My Baking Adventures

Hot wings have long been a family favorite – but when I order them in a restaurant, I am invariably disappointed. They are either too mushy or too greasy.

So I came up with a method of making hot wings that doesn’t involve a deep fryer and butter. Besides being healthier, they just taste better.

Prep the wings by cutting off the tip, and separate them into wing and drummette. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray liberally with non-stick spray. This is important because if you don’t, the wings will stick and be impossible to remove. Season with pepper and Mrs. Dash extra spicy seasoning.

Cook the wings in the oven at 375 degrees for 1 hour, turning them over halfway through cooking.

Put into a large bowl and coat with Franks Red Hot Sauce.

Serve with the usual accompaniments – celery and blue cheese dressing – because you will need something to cool your mouth down after eating these!!

Oh, this week’s VTV was such a slam dunk for me. Sometimes, I wonder if all the bloggers out here in cyberspace are hard-wired to the same frequency. It seems like everything goes in cycles – the same great ideas for dinner and desserts seem to show up about the same time. Either that, or a secret memo goes out that I’m not aware of.

So when Jen announced this weeks veggie of choice – spinach – I almost fell off my chair. Why, you ask? I had planned to make Ina Garten’s Spinach Pie this week! How nifty is that?

I have made this pie several times and it’s always delicious. But this week, with time running short – end of the school year, both kids birthdays, a cake order to fill – I skipped the puff pastry crust and baked this up in two small corning dishes. It’s a hit every time!

Spinach Pie – adapted from Ina Garten

2 tbs. butter
1 tbs. olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove minced garlic
1 10 oz. box frozen chopped spinach – thawed and squeezed dry
¼ cup chopped scallions
¾ cup grated parmesan
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbs. seasoned bread crumbs, plus additional for sprinkling on top
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease small casserole.

Heat butter and oil in medium skillet and cook onion until tender, 5-8 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Pour into a large bowl and add spinach, scallions, cheese, eggs, bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper. Mix well and pour into greased dish. Sprinkle with additional bread crumbs and bake for 20-25 minutes or until top is browned and mixture is hot.

Tara, from Smells Like Home, has started a cool new blogging event. It’s called “Barefoot Bloggers“, and twice a month we will make recipes from Ina Garten’s cookbooks. I told Tara I make so many of her recipes that I feel like a stalker, so this is a perfect group for me. In fact, I even signed up the kids!!

Tara chose the inaugural recipe for Herb Baked Eggs. Yay, something savory, not sweet!! Sabrina and I made our recipes side by side. Actually, she did most of the work while I took the pictures – don’t worry, no child labor laws were broken – contrary to what she might tell you.

The first thing we did was cut the recipe down. Then we put 1 egg each in my little ceramic ramekins. Also, we cut out the garlic and cheese, and subbed milk for the cream. Sabrina forgot that the amount of herb was supposed to be for 6 eggs, and she dumped all of it between the two ramekins. Oops. They took a little longer to cook than the recipe stated, but really, what an easy way to make great eggs. I don’t eat eggs often, so I cannot cook them very well – except hardboiled – so this was a new way for me to practice making them edible.

Well…………………..David loved them so much, he asked for them again 2 days later. If you like eggs, you should try this!!

Now head on over to Cooking With The Kids, and see how theirs turned out!!

Herb Baked Eggs – adapted from Ina Garten

1/4 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
¼ tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toasted French bread or brioche, for serving

Preheat the broiler for 5 minutes and place the oven rack 6 inches below the heat.Combine the garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley, and Parmesan and set aside. Carefully crack 3 eggs into each of 2 small bowls or teacups (you won’t be baking them in these) without breaking the yolks. (It’s very important to have all the eggs ready to go before you start cooking.)

Place 2 individual gratin dishes on a baking sheet. Place 1 tablespoon of the milk and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish and place under the broiler for about 3 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Quickly, but carefully, pour 3 eggs into each gratin dish and sprinkle evenly with the herb mixture, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Place back under the broiler for 5 to 6 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are almost cooked. (Rotate the baking sheet once if they aren’t cooking evenly.) The eggs will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Allow to set for 60 seconds and serve hot with toasted bread.

Last month I had the good fortune to join the Daring Bakers. Now, most of you are familiar with this select group – if not, head on over to their page and read the history of how this group got its start. It’s really a great story about how two friends started a challenge between themselves and found another 650+ bloggers to join them.

However, this months entry should be classified under the “what have I gotten myself into” category. The wonderful ladies at Daring Bakers chose Opera Cake for the May Challenge. Whoa. Stop right there. I’ve never been to an opera much less eaten a cake named Opera.

What’s a girl to do? This was my first project with the Daring Bakers and I really wanted to make a good impression. I mean, there are 9 pages of instructions! Since running away screaming wouldn’t solve anything (and most likely scare the kids), I sat down and wept. No seriously, I think I read the instructions 5 times before it all started to gel. My brain, I mean.

An Opera cake is composed of 5 separate elements: Joconde (sponge cake), flavoring syrup, buttercream, mousse and glaze. Broken down, each element is simple enough as it is. But if you have to make all of them on the same day? Ha! Not in this house. Fortunately, each element can be prepared ahead of time and assembly will be a piece of cake. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Part of our instructions were to keep all of the components “light” in color. No chocolate, coffee, etc. Easy enough. My first step was to see about a substitute for the almond meal in the cake. I figured that a cake of this magnitude needs to be shared with everyone, including Sabrina. So Natalie came to my rescue. She suggested several different types of flours to sub out for the nuts, and ultimately I decided to go with the rice flour. The cake was easy enough to make, except that my beautiful 7 Qt. Cuisinart Mixer decided to go out of alignment that day and wouldn’t close properly. Ok, that’s a crisis in itself except I couldn’t do anything about it but hope for the best. Well, the mixer gods were smiling on me that day so I was able to finish the cake and make the buttercream.

Wow, the buttercream was unbelievable. I’ve never had it quite like that, since the last time I made it (not from the same recipe) all you could taste was butter. This recipe is a keeper. And to top it off, there was some confusion over the precise measurements to insure consistent results – all that being said though, it came out perfectly.

The next day, assembly began. I chose a lemoncello syrup, lemon mousse and a lemoncello glaze. I cut the cake into 3 inch squares, moistened them with the syrup and layered them with the buttercream. I chilled them, and then carefully spread the lemon mousse on the top layer of cake. So far, everything was going really well.

And then disaster struck.

I don’t like white chocolate at all, so I whipped up a lemoncello glaze to top the mousse. As I began pouring it over the mousse, it started to slide off the cake and pull the mousse with it. As I stood watching, helpless, I realized there was nothing I could do. And to add insult to injury, I had prepared this for Mother’s Day dessert. My mother was due for dinner in 2 hours and I had a mess on my hands. I glazed two of the cakes and left the others with just the mousse. After dinner was finished, I brought out the cakes with jittery nerves. Now, of course that day it was 92 degrees, so you can imagine what happened while the cake was outside for 5 minutes waiting to be served. Yep, the mousse started to melt. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my mom took a bite and said, “This really isn’t very good.” Sigh. I cut my losses and threw the cake out. It was very hard to do that, seeing all my hard work dumped into the trash.

Yes, I have plenty of pictures that look worse than this but utter and complete embarrassment is preventing me from showing them to the public.

Ok, I have officially flunked my first round with the Daring Bakers. I hope they don’t throw me out for failure. I tried so hard! I can honestly say I would probably not make this again, but it sure was a great challenge and I learned some new tips, techniques and…………………. how not to make an Opera Cake!!

I’ll hang my head in shame and go visit the other members to see how great theirs came out. I am not posting my recipe since it was so mangled that NO ONE would want to make it. So if you would like the original recipe, (all 9 pages of it!!) email me and I’ll send it to you!!

Welcome back for another tasty round from the TWD gang. This weeks selection was Pecan Honey Sticky Buns from Madam Chow’s Kitchen. What a great recipe! What a lot of work!

Now, after reading the directions just for the brioche dough, I know why anyone that didn’t have a stand mixer was excused from this project. I was a bit concerned for my own mixer after I could smell the heat from the motor. Of course, that would have meant another trip to Sur La Table to exchange another mixer. However, it all came together (in a manner of speaking) and onward I went in my journey to honey-bun-land.

I decided to ditch the pecans (for Sabrina’s sake) and make “mini-stickies”. They were TASTY! The brioche dough by itself was delicious, but add in the syrup and the filling and I’m surprised we didn’t combust from the sugar rush! Holy moly!

Sabrina and I ate them right out of the oven, between mouthfuls of “ohmygoshthisissohot” to “oh my gosh these are so good!” The boys didn’t try them, so I quickly wrapped up what was left to keep us from demolishing the rest of them. I cut the remaining dough into manageable chunks and froze it, and I’m looking forward to baking up that dough as a loaf of bread.

Umm-umm good! I can’t say I would make the buns again, but the brioche dough definitely was worth the effort. For the recipe, please click here.

Coming up next week – French Chocolate Brownies!

Yesterday was just such a blah day – the weather was rainy, cold and everyone was feeling so out of it. I wasn’t inspired to make anything other than the VTV carrots.

Today, however, the sun is shining (somewhat), and we are all a little more with it. David and Sabrina are working on their meatballs which I’ll post later. I made cheese filled crumb muffins and they came out perfect. I know what you’re thinking – crumb muffins again? But Alexander polished off the last of them, and it has been about a month since we had any. And besides, these rival any Entemann’s cheese danish (which I NEVER buy!). These are a lot smaller, since the last time I made them they were way too big.

The original muffin recipe comes from Gourmet Magazine – they are quick and simple to get into the oven, and they lend themselves to many variations. I made espresso chip to take to Sabrina’s teacher one morning for a meeting and they were outstanding. Only problem, her teacher doesn’t like coffee. Oops.

Mix-In Muffins -adapted from Gourmet Magazine

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, melt butter. Add the sour cream, egg and vanilla and blend thoroughly. Stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture just until combined.

Divide the batter among the prepared cups – then place a tablespoon of the filling into the center of each muffin. Bake for 10 minutes, then sprinkle the crumb topping over each muffin, then continue baking for another 10 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

Cheese Filling

8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth, then blend in egg and vanilla.

Crumb Topping:

½ cup butter, melted
1 cup flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon

Stir together dry ingredients, then toss with melted butter until large crumbs form.

This weeks veggie of choice was Bugs Bunny’s personal favorite, the carrot. Now in our house, we usually enjoy carrots raw, with Marie’s Ranch dressing or Sabrina’s favorite, Catalina dressing. However, in our attempt to expand our horizons (that’s the point of this, right?) I WAS going to make a carrot casserole recipe that I swiped off of AllRecipes. But alas, that didn’t happen. I got behind with a whole litany of excuses that are not important enough to repeat, and really, do you care? So I remembered a recipe for Honey Glazed Carrots that sounded really good. But I had forgotten to write it down, so I just went off memory.

Well, they turned out fantastic. I never would have tried this if it wasn’t for VTV!! David and Sabrina loved them, and Alexander did try them but he only likes carrots in his grandmothers chicken soup. Hmmmpph. His loss.

Tonight, as an added bonus, you get two recipes – the first is the Honey Glazed Carrots, and the other is the Cafeteria Carrot Souffle. I’ve actually made this souffle before, so this recipe is my modified version – I cut the sugar and butter way down – and it’s really delicious. I highly recommend it.

Honey Glazed Carrots

4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2 tbs. butter
Salt and pepper
1 tbs. honey

In a large saute pan, melt butter. Add carrots and cook until carrots are tender but still crisp – about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add honey and stir until honey melts and coats carrots. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Cafeteria Carrot Souffle

2 pounds carrots, chopped
¼ cup melted butter
2 tbs. sugar
3 tbs.  all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Steam carrots until tender, about 15 minutes, then mash.  Add the melted butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix well and transfer to a greased 2 quart casserole dish.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Oui! Another tasty selection from the TWD group. Thankfully, this week it wasn’t a big cake, pie or torte. I don’t think I could handle another round of math to downsize the recipe.

No, mademoiselle, this week we are making madeleines! Everyone knows about Proust and how the little cakes became famous, so I won’t bore you with the details. What I will tell you – is that I’ve never read the story, so I’m going stick with the version that Dorie tells in the intro to the recipe.

Some time ago, I bought the nicest madeleine pan from Sur La Table. I love that store. To me, it’s more dangerous than Williams Sonoma. But unfortunately, I haven’t used the pan as much as I would have liked. Which translates into the pan being pushed to the back of the cabinet.

But now, the pan is making its triumphant return. Brought back from the depths of the cabinet, into the light of the kitchen – ahhh, my eyes – too bright! Just kidding.

I made the batter before I took the kids to school so it would have ample time to chill. So after letting the batter rest for the requisite 3 hours, I spooned the dough into the molds, and popped them into the oven.

And just as quickly, it was over. They emerged from the oven looking like this!

They seemed to overflow more than I would have liked, however I got exactly 12 from the recipe and really, how often does that happen?

So the proof is in the taste test, and my mom was quite anxious to try one. I dusted them with a little powdered sugar and presented them:

And did she like them? Oh yes! So much, in fact, she asked me to make the lavender madeleines for her. She gave me dried lavender and I steeped the leaves in butter, per the recipe. I also added the lemon zest and a bit of vanilla.

The lavender flavor didn’t come through as strong as I’d hoped, but next time I’ll mash up the leaves in the butter and perhaps that will impart more flavor.

I don’t have pictures of the lavender madeleines because my mom took them home. But I can offer this:

Tasty!!

What a great way to start off my Monday – besides the kids going back to school. I found Anna’s recipe for these Honey Cookies on her blogsite, and I must say, I was intrigued by them. No spices, no butter, just honey. Hmmm. The dough mixes up similar to ginger cookies, meaning it’s a one-bowl wonder. And on a Monday, that’s definitely a good thing.

I baked them up and they are quite tasty. Very simple, because the honey flavor isn’t over or underwhelming, it’s very subtle. And different, but in a good way.

I will make these again – but they almost seem like they’d be perfect for the cooler days of autumn. I am already thinking about cooler weather because it’s HOT here. Like 106 degrees hot. Oh sure, it’s a dry heat. So you feel like you’re being blasted by a hair dryer. Grrreeaat!

Thanks for another great recipe, Anna!!

For the recipe, click here.

Nina from Love, Sweet Love, has created this great blog called, you guessed it, Vindicate The Vegetable. Nina is looking for inspiration to find new, creative, and delicious ways to enjoy vegetables. Well, she came to the right place.

My kids know that my philosophy is that veggies don’t have to taste yucky. They’ve been eating all different vegetables since birth. The days of zucchini steamed into a soggy mess on your plate or brussels sprouts boiled into oblivion are long gone. My dad always laughs that he had never seen children ask for seconds of lima beans or spinach until my kids came along.

Unfortunately, my camera battery died (perfect timing!) and I couldn’t get pictures of my entry, so just try to visualize where I am going with this and play along!

Roasted Broccoli and Pasta

1 head broccoli – cut into florets
2 tbs. olive oil for drizzling
Pinch of salt and pepper

½ lb pasta – preferably rotini or cavatappi – cooked al dente

4 tbs. butter
6 tbs. olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbs. Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning Blend

Grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place broccoli onto large baking sheet. Drizzle with 2 tbs. olive oil, and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned, but still crisp. Remove from oven and set aside.

In a medium frying pan, combine butter and 6 tbs. olive oil over medium heat until butter is melted. Add garlic and seasoning and stir for 1 minute. Don’t cook the garlic too long or it will burn. Remove from heat and set aside.

In large bowl, combine pasta and roasted broccoli. Pour butter/oil mixture over and toss well. Add additional olive oil if pasta seems dry. Add parmesan cheese and stir well. Serve warm or cold.