Homemade Tortillas

One of my new favorite food websites is Our Best Bites. They have fabulous and simple recipes. A few days ago I tried the homemade tortillas:

As you can see, I had a hard time rolling out a circle:

I figured they'd taste the same (and they did). Maybe I'll invest in one of those pie crust measuring mats... Cooking them was trickier than I thought.

I over-cooked several and they were pretty much inedible, but the ones I thought would be undercooked were perfect (they're the ones on the bottom of the pile in the first picture). I also made the taco chicken, black beans(I didn't add the coriander because I didn't have any and I used water rather than broth, but it still tasted fine), lime cilantro rice (I used left over brown rice warmed up in the microwave and skipped the pineapple) and creamy lime cilantro dressing. We put that all together with romaine lettuce and mozzarella, for a fantastic dinner that I'll make again.......soon.

Chocolate Pomegranate Meringue

I bought a pomegranate on a whim a while ago and it sat on top of my fridge for a long time.  I finally decided that something had to be done with it and I came up with this:

chocolate pomegranate meringue

meringue:

6 egg whites, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 oz bittersweet chocolate shavings

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup pomegranate juice (I'd suggest buying a bottle of it rather than trying to juice the fruit yourself. I stuck about half the seeds in the blender before I'd thought that far ahead and after several unhappy tries, I ended up using a new pair of my daughter's tights to strain the juice out.)

Refer to the Chocolate & Berry Meringue recipe for step-by-step pictures.  Preheat oven to 350*F.  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, draw a 10 inch circle and set aside.  Beat the egg whites on med-high until soft peaks form.  Continue beating on high and gradually add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved.  Gently fold in chocolate shavings, cocoa and juice.  Spread meringue onto prepared sheet and place in oven.  Immediately reduce heat to 300*F and bake for 1 hr.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  Carefully peel off parchment paper and place meringue on a large platter.  Top with freshly whipped cream, extra chocolate shavings and pomegranate seeds. 

r's Random Tip #1

Months ago, we had an ant problem.  Thousands of teeny-tiny yellowish ants crawled around our apartment.  (I don't think that we're particularly dirty, but with 2 kids the floor is often covered in crumbs right after vacuuming.) Eventually they made it to the pantry.  Oh the horror!  It was awful.  I had to throw away many boxes of cereal.  We had someone come spray but they must of missed a spot, by the pantry no less.  So, I took matters into my own hands.  I picked up several cans of Raid and proceded to empty the pantry:

Yes, my kitchen is the size of a closet.  Seriously.  Anyway, I got fancy plastic cereal containers, as well as one for each of the sugars.  I filled up the granulated sugar container and had about half a bag that didn't fit.  So I stuck it in the freezer with the flour.  Bad idea:

These are the shards of sugar that have formed.  Sugar to shard ratio is about 1:3.  Apparently what works well for flour, does not work for sugar.

Tip #1:

Do not store your sugar in the freezer.  (though I would guess that most of you are smart enough to have figured that out already)

Gingerbread Mix & Cookies

My mom would make these cookies each year, starting around Halloween.  I remember her making this mix and rolling out the dough while listening to enya or Manheim Steamroller.  Good times.  These are still some of my favorite cookies.  You can even tweak the recipe a little to make gingerbread houses (I'll post about that later when we make some next week.).

Gingerbread Mix:

2 cups sugar

8 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp salt (if you use kosher, make it slightly heaping)

1 heaping tsp ground cloves

1 heaping tbsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 cups shortening

In a very large bowl, whisk together the first eight ingredients:

Once combined add shortening:

Using your hands (or you could use a pastry blender, I guess.  But where's the fun in that?) work the shortening in.  It should look a bit like cornmeal:

This makes about 13 cups of mix.  Store in an airtight container (or several, if you don't have anything large enough to hold it all). It will stay good for about 3 months, perfect for the holidays.

Gingerbread Cookies: 

3 cups gingerbread mix

1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup molasses

1 egg, slightly beaten (Funny note: when I cracked the egg below, it was one of those crazy ones with 2 yolks.  Crazy!)

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Make a well in mix, add other ingredients:

Using a fork, preferably the one you used to beat the egg, mix everything together as much as you can:

Sorry for the blurry pic.  I need a new camera in a bad way (cough-cough-hint-hint, Grant).  Back to the cookies: time to use your hands again.  Knead the dough together until it forms a nice smooth & soft dough:

Now it's time to roll it out on a lightly floured surface.  (As I sprinkled flour on the table, my 3 year old came up to me and said, "Mommy, you making a big mess! That's not fair!"  She let me get away with it when I told her it was for the cookies.) Roll dough out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes:

Bake for 8 minutes on parchment covered cookie sheets.  This was the perfect amount of time to achieve a beautiful and soft cookie.  If you want a crunch, cook for a minute or two more.  Really, these cookies are good either way. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

What? Do I suffer from OCD? No, why do you ask?.......Ahem....Anyway, you could serve these as is or glaze them:

Almond Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp hot water

1 tsp almond extract

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth:

Brush onto the cooled cookies with a pastry brush or just drizzle back and forth with a spoon:

Let the glaze dry before stacking.  Enjoy!

Spiced Rice Crispy Treats

I found a recipe that added cinnamon to rice crispy treats and thought that some ground cloves wouldn't go amiss. And it didn't, these are tasty:

Spiced Rice Crispy Treats:

4 cups mini marshmallows

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

a pinch of ground cloves

5 cups rice crispies

Over med-low heat, melt marshmallows and butter.  Stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and mix in cinnamon and cloves.  Add rice crispies, stir until evenly coated.  Press into greased  8" square pan.  Let set and cut into squares.  Enjoy!

Chuy's Dip

I made the most delicious dip. It's very similar to the Creamy Jalapeno dip that Chuy's serves. Somewhere online, I found a recipe that claimed to be a copycat but after reading the ingredients I knew it wasn't even close (there are no tomatoes in the restaurant version). The comments were much more helpful. I tweaked the one that sounded the closest and I think this is very close to the real thing...Creamy Jalapeno Dip:

16 oz [light] sour cream

1 packet Ranch dip mix

2-3 large jalapenos, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 2 but next time would probably do 3, I really like garlic. Just taste as you go.)

1/3 cup chopped, fresh cilantro
Juice of a lime

Milk, optional

Mix the first 6 ingredients together. Use the milk to thin the dip to whatever consistancy you desire. I added maybe a couple of tablespoons. It was thicker than Chuy's version, but I was OK with that. Serve with tortilla chips. Simple. Easy. Delish.

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes?

Never fear, dear readers! I'm back. Of course, I never actually went anywhere. I'm not really sure why I haven't posted for so long. But here's a doozy for you: Yesterday, I made these Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes from Love and Olive Oil. The cake part was sooooooo good. Moist, light and fluffy, and chocolaty. mmmmmmm. I didn't have any almond meal or soy milk, so I just added more flour and used good ol' regular cow milk. The frosting.........well, it was a bit tart but good.......I just didn't love it with the cake. Too make it more pipe-able, I doubled the butter and added a bit more powdered sugar (I also used frozen raspberries rather than fresh).
And it has to be said: looking at this picture makes me think of this Cake Wreck. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean.