Crumble Crazy!

Hi!
**Warning: The first part of this post has absolutely nothing to do with food. Instead, it is me demonstrating my excitement about this upcoming weekend. Also, I apologize ahead of time for this post being so unusually long.**

Hope everyone is doing well and staying out of the heat. We aren't really having true hot weather (I think summer forgot about Portland), but it has been a little muggy and because we don't have air conditioning in our house, even just a little heat outside makes us pretty toasty inside. We are, however, hoping for some actual summer weather this weekend, as Andrew and I are going camping with some friends at one of our favorite spots near Mt. Hood, called Timothy Lake. We have taken my sisters and my dad there in the past and it is really, really beautiful and peaceful. However, the water is really cold (as it's snow melt from the mountain) and it needs to be quite warm outside for it to be bearable to swim. Andrew and I have our "boat" that we are taking with us (its a blow-up boat, but a boat nonetheless) and we can't wait to relax out on the water and eat some good camp food! This is a picture of the lake from one of our past camping trips:

And of Andrew in our boat:

We are actually going to be in a campground called Little Crater Lake, which is a short hike to Timothy Lake. Little Crater Lake is nice to look at for, oh, about 5 minutes, but it is pretty cool how blue the water is. Nothing like the real Crater Lake though, which is ah-mazing. Almost as crazy as the Grand Canyon. Here's Little Crater lake:

And here are some pics of the real one (which is in southern Oregon), from when my dad came up for a camping trip:

Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, we are super excited to get away for the first time in a while!

Okay, back to food. Within the past couple of months, I have gone a little crumble crazy. Not that long ago I posted this recipe about a Strawberry Pineapple Crumble and since that time, I have been busy trying a couple of different fruit combinations and toppings to see which I like best. I heart fruity summer desserts and I honestly can't decide which I liked best.

This first recipe is for a Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble from Smitten Kitchen. Before this, I had only eaten rhubarb one other time in my life and on that occasion, it was served to me. Rhubarb really looks like giant red celery and it seems so weird to me that it is a "dessert" food. But, my oh my is it tasty. The topping on this one was super sweet, almost like the crumble topping on coffee cake. I don't know if there was supposed to so much juice after it baked (see the picture below), but it still tasted good. Here's the recipe and some pics of the finished product:

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble
Yields 6 to 8 servings.

For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (or turbinado sugar aka Sugar in the Raw)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 pound (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 quart strawberries plus a few extras, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons cornstarch (some commenters found the flour option a little too, well, floury so this has been updated)
Pinch of salt

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed.
2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch and a pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. (I used an oval dish this time, because they fit better in the bottom of a shopping bag.)
3. Remove topping from refrigerator and cover fruit thickly and evenly with topping. Place pie plate on a (foil-lined, if you really want to think ahead) baking sheet, and bake until crumble topping is golden brown in places and fruit is bubbling beneath, about 40 to 50 minutes.

The second crumble recipe is for a Peach Raspberry Crumble from Joy the Baker. This one really screams "summer" to me, probably because I associate peaches with all of the summers I spent with my family in Georgia. Anyway, the topping on this one was almost in between that of the Strawberry-Pineapple and the Strawberry Rhubarb. It wasn't too sweet and because of the oats, it seemed to have a little more substance to it. I made this twice within 2 weeks. Once for just Andrew and myself and another time for a 4th of July party. It went over really well. Here it is:

Peach and Raspberry Crumble
(makes 1 8×8-inch square baking dish)

Ingredients:
5-6 medium ripe peaches, sliced
1 cup fresh raspberries (if using frozen, just thaw and drain)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes

Directions:
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Place sliced peaches and raspberries in a square 8×8-inch baking dish and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, oats, spices, and salt. Add the butter and toss the mixture together with your hands. Break the butter up into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of small pebbles and oat flakes.

Toss a generous handful (about 1 cup) of crumble topping into the peach and raspberry mixture. Toss loosely with your hands. Spread fruit evenly in the pan and top with the remaining crumble mixture. Bake until fruit is juicy and bubbling, and the top of the crumble is slightly browned and crisp, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and serve with vanilla ice cream. Crumble is delicious served warm and can be stored, covered, in the fridge and reheated in the oven or microwave for serving.

Have you guys made any delicious desserts this summer? Or, have you taken any fun camping trips or other vacations? I would love to hear about them!

Frozen Citrus Pie

Hi Everyone!
This delicious recipe is from Andrew's mom Lynette, who just recently joined us as a "contributor" to the blog. She's currently still trying to figure out the innerworkings of creating a blog post, so for this first recipe, Andrew and I will be publishing it.

**FYI: Andrew and I are in the process of making some "how-to" directions for creating a blog post, including little tips we have found to be helpful along the way, which can hopefully make posting a little easier for those of you haven't quite figured out how to post yet. Andrew and I are by no stretch of the imagination "pros" at blogging, but we hope that by sharing these directions, we can get a few more of you blogging on here. Although we've gotten a little behind in posting, we would still love to keep this thing going and continue sharing our own recipes as well as reading about the kitchen creations of our family members! **

Lynette emailed this recipe to us last week and I think it sounds like the perfect summer dessert. Plus, it seems really easy to make and doesn't require any baking. Thanks so much for sharing! We can't wait to try it!

Frozen Citrus Pie

1 can (6 fl. oz.) frozen lemonade concentrate

1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened

3 1/2 cups thawed whipped topping

Yellow food coloring, if desired (I don't use)

1 graham cracker pie crust

Place concentrate in large mixing bowl and beat about 30 seconds. Gradually spoon in ice cream and blend. Fold in whipped topping and add food coloring (if desired), whipping until smooth. Freeze, if necessary,until mixture will mound. Spoon into graham cracker pie crust. Freeze until firm---at least 4 hours. Serve frozen pie slices. Store any leftover pie in freezer.

Yum!

and

Strawberry Pineapple Crumble

Hi!
Long time, no blog. Summer is such an incredibly busy time of year for me in school and I have barely had time to do much else. I do have a couple of other posts that are long overdue, but they will have to wait for another day. Today, I wanted to spare a few moments from working on my dissertation (okay, okay, I really needed a break from working on it) to write about this delicious concoction of fruit, butter, sugar, and oats that I made over the weekend in anticipation of Andrew's return from his 10 year high school reunion (yikes, I know---we're getting old!).

Sidenote--is it normal to not really feel any different than you were 10 years ago? I for sure thought that by this time I'd feel "grown up" or something....but I really feel just the same. Hmm...

Okay, back to the deliciousness that is this strawberry pineapple crumble. Since this past weekend was Portland's first real taste of "summer"--it got into the 80's guys AND the sun made an appearance--I wanted to make a fruity summer dessert. Insert Joy the Baker's crumble recipe that combines two of my favorite fruits. My dad told me he thought that this sounded like an odd combination of fruit; however, I really think it was the perfect balance of sweet and tart. I have to say it didn't last long and I may have shed a tear after the last bite was devoured. Luckily, it's pretty easy and I have an almost full jar of oats just waiting to be baked in with either the same fruit combo or perhaps a different one? Strawberry rhubarb seems like a good idea.

Here's the recipe:

Strawberry Pineapple Crumble
Makes one 8-inch baking dish

Ingredients
• 1 pound strawberries, hulled and cut in half
• 1 pound peeled and diced fresh pineapple
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
• 1 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Cooking Directions
• Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• Toss diced fruit together in an 8-inch square baking dish.

• In a small dish, whisk together 3 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, 1/4 cup of flour and pinch of salt. Toss the mixture with the diced fruit. Set aside.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add the cold butter cubes. Use your fingers to break up the cold butter cubes into the flour mixture. Add the oats and toss together until the butter bits are about the size of the oat flakes. Pour the oat mixture over the prepared fruit.

• Place in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until juices from the fruit bubble up around the sides of the pan.

• Remove the crumble from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. Crumble is delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream.

• Crumble can we wrapped and refrigerated for up to 4 days. Reheat in the microwave or wrapped in foil in a low oven.

Enjoy!

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Hi all!

Its been forever since I last posted, but I had some time today and thought I'd share some of what I baked up over my term break a couple weeks ago. I saw this particular recipe on Bakerella a while back and it had been on my "to bake" list for quite some time. I finally got around to baking them for a birthday party for one of my school friends. I will definitely use any excuse to eat something red velvet :) I followed these directions exactly and didn't have any problems with the recipe itself. The only thing I had difficulty with was that I tried to dye the cookies purple for a more spring theme. I thought that if I just added blue to the already red colored batter, they would come out purple. They didn't. They turned brown and looked like regular chocolate cookies (a little bit of purple showed through if the light hit them right). Oh well--they still tasted really, really good. Here's the recipe:

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies:

Cookies

Ingredients:
1 Box red velvet cake mix (any cake mix will work)
1/2 Cup butter, softened to room temperature
2 Eggs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix ingredients until combined.
Drop spoonfuls of cookie batter onto baking sheet about two inches apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Cool.

**Tip: For consistent size cookies, use a 1.5 inch small ice cream scooper when placing batter on the baking sheet. The finished cookie size will be about 3 inches wide.

Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 8 oz. Package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 1lb. Box of confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

Directions
In a mixer, cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla.
Gradually add sugar and mix until smooth.

**To assemble, spoon a small amount of frosting on the flat side of one cookie. Take another cookie and press together until frosting is flush with the edge. Makes about 24 cookies or 12 cookie sandwiches.

Anyway, I highly recommend these cookies! Tasty and easy to make--what could be better? Sorry I don't have any process pictures, I was so busy cooking a bunch of stuff that day that I only was able to get the final product.

Hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day! I know my sisters and I are really missing our mom today, but are so very grateful for the other wonderful women in our lives!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Icing

Hi!
I shouldn't even be writing this because of all the school work I have, but, I seem to be finding any way I can to procrastinate. Oh well :) I've wanted to share this one with you since last week because it is oh, so delicious. Since it is now "Fall" (I promise all you southerners, really, it is. We've got our heat on and I even saw some snow flakes today)--it means I can now start cooking/baking with seasonal goodies. And, pumpkin is one of my faves. I have been scavenging through different recipes and finally landed on one I thought sounded devine. I was able to share the yumminess with some school friends, as I brought along these suckers to a cocktail party held after a conference-like thing my school held last week. Not to toot my own horn, but I got some pretty good reviews.

I followed the recipe exactly and had no difficulties. The whole thing was pretty easy--although, somehow in the process of all the mixing and baking, I managed to dirty every dish in our kitchen. I think that says more about me than it does about the recipe. Andrew doesn't call me Messy Marcin for just any reason. Anyway, I just know all you pumpkin lovers' mouths are watering in anticipation, so here's the recipe. BTW--I found the cupcake recipe from Duchess of Fork's blog and the frosting recipe from Cupcakes Take the Cake's .

Vanilla Pumpkin Cupcakes
Ingredients
• 1 box Vanilla or Golden cake mix
• 1 box vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• ½ cup oil
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• ½ tsp. cinnamon

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with liners, or spray with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil, water and sour cream. Mix with a hand mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until ingredients are well combined. Add pumpkin and cinnamon and mix for another 30 seconds.
3. Divide batter between prepared mini or regular muffin tins. Bake for 20-23 minutes for regular cupcakes and 12-15 minutes for mini cupcakes.
4. Remove cupcakes from oven and cool completely. Once cupcakes are cool, top with frosting.

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
8 oz fat free cream cheese - room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter - room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4-6 cups powdered sugar

Preparation:
In an electric mixer, cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Beat in brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon until fully incorporated. Gradually add powdered sugar in small portions, scraping down the sides with each addition, until desired consistency is reached.

Makes approximately 24 cupcakes, with plenty of frosting leftover to put on anything and everything you can get your hands on.


See, I had so much fun with it, I even got "fancy" and piped on my icing. And, to half of the cupcake mix, I added mini chocolate chips--which, I think made them extra good. Even if you aren't too fond of pumpkin, the pumpkin flavor in these is pretty subtle and the cupcakes themselves are super moist b/c of the pudding. I double dog dare you to try them out. Happy Halloween everyone!!

Red Velvet Cake Pops

Hey loves,
I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Mine has actually been pretty great. For one of my school friend's birthdays, Andrew and I went on a "Distillery Row" tour today, touring and tasting at 3 different distilleries here in Portland. I absolutely love Portland for reasons like this and can actually not believe Andrew and I haven't done this sooner. We've gone to tons of breweries and wineries, even a sakery--but we have yet to do this. I love learning about how things are made and then getting to taste all the different variations. After tasting quite a few different vodkas, gins (eww), and whiskeys, we ended up bringing home a hot pepper infused vodka from New Deal. This place was my favorite of the 3, mostly because it had creatively infused vodkas--even a chocolate one! We chose the Hot Monkey b/c of its interesting taste and think we can use it to put a new twist on some basic mixed drinks. It is really, REALLY, spicy, but makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

After the distillery tastings, we ate dinner at a brewpub and then came home and curled up in front of our first fire of the season and watched a movie. Its been a nice and relaxing weekend so far, even though I will be working all day tomorrow on schoolwork....But, I'll procrastinate a little longer from getting started on that by posting about red velevet cake pops.

My friend's birthday that we celebrated yesterday was actually on Wednesday of this past week. I had been wanting a good excuse to make cake pops for some time and thought that this would be the perfect one. It was also good to know that the pops wouldn't just be sitting around my house for me to devour on my own--instead, this would be a good way to share. So, I brought them and passed them out to my morning class on Wednesday. And boy, were they a hit! Seriously, people kept coming up to me and telling me how good they were and that I should go into a "side" business making them. Ha! In all my spare time.....Plus, I'm not so sure I ever want to make them again because, man, were they annoying! It might be because I'm chocolate-melting-illiterate, but I could not get the chocolate the right consistency to make dipping easy. It ended up taking too much time to dip each one, and they didn't come out as pretty as I would have liked. Bakerella makes it look so easy--it actually made me kind of mad at her.

The whole process seems like it should be a piece of cake (ha!). You start by baking a regular old cake box mix. After its done baking and completely cooled, you crumble it into pieces in a large bowl and mix it with 1 can of frosting. It looks something like this, if you all remember. Messy, messy--but really fun.


You then roll little pieces of the cake into balls and place them on a wax-lined cookie sheet. I popped them into the freezer for about 15 min to let them harden a little. In the meantime, melt a package of chocolate bark or candy melts for dipping. I chose candy melts b/c I thought they would be easier to work with. I tried melting them in the microwave first, but apparently they got too hot and the chocolate just started to harden. I might have just been impatient with melting them and heated them up too quickly. Luckily I had gotten an extra bag of chocolate just in case I had difficulty. I moved to melting this bag on the stove--double boiler style. This worked a lot better, but it still wasn't as liquidy as I wanted it to be. I just had to go with it, though.

Next, I pulled the cake balls out of the freezer, dipped the tip of a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate, and inserted the stick into the cake ball, making sure not to go more than half way. I then dipped the cake ball into the melted chocolate, making sure to cover the entire ball. Because the chocolate wasn't as liquidy as I wanted it to be, I had to use a spoon to cover the area around the lollipop stick (you don't want to swirl the cake ball into the chocolate, or it will crumble off). Its really important that no cake is exposed--or else cake will squeeze out of the exposed areas when its cooling (I think that dipping the tip of the lollipop stick into chocolate first before inserting into the cake ball really helps with that, as it helps to create a seal around the cake).

Then, you lightly tap the excess chocolate off the cake pop, making sure to rotate the cake pop as you do this (or the cake will begin to slide off). After the cake pop is completely covered, you insert the lollipop stick into a styrofoam block (I got both the candy melts and the styrofoam block from a craft store). I cut the styrofoam to fit inside a cake carrier so that I could easily transport the pops. It worked amazingly! Here's what the finished product looked like.









Here they are all ready to go!










This is one with a bite taken out! (fyi, this particular cake pop was one of the "rejects", so the chocolate isn't as smooth as the others)

I thought they tasted really good too, despite the mess and the effort it took to make them! Here's a cake pop instructional video by Bakerella--this helped a lot when I was making them. If anyone does attempt to make these, please let me know how they turn out and if/how you had better luck with the chocolate. Have a good rest of the weekend!!

Celebration Cookie Dough Balls!

Hey wonderful family,

What a week! I have unfortunately gotten super busy at school all of a sudden and have been preparing for midterms, projects, etc. that will go until the end of the semester. I'm sure those of you still in school share my pain. My practicum site has also begun to get really busy and I have been super stressed with pretty tough clients and families and with trying to still figure out the system of this new clinic. One day last week I had one of those, "I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't believe I'm spending so much time and money to do this with my life" days--and I came home and had a little meltdown. Luckily, Andrew was there to help put me back together. I was feeling much better after some wallowing, bad tv (America's Next Top Model, to be specific), sleep, and pampering by my man. Oh, and getting this also helped quite a bit:


We just went out and got the frame today (we got one exactly like it for my Bachelors degree so they could be hung next to each other). I've been able to put the letters after my name for about 1 1/2 months, but this really made it official. Considering I still have 3 years left, I've got to really soak in these little moments as much as I can. Here it is a little closer (this is really for Dad's sake, as he wanted me to send him close-up pics of it).


Anyway, partially in celebration of my degree and partially to help my slightly still stressed-out self, I decided I would make these fantastic looking cookie dough balls I had been eyeing over on Joy the Baker's blog. I absolutely love cookie dough and would actually rather eat the dough as opposed to the real, baked cookie. So, these are a safer version (no eggs!), but frozen and dipped in chocolatey goodness. Because there are no eggs, you can use yogurt, applesauce, or peanut butter as the binder. I thought applesauce would be weird and peanut butter is my arch nemesis, so yogurt it was! Although she suggests using Greek yogurt, I just used regular old vanilla yogurt that we already had in our fridge. And it turned out great. Like, warm my heart and make me forget about all my worries great. Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls
recipe found on www.joythebaker.com
makes 9 large balls

• 1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (i know we're not baking them, it's for flavor)
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup Greek yogurt or applesauce or peanut butter
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips, melted for dipping

In the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment (or with a large bowl and a wooden spoon) cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about three minutes in the machine. Beat in yogurt or applesauce or peanut butter along with the vanilla extract and stir to combine.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add all at once to the butter and sugar mixture and stir until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Scoop large spoonfuls or ice cream scoops onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Spear each dough ball with a cute plastic fork or a popsicle stick. Place in the freezer overnight or until frozen, at least three hours.

When ready to dip the balls, melt chocolate chips in a small saucepan over a low flame or in the microwave. Remove balls from the freezer and dip into warm chocolate. Return to the lined cookie sheet and return to the freezer to harden. Serve cold from the freezer.





Okay, well mine aren't really "ball" shaped--but I don't have one of those fancy pants ice cream scoopers that releases perfectly shaped balls, so they came out sort of clumpy. It may not be as pleasing to the eye, but I think they are perfectly pleasing to the stomach! And, they are very quick and easy to make, with the added benefit of no baking!! Hope all of you had a good week! Miss and love you lots :)

Blondies?

Hey family,
Today was my "free" day from having to be at school or at clinic, so I was at home all day grading papers for a class I'm TAing and doing homework. In particular, I was practice scoring the Rorschach Inkblot test for a projective assessment class I'm taking (basically, finding some sort of meaning behind what a person percieves in an ambiguous blob of ink). Personally, I find this test a little silly; however, I wonder if it means something that all day I kept seeing brownies, cupcakes, and cookies in all of the blots :) I find this next pic to be pretty funny myself, but that may just be the psychologist nerd in me coming out.



Okay, okay. This picture is actually kind of gross, but--it does look almost exactly like one of the blots from the test. And, I'd still eat it. :)



Anyway, all of this thinking about sweets, made me really want to make something sweet. So, I found a recipe for Blondies (what I thought were Blonde Brownies) on Smitten Kitchen's blog. I don't think I've actually eaten a Blonde Brownie since I was a little girl; however, I remember my mom making some really good ones. Plus, this was one recipe I already had all the ingredients to at my house! So, I followed it. The whole thing was super simple (seriously, the most time consuming part was melting the butter) and they came out tasting really good--but, they did not remind me at all of the blonde brownies my mom used to make. In fact, they tasted more like chocolate chip cookies. I thought something was fishy when the batter came out more like cookie dough instead of brownie batter. So, my question for you is: Do any of you happen to know what may have gone wrong? Or, happen to have the recipe my mom used to make hers?

I have already scavenged through her old recipe box in Katy, and found that a lot of the good recipes she used to make were unfortunately never written down and must have been from her memory. But I'm hoping she passed this along to someone. Or, even if its not hers, if someone would be willing to share their own recipe for Blonde Brownies. Anyway, here's the recipe for these "Blondies" and a couple pics to follow.

Blondies (Infinitely Adaptable)
Taken from Smitten Kitchen (Originally adapted from How to Cook Everything)
Ingredients:
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:
1. Butter an 8×8 pan (double the recipe to fit in 9 X 13 pan)
2. Mix melted butter with brown sugar – beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
3. Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in any additions (below).
4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. I always err on the side of caution with baking times — nobody ever complained about a gooey-middled cookie. Cool on rack before cutting them.

Further additions, use one or a combination of:
• 1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts, toasting them first for even better flavor
• 1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 teaspoon mint extract in addition to or in place of the vanilla
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas
• 1/4 cup bourbon, scotch or other whiskey; increase the flour by one tablespoon
• 2 tablespoons of espresso powder with the vanilla
• Stir 1/2 cup dried fruit, especially dried cherries, into the prepared batter
• Top with a vanilla butter cream or chocolate peanut butter cream frosting


Had to get my cute little Hendrix in there.


See, they really just look like cookies. What gives?

Pistachio Cake

So, I know this is ridiculous that I've posted so many times in the last few days, but Sarah requested this one and since fall/winter decided to come early to Portland, I've been cooped up inside today relaxing from the rain. Andrew's off brewing beer with some friends (which is probably a blogworthy post in itself) and I've been watching terrible Lifetime movies all day and could use something to do (boy do I sound lame...).

This recipe is something I found when trying to decide on a cake to make for Andrew's birthday in August. My dad and sisters got to taste it since they came up to visit right around that time. Andrew loves anything with pistachios in it and I decided to see how I could incorporate them into a birthday cake. This recipe is actually a mix of two that I found online (the cake from one and the frosting from another). I honestly cannot remember where I found each of them. Anyway, the recipe is very simple and uses box cake mix and jello instant pudding. It's so easy even Sarah could make it ;) Here's the recipe:

Pistachio Cake
Ingredients
-1 package white cake mix
-3/4 cup vegetable oil
-1 cup lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage(I just bought 1 small bottle of Sprite)
-3 eggs
-2 (3 ounce) packages instant pistachio pudding mix
-1 tub (8 ounces) of Cool Whip
-3/4 cup milk
-chopped pistachios (optional)

Directions
1. Beat cake mix, oil, soda, eggs, and first package of pudding until smooth. Pour batter into greased 9 X 13 inch pan.
2. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes, or until cake tests done.
3. In a small bowl, mix together the cool whip, the other package of pudding, and 3/4 cup of milk. Spread over cooled cake. Sprinkle with chopped pistachios if you'd like. Refrigerate.

I thought this came out tasting pretty darn good. I'm pretty sure everyone else enjoyed it too! Sarah, you'll have to let us know how it turns out!

Pok Pok wings and Pix dessert!

Hey,
This post is really just to brag about the delicious dinner Andrew and I ate with some old college friends of ours this evening. We first went to Pok Pok, this amazing Thai restaurant that has been rated one of Portland's best restaurants and whose chefs have been nominated for several James Beard awards. It's probably one of our favorite places to eat in Portland. It's a little spendy and you usually have to wait quite a while to be seated--but, it's totally worth it. They have even opened up a lounge across the street where you can drink cocktails while you're waiting (they call over to the lounge when your table is ready). Anyway, probably the best thing on the menu is their wings. Seems weird coming from a Thai restaurant, but seriously, they are to die for.


Although we've never attempted making them at home, apparently you can with this recipe provided by Food and Wine Magazine. Here it is in case anyone wanted to give it a try. If you do, you'll have to let me know how it goes!

Chicken Wings Pok Pok Style
(serves 6)~From Food and Wine Magazine

■sea salt and fresh ground pepper
■1 cup fish sauce
■1 cup maple syrup
■1/2 cup orange juice
■8 garlic cloves, minced (divided)
■3 pounds chicken wings, cut at the joints
■3 tablespoons butter
■zest and juice of 1 orange
■1/4 cup Sambal Oelek chili paste (or less if you want less heat)
■oil for frying
■1 cup chopped cilantro (for garnish)

Season the wings with a pinch of sea salt and a crank of fresh ground pepper. In a large bowl whisk together the fish sauce, maple syrup, orange juice, and half of the garlic cloves. Add the wings and toss to coat. Transfer the wings and marinade to a plastic bag and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight (I’d go overnight or as long as you can).

Drain the wings over a medium bowl to reserve the marinade. Heat the butter over medium heat until melted and add the remaining garlic; cook until the garlic is golden brown, being careful not to allow it to burn. Turn the heat to medium-high and add the reserved marinade, orange zest and juice, and chili paste. Continue to cook the dressing until it reduces to a syrupy consistency, about 10 minutes, and then remove it from the heat. Place the warm sauce in a large bowl.

Heat the oil to 350F. Working in batches, fry the wings until crispy, about 5 minutes per batch. Drain on a cooling rack set over paper towels, allowing the oil to drip off. When all of the wings have been fried, toss them in the dressing (you may need to work in batches). Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately.

*After the frying step you may also hold the wings in a warm oven - this helps if you are doing large batches. Just be aware of drying out the wings or losing crispness if held for a long period of time.

After eating our dinner, we walked over to Pix Patisserie, an adorable little French cafe that makes elegant pastries and homemade chocolates. Its like a scene straight out of the movie Amelie. Their desserts look like works of art--almost too good to eat. Well, not really, but they are pretty :) Here's what Andrew and I ate tonight:
Queen of Sheba Truffle Cake - moist chocolate almond cake with bittersweet chocolate center. Warm slightly for molten chocolate center.

The Royale – Chocolate mousse blankets a crisp hazelnut praline filling and dacquoise base.

Is your mouth watering yet?!



ETA:

This is the picture I took on my phone when we went to Pix in August. I tried to just post this in the comments, but it didn't work.

Voodoo Doughnuts: The Magic is in the Hole!

Hi all!
So, this is really just a follow-up of Sarah's donut post. I've got to represent the NW here, since Voodoo is practically one of the most famous donut places in the U.S. (just ask the travel channel and foodnetwork). Although they aren't quite as fancy as the ones Sarah posted earlier, these donuts are cheap, creative, and delicious little bites of heaven, even if they are sometimes a little vulgar (think bachelorette/bachelor party treats;) Plus, who doesn't love a donut shop that can perform weddings!?

Here are the donuts:


Starting at the upper left, you have Sarah's fave, the maple bacon bar. That one doesn't really need much of a description, its just maple frosting with bacon on top!Then its the Butterfingering (vanilla frosting and butterfinger crumbles) and the Diablos Rex (chocolate cake donut, red sprinkles, vanilla pentagram, and chocolate chips in the middle). The next row starts with the McMinnville Cream (Bavarian cream-filled with maple frosting, two eyeballs and a mustache), the Maple Blazer Blunt (Inappropriate? Yes. Delicious? Of course! Covered in cinnamon with maple frosting and red sprinkles on one end), and the Captain my Captain (vanilla frosting and Captain Crunch cereal). The last row begins with a regular ole' powdered sugar jam filled donut, the Dubble Bubble (vanilla frosting, bubblegum dust, and a piece of gum in the middle), and the Peanut Donut (cake donut covered in chocolate frosting and peanuts). Yum Yum!

Here's a pic of my favorite donut, which they were unfortunately out of the night we went. Its the Voodoo Doll, filled with raspberry jelly and stabbed with a pretzle!


And here's the one Andrew really wanted that they were also out of. Its the Old Dirty Bastard with chocolate frosting, Oreo's, and peanut butter. Guess that just means we'll have to go again soon!


If you're interested in looking at any of their other creations, you can visit them at http://www.voodoodoughnut.com/. Its one very good reason to take a trip up here to the Pacific NW--besides seeing me of course!! Look how much the girls enjoyed them!