Cakes & Cooking

Black Bean Quesadillas are my favorite snack or quick dinner. They are healthy and pack a good protein punch, and I use wheat tortillas.

1 can black beans, drained
1 cup salsa or picante
1 chopped garlic clove
1 chopped jalapeño
6 burrito size tortillas
4 oz shredded cheddar

Pulse the beans, picante, garlic and japapeño in the food processor to form a chunky paste. Smooth the paste over 1/2 of each tortilla, fold the other half over to form a semicircle. On top of the bean paste sprinkle the shredded cheddar and a squeeze of lime juice.

Bake the semicircles on a flat baking sheet for 10-12 minutes at 350, or until brown. Cut each into 3 triangles and serve with sour cream or salsa. This is a 20 minute dinner!

May 8th, 2007 | Category: casual |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

These are some cupcakes for my husband to take to work, bearing his company logo. I believe baked goods are great for morale!

May 6th, 2007 | Category: cakes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

I used this recipe from an older issue of Cook’s Illustrated, it’s a good one for chicken marsala. It’s really quite time consuming, though. Which explains why “quick-n-easy chicken marsala” recipes never taste as good as I’d like. I followed their recipe to the letter and it did yield, as promised, crispy but tender chicken, springy mushrooms, and a flavorful rich sauce. I would make it again the next time I have an hour and a half to devote to dinner!

May 1st, 2007 | Category: poultry |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

After making several large cakes, I was left with a good quantity of chocolate cake batter, chocolate icing, and white icing. So I made these replicas of Hostess cupcakes. Injecting icing is harder than it looks, you need to inject with a good bit of power to get the icing to expand inside, but too much pwower will split the top of the cupcake.

April 22nd, 2007 | Category: cakes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

These crispy and delicious cookie bars are adapted from a recipe in the Great American Home Baking files. I’ve found that decreasing the amount of flour in the bottom crust yeilds a softer cookie (rocket science!) that keeps longer – and going halfsies on the chocolate chips and supplementing with butterscotch yields a much nicer flavor combination. My brown sugar was unexpectedly hardened, so I beat the egg whites with some maple syrup instead, and found the resulting meringue coating to be flavorful and equally sweet. The recipe below is the original.

Cream 1 stick of soft butter with 1 cup of sugar. Beat in two egg yolks, one at a time (reserve egg whites).
Mix together 1.5 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Fold flour mixture into butter mixture. Press into a lightly greased 9×13 pan.
Sprinkle over top of firmly packed crust – 1 cup chopped walnuts, 1/4 cup chocolate chips, 1/4 cup butterscotch chips, 1 cup marshmallows.
Beat reserved egg whites at high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold in 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar. Spread over top of the layers in pan.
Bake at 350 for 35 minutes, or until a crust is formed. Cool completely and cut into squares.

April 19th, 2007 | Category: cookies |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

A cute cake for Easter, white on white with some fondant eggs. I had leftover fondant from a recent project.

Leaf tip borders are easy and quick to do, and they add an element of authenticity to any cake with a remotely outdoorsey theme. If the cake has settled unevenly or the icing on the top is not smooth, a leaf border is a good way to cover that up – because the shapes are by nature irregular. A far cry from the shells or rosettes that need to be perfectly lined up and matched in size.

April 11th, 2007 | Category: cakes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Because who doesn’t love a quick 9 x 13 carrot cake at Easter. Cream cheese frosting with little fondant carrots and grated lemon zest. This whole endeavor was probably 45 minutes from start to finish, if you make icing while the sheet cake is baking. Make a thin cake in a 9 x 13 for easier cooling.

April 9th, 2007 | Category: cakes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

So many people are afraid to cook fish. And it’s one of the most hassle free, stress-less dishes I can think of! Fish stands on it’s own and doesn’t require marinades or complicated cooking techniques to keep in flavor. When I buy fresh white fish (like haddock, cod, or sole) I simply lay it out in a pan and top with some cracked pepper, seasoned bread crumbs, and a few small bits of butter. Then squeeze over it the juice of one fresh lemon, and bake at 350 for approx 20 minutes (longer for very thick fillets). It is no-fuss, no-fail, and awfully hard to mess up.

April 1st, 2007 | Category: seafood |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

This is a great recipe for cheddar cheese fondue, but it’s also a great basic creamy cheese sauce that can be repurposed for lots of things – adding in veggies, pasta topping, etc.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cracked pepper
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheddar

Melt butter, stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat and add milk, stiring until sauce thickens. Add cheese, stir till melted. Serve with crusty white or pumpernickel bread.

March 29th, 2007 | Category: comfort food |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment