so I tried it on my vanilla yogurt.


So the next day, I decided to try again. First, I put on a CD I had gotten from my Grammy, to set the mood.


I talked to my friend Kathryn, who used to make candy with her grandma, and she gave me some advice. She said that the first stage, making the sugar mixture, takes a very long time and I just needed to be patient and wait for the soft ball to form. So I kept an eye on the mixture and tested every few minutes.


For the first 45 minutes or so, the mixture just dissolved into the water and nothing happened. And then, finally, about an hour in, this happened.


The soft ball! It was so different; all the previous times, the mixture had just formed a white cloud in the water. This time, it sank right to the bottom and formed this little ball right away. While the texture was a little sandy, it was definitely solid. I was ridiculously happy to see this little boogery looking thing.


I stirred the rest of the ingredients in and poured it into an event bigger pan. It barely covered the bottom, but I figured the thinner the better. I could tell in only a few minutes that this time I had done a better job, since when I moved the pan the mixture didn't budge. The directions said to cut the candy while still warm, so I tried to slice it into little squares.


This was kind of difficult, but I got it without messing up the candy too much. I let it sit overnight, and the next morning I tried to remove it from the pan. This time I think I actually should have used a smaller pan, since this definitely had a fudge like quality and it was sticking to the bottom of the pan, making it very difficult to get out since it was so thin. I used a spatula and was able to get most of the pieces out. The ones that stuck too much, I just rolled into little balls.


I put them upside down on a baking sheet and let them sit all day, to see if this would help the other side firm up. When I got home from work, my apartment was pretty warm and the candy hadn't hardened up at all. I put it in the refrigerator and took the dog for a long walk and when I got home... success!!


It finally seemed like real candy. Thin slices of fudge. If I did it again I would definitely use a smaller pan so the pieces would be thicker. But considering all the effort I had put into this, and how messy and sticky my poor kitchen was, I was very happy with this end result.

Next week, a cake recipe with no name! I read the ingredients to my mom and she identified it as one of her favorites so I am making it to bring home to her this weekend. I will make one for her, and one for my dad who isn't doing very well at the moment. Hopefully it will help cheer everyone up! For the purposes of this blog, we can call it, mystery cake!