Tag Archives: Baking

Surviving Nemo

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You know, before this weekend – Nemo was an adorably rebellious clown fish who found himself in quite the predicament at 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. Okay, so he still is…but now Nemo is also a crazy ass snow storm that dumped 28 inches of snow on us in less than 24 hours.

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Wooooooo.

Boston came to a stand still…hell, Massachusetts came to a standstill. Cars were banned from the roads starting at 4pm (people complained but I think it was a smart decision), and driving wasn’t allowed until 4pm the next day. The MBTA haulted for 3 days so there was absolutely no public transportation…sooo what did I do to keep the cabin fever at bay? Well – if you follow me on Instagram (which you should if you don’t!), you’ll know…I baked. And ate. And baked. And ate. Oh…and drank some wine.

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However, between all the carbohydrates and alcohol – I did consume some vegetables. I swear. Balance. Haha

Ones of those veggies? Rainbow chard.  I’d never had or made it before…but when I saw those colors pop out at me at the grocery store I had to get it. Prettty! It was a buy now, figure out what to do with it later situation.

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I did some Googling, and decided to keep it simple. Extra virgin olive oil, 2 large shallots, 2-3 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper…and I think some Onion & Herb Mrs. Dash and red pepper flakes…and steamed/sautéed until it looked good.

Very technical, I know.

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And ya know what, it was awesome. I have another bunch in my fridge right now just waiting for the same treatment.

Now, as I sit here watching the news…we’re in for another 1-3 inches Thursday. Pshh…a dusting….a dusting.

Mama, May I?

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My goodness – it’s been quite a while. …I know, I know – I start every.single.post. in pretty much the same manner, as of late.

While I might not be blogging as often – the blogosphere is not far from my mind…and food is – most definitely – not far from my mouth.

I had been resisting the urge to get into the *holiday* spirit…I always feel bad for Thanksgiving…it’s that middle child – and between Halloween and Christmas, the kings of the “gimme, gimme” holidays, it often gets overlooked.

Not by me. I absolutely LOVE Thanksgiving! Dare I say it is my favorite one?

  • One. Any holiday based on consuming copious amounts of comfort food is A-okay in my book.
  • Two. I love spending time with my family – catching up, watching football and just been bums.
  • …and Three. It’s just great to be with family – solely for the reason that you want to be together…no gift giving/receiving…it’s based on being selfless..not selfish.

My tree and decorations won’t be up until December – but I don’t think that Thanksgiving would mind if I love on some holiday flavors…like eggnog…and gingerbread.

Speaking of gingerbread…. I’ve had my eye on Mama Pea’s Pumpkin Molasses Cookie Dough Balls …. Basically, all of her little cookie concoctions have been on my “to make ASAP” list…and the gingerbread-y flavors of the pumpkin molasses cookies finally got me baking.

Pumpkin Molasses Cookie Dough Balls

adapted from Mama Pea

Makes 24  30 dough balls — I used a Tablespoon to scoop & got 30 cookies out of this batch

  • 1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 c. unbleached organic flour  – I used regular all-purpose
  • 1 T. ginger
  • 2 t. baking soda
  • 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/3 c. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance) — I used margarine…but it wasn’t vegan
  • 2/3 c. canned pumpkin
  • 2/3 c. organic sugar + additional 1/4 c. for rolling – I used what I had left of natural sugar and then the rest – just plain ole granulated sugar
  • 1/4 c. molasses

Instructions

  • In a medium bowl, combine flour, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
  • Using an electric or stand mixer, cream together margarine, pumpkin, 2/3 c. sugar and molasses.
  • Gradually add flour mixture to wet ingredients, mixing until a dough comes together.
  • Chill dough for 30 minutes or more. When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees and pour remaining sugar into a shallow bowl.
  • Scoop dough into balls and roll until smooth.
  • Roll each ball sugar until completely covered.
  • Transfer dough to a cookie sheet and continue until sheet is filled.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should be set, but still a bit doughy. (I needed the full 10)
  • Allow cookies to cool on the pan for several minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Loved these. 

My favorite part of these lil’ beauties is definitely the texture…doughy but still light and fluffy.

I might play with the amount of molasses in these the next time I make them…they’re great as is – but I’m a huge fan of that molasses/gingerbread flavor and wouldn’t mind punching it up maybe a notch or two.

However – if you’re craving gingerbread…

go.

make these.

now. 

Fake ‘n Bake

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Aaaand, I’m back [again].

Bring on the pumpkin.

I know, I know.

The blog world has been inundated with pumpkin recipes as of late.

…but I’m still adding one more to it. :)

Tis the season, right?

This past weekend was probably the perfect example of New England in the fall.

It was cool – but not cold. Most of the leaves had turned their autumn shades of gold, red and yellow – and there was a persistant breeze that swirled the fallen leaves all over the yard.

Oh, and it brought down a tree at 11:45 at night…fun.

I digress…

Needless to say, I was inspired to break out the mix(er) and make something pumpkin-y.

In came a lovely little mix that has been residing in my pantry for far too long:

Now – I know I’ve discussed this in the past…I love from-scratch baking…but I have absolutely nothing against a good mix. People don’t necessarily enjoy something more just because you slaved over a million and one ingredients, and spent an entire day in the kitchen (no matter how much you enjoy it).

Plus, like I was saying to Meg from A Dash of Meg on Twitter…a mix just shortens the time between whipping it together and being able to shove it into my face. :)

Pumpkin puree and eggs were added to the mix – and I added walnuts and dark chocolate chips. Dark Chocolate & Pumpkin are inseparable in my kitchen.

While this mix is actually a cake mix – I baked it like I would a banana bread…and it came out deeelicious. The ends were chewy and the bread itself was really moist and studded with all of those walnuts and chocolate chips.

Dessert bread perfection.

  • What are some of your favorite fake-outs and mixes??

Bad Weather Baking

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Alright – so as probably every East Coast blogger has mentioned…Irene is on her way! The rain has started here, but nothing too terrible as of yet. I hope everyone in her path is somewhere safe!

Now, I know everyone is out there saying you need to get ready with extra water, cash, a full gas tank, important documents (although, I think tax returns go a little far). However, my hurricane “prep”… bad weather baking!

For some reason, crummy weather just inspires me to bake. Though, I’m not sure today’s kitchen adventures would be totally classified as baking…though it did involve an oven…and dough.

My treat of choice? Baked Cheesecake Wontons. Random. I know…but I had wonton wrappers hanging around so here we are.

So yeah…not technically challenging but baking nonetheless.

Essentially, this consisted of removing the wrappers from the packages, mixing up some room temp neufchatel cheese and some jam [nothing fancy, just until it "looked good"] – I added some Truvia to sweeten it slightly, but that step would depend on your jam’s sweetness and wrapping the wontons around some filling!

Basically, little sweet.. baked raviolis.

Bake at 375 until golden brown and enjoyyy.

These would also be awesome stuffed with Nutella, chocolate, just jam, PB…man, anything. haha

Making these again, I would use less filling per wrapper and I would totally toss them in cinnamon and sugar when they were hot out of the oven. Yummm.

  • What’re your go-to bad weather hobbies? You can almost always find me in the kitchen on a gross day. :)

Maiden Voyage

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Ahh so I’ve been enjoying some time at my mom’s house – and in her larger kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little kitchen and have cranked out some good stuff in there…but sometimes, it’s nice to have a bit more elbow room. :)

It’s been nice to relax, too – I’ve been speeding through books like nobodies business. I kind of want to join a book club (nerdy much?)…but seriously, an excuse to read good stuff, drink and socialize?? Perfection.

Regardless of how much I think that I’m relax ing- we have a TRUE relaxation pro in this house…

…and her name is Shadow.

Weeee – look, Jil, no handssss!

While Shadow was hard at work absorbing Vitamin D – I set out to give my stand mixer its maiden voyage. We’ve decided that since I’m moving in only a couple of months, that it’s not worth the haul to bring it down to the city – so for now, it resides with mi madre.

So – I thought…and thought…about what the first mixer munchies should be… the answer involved egg whites and sugar…

This is a lie – powdered sugar was replaced with granulated in the end. :)

One of my favorite food memories growing up was my grandmother’s meringues – specifically meringues smothered in her hot fudge and some vanilla bean ice cream.

Meringues it was.

  • 4 egg whites
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (we didn’t have any and after research, I replaced it with the equal amount of lemon juice)
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

And she’s off! – in poor lighting…-

Soon, I was witnessing glossy, glorious meringue.

Batter was divided – awkwardly as there was no parchment in the house so I settled on at least attempting the silicone muffin molds….in retrospect, I should have flipped it and heaped meringue on top of each inverted cup. Regardless…

250 degrees for one hour and then turn off the oven and just let them sit for 3-4 hours. I made these pretty late last night – so I just put them in for the hour and then turned off the oven and went to bed.

Worked out pretty well!

Made lil’ nests, too – though I wish I could’ve piped them. Next time. Next time.

All in all the flavor’s there, the texture’s there – now it’s just about the finesse.

Practice makes perfect. :)