» dessert

Banana Bread, Oh so Good.

ryan — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 18:39:46 +0000

Made this great tasting banana bread the other day and just had to log it here for easy access. There are always a couple bananas in the bunch that try to make it into the trash. Not on my watch! Ate a little for a late night snack then wrapped it up for breakfast with some coffee.

Best Basic Banana Bread

stolen from Simply Recipes

Ingredients: 2-3 ripe bananas (starting to brown even); 1/3 c. butter, melted; 1 c. sugar; pinch of salt; 1 beaten egg; 1 t. vanilla extract; 1 t. baking soda; 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
Preparation

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and prepare 4×8 loaf pan (butter and flour dusted). In a medium/large mixing bowl mash the bananas together then add melted butter and mix. Start adding/mixing in some of the dry ingredients, baking soda, salt, sugar. Then mix in the egg and vanilla extract. Finally add in the flour and pour into prepared pan. Bake for about an hour, check after 50 minutes. Done when a toothpick is pulled out clean. Let cool on rack, if you can wait that long. You can do all this with a fork or whisk, no need for electric mixer but no harm either.

Peanut butter cookies.

ryan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:35:38 +0000

Ahhhh the classic peanut butter cookie, second only to the chocolate chip. As the recipe says these are rich and crumbly. I made these for J to take to her ladies Bible study group and I hear they were a hit. So good with an ice cold glass of milk, obviously.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe from the book The Joy of Cooking.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour; 1/2 t. baking soda; 1/3 c. (5 1/2 T.) unsalted butter, softened; 1/2 c. sugar; 1/2 c. packed brown sugar; 1 large egg; 1 c. peanut butter; 1/2 t. vanilla
Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease or line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together flour and baking soda. In another bowl mix together butter and sugar. Next beat in the egg and peanut butter and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture until blended well. Shape into one inch balls and arrange about two inches apart on cookie sheet. Press with a fork twice to get that classic peanut butter cookie pattern. Cook for about 10 to 20 minutes. Let stand for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

Olive oil granola.

ryan — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:57:24 +0000

We tried a new granola the other day. The girls let me eat it all meaning they weren’t all that impressed. I on the other hand loved it. I brought some to work for the coworkers to try and they all loved it too. I’ve actually had multiple requests to bring in more. I will make this again, I didn’t have anything for the dried fruit element so I think with that in missing piece in place the girls will love it too.

Very good as cereal. I just love ice cold milk over homemade granola.

The loving spoonful.

Olive oil granola

Recipe from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love by Melissa Clark. Everything I’ve made from this book has been wonderful. Highly recommended.

Ingredients: 3 c. old-fashioned rolled oats; 1 1/2 c. pistachios, (I used a mixture of walnuts, cashews and almonds); 1 c. raw pumpkin seeds; 1 c. coconut chips; 3/4 c. pure maple syrup (I used 1/2 c. maple syrup and 1/4 c. honey); 1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil; 1/3 c. packed light brown sugar; 1 t. sea salt; 1/2 t. ground cinnamon; 1/2 t. ground cardamom or ground ginger; 3/4 c. chopped dried apricots
Preparation

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl mix all the ingredients except the apricots well. Transfer to an 11×17 baking sheet and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes stirring every 10 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in apricots. Serve with fresh ricotta and berries. You can also pour some cold milk over it and eat as cereal or just eat plain as an easy snack.

Baby biscuits & gravy.

ryan — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:59:59 +0000

I was watching Chopped the other day and a girl (who had a horrible attitude and I hope lost) made a gravy that she said her mom or grandma used to make, I can’t remember which but it’s really not important. Anyway, she said it was equal parts butter and flour and enough milk to get your desired thickness. Oh, and salt and lots of pepper. I love simple easy to remember staple recipes and I LOVE a good white gravy so I couldn’t wait to give it a try. It turned out fantastic! J and Z both liked it and I love it when that happens. It’s definitely not vegan but it’s meatless, hearty, and scratches that itch.

If you have any left over biscuits they are great as a snack with some honey.

Biscuits & Gravy

Biscuits recipe adapted from the book 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes by Carol Gelles. I halved the recipe (Herbed Biscuits) and I got twelve baby biscuits. I also rolled them out to only be 1/2 inch thick since they were smaller. If you go with the full recipe it will make the same amount (10 to 12) of the standard biscuit size (2.5 inch biscuit cutter).

Ingredients – Biscuits: 2 c. white wheat flour; 1 T. baking powder; 1 t. baking soda; 1/2 t. sea salt; 1/4 c. butter, cubed small and cold; 3/4 c. buttermilk (I used whole milk with a few drops of lemon juice); dried oregano

Vegan chococlate cake (cupcakes).

ryan — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 01:45:26 +0000

So the cake is vegan but the frosting is all cream cheese and butter. The recipe calls for dusting with powdered sugar not frosting so it could easily be vegan or I’m sure there are some great vegan frosting recipes out there if that’s your thing. I made these for Z to take to school for her birthday last week and they were a huge hit. The recipe said something funny like this won’t be the best cake you’ve ever had but it WILL taste good, it WILL be quick and easy to make and WILL be homemade, all which was true and that’s what I love about this cake. I didn’t even notice that it was vegan until a day or two later when I was trying to recollect the ingredients for a coworker. Bottom line, these simple chocolate cakes may be the new go to cake for occasions like this past week.

There’s a place here in town called Nothing Bundt Cakes that is mouth watering. They get tons of orders for work parties and special events etc. We’ve ordered them several times at my work and they are always amazing. These kinda reminded me of those but it could just be that I frosted them kind of like they do. This isn’t the normal way to “spread” icing on a cupcake but it was actually the perfect amount.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

From the cookbook The Essential New York Times Cook Book by Amanda Hesser.

Ingredients (cake): 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour; 1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder; 1 t. baking powder; 1 c. sugar; 1/2 t. sea salt; 5 T. oil (I used sunflower); 1 c. cold spring water; 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract; 1 T apple cider vinegar; powdered sugar to top (optional)
Ingredients (frosting): 2 (8 oz.) packages of cream cheese, softened; 1 stick butter (8 T.), softened; 2 c. powdered sugar; 1 t. vanilla extract
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 inch round cake pan (We went the cupcake route obviously). Mix the dry ingredients together then in another large bowl mix together the wet ingredients. Then whisk in the dry ingredients into the wet until lump free. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, you know, do the toothpick test thing and you’ll be fine. Cool completely on wire rack before removing from pan and dusting with powdered sugar, or frosting like us dairy lovers. The cupcakes only take like 10 minutes to cook so just keep an eye on them, you’ll know their done when none of them look wet on top anymore.

For the cream cheese frosting cream together the cream cheese and butter then whisk in the vanilla extract. Next whisk in the powdered sugar a bit at a time until it’s all incorporated into a wonderful frosting. Transfer to a ziplock bag and cut a corner to squeeze the frosting out and get creative with you patterns you make. Kids love to do this part!

Chocolate pancakes.

ryan — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:03:22 +0000

I asked Z if she wanted pancakes for breakfast this last Saturday, it was just the two of us because J had to work and was gonna hit yoga afterwords. She replied with “chocolate pancakes”. It caught me off guard at first but then I realized she meant chocolate chip pancakes like I’ve made a couple times in the past. But now I had chocolate pancakes burned into my mind and there was no turning back. I’m glad I went with my “gut” because these were totally awesome. It was actually like eating a birthday cake for breakfast, not something you should do often unless you want to blow up like the stay puft marshmallow man but very super tasty non the less. Everyone obviously loved them (we saved some for when J got home that afternoon). Three thumbs up.

They look so good cooking on the griddle.

Chocolate Pancakes

Recipe from here.

Ingredients: 1 c. whole milk; 1 egg; 2 T. butter, melted; 1/4 t. vanilla extract; 1 c. all-purpose flour; 1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder; 1/4 c. sugar, I use unrefined brown; 1/2 t. baking soda; 1/2 t. sea salt; powdered sugar to top (optional)
Chocolate sauce: 1/2 c. heavy cream; 1/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preparation

Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, sea salt and sugar and set aside. Beat egg and add milk, butter and vanilla. Then finally combine the dry and wet mixtures making a nice pancake batter. Pour onto a hot skillet and cook like any other pancakes. Toss in some whole chocolate chips if you want to take it even further.

For the sauce, and it’s all about the sauce FYI, just melt chips with the heavy cream over a low to medium heat in a small sauce pan continuously stirring with a wire whisk. Pour over pancakes and serve.

Ebleskivers!

ryan — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:25:03 +0000

When my Dad brings up past stories of when him an my Mom were married there’s one that seems to come up most often. It’s about ebleskivers/apple skivers. He couldn’t quite remember what they were called exactly but he could remember that they were delicious. He always says “You need to ask your Mom about apple skivers”. I’d ask what they were and he could never really explain them… at all. His story was about how they went to some fair in Iowa where some old ladies were making ebleskivers and my Mom was like, I can make those. So she bought a couple ebleskiver pans from the ladies and the rest is history. So finally one day I asked my Mom about them. She went downstairs into the storage room and after a bit of digging she pulled out her ebleskiver pan from years ago. The same one she used to make them for my Dad back in the day. She handed it to me and said “Go for it!”.

When I arrived back home it took me a few times to get them right but once I did they were simple. So get yourself an ebleskiver pan and get to work. They’re a fun way to make sweet round pancakes or even savory cornbread jalepeno cheese filled balls. Kids love them and the just look so neat.

Simple batter, although the more popular (maybe more traditional) version calls for separating the eggs and whipping the whites. Google ebleskiver recipes and you’ll find tons to choose from. Like I said before there are even interesting savory versions.

I didn’t use enough butter the first time and everything stuck. Make beautiful little pools of butter if you want to be successful the first time.

The flipping technique takes a second to figure out but it’s like ridding a bike once you figure it out. I embedded a video below to help.

On a side note I’ve been trying to take one of these blown out background photos for awhile now and our new place has a perfect window to make this happen. Supper happy with this new light source for taking photos.

Ebleskivers

Recipe swiped from MyRecipes.com, it was the first one I found that didn’t require separating the eggs, whipping the whites, folding and all that other nonsense when your starving your butt off.

Ingredients: 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour; 3 t. sugar (I used unrefined organic brown sugar, use something to replace the white granulated if you can, its bad for ya.); 2 3/4 t. baking powder (aluminum free also!); 1/2 t. sea salt; 1/2 t. cinnamon or cardamom (we used cinnamon); 1 large egg; 1 c. milk; 2 T. butter, melted; extra butter for pan; maple syrup; preserves, strawberry or whatever (optional); confectioners sugar (optional)
Preparation

Combine dry ingredients, combine wet ingredients then mix together gently until incorporated. Some lumps are just perfect, set aside

Heat your ebleskiver pan on the stove top over a medium to medium-high heat. When the pan gets warm enough, grab a stick of butter and rub it around in each pocket melting and coating leaving a little pool of butter in each pit, as shown above. As the pan gets hotter the butter will start to sizzle, that’s when your ready to scoop or pour about two tablespoons of the batter into the each pocket (almost full but not completely). Cook for about 30 seconds until a crust forms on the bottom. You will know this by using a wooden skewer (or the traditional knitting needle) to poke down center-bottom of dough and pull to one side. Pull up just a little and move on to the next one going in the order you poured the batter. Then return to first one and pull up half way where its like a 90 degree angle. As you do each pull/turn/flip the batter will pour out and fill in the bottom and cook. The third and final turn will flip the ebleskiver to form a ball. Let the insides cook for a few more seconds. Poke a clean skewer all the way through and if it pulls out clean its cooked all the way. You can break open a bit and fill with some jelly then close and top with powdered sugar. Serve hot!

Below is a video which will do a way better job of visually explaining the three turn flipping process of an ebleskiver.

Nevada cookie.

ryan — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:32:25 +0000

Z was sent home with a recipe a few days ago for a “Nevada Cookie”. The deal was that the parents make the dough, a basic sugar cookie, and send it with their kid to school the next day. On day one they cut and bake it. On day two they decorate it whilst learning about the state of Nevada, fun. She brought it home today and it looked super cool and was tasty too. Nice family effort on this one.

Never knew the nuclear test site was so close to Vegas. Grrrrreat.

Great Christmas ornament for the photo junkie.
Great Christmas present for your Lego head.

Apple blossom cake.

ryan — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 21:12:46 +0000

Z’s school had an event for Grandparents yesterday and several of the parents were given a recipe and tasked with making this apple blossom cake. When J called me after dropping of the cakes to the classroom she said it was hilarious how everyone was given the same recipe but all the cakes turned out looking so different. It’s was funny because I was just looking at some recipes on allrecipes.com where people upload pictures of how theirs turned out and they all looked so different as well. I brought up this phenomenon to a friend at work and he told me how Gordan Ramsey says you can cook something perfectly once but its hard to recreate that same thing over and over if ever again. So is consistency something that is nearly impossible in cooking and do we really want everything to be consistent anyway? J did end up sampling several of the cakes (“small” pieces she said) and they all tasted great even if they did looked different. I agreed, this was a delicious and super moist cake. We’ll definitely make this again.

Z brought the recipe home on this crafty little apple. I’d like to keep it forever but with it being made out of a full roll of toilet paper you never really know.

We had left overs this morning so we wrapped them up to share them with Z’s teammates for after the game.

Check out this awesome octopus video. Everyone should see it, so so cool. Apple blossom cake recipe after the jump.

Apple Blossom Cake

Recipe provide by Z’s elementary school.

Ingredients: 1 c. oil; 2 c. sugar (unrefined brown if you can swing it, anything but white); 1/2 c. spring water; 1 t. vanilla; 3 c. chopped apples (about 2 large or three medium); 2 eggs; 1/2 c. chopped nuts (we used walnuts); 3 c. white wheat flour; 1 t. cinnamon; 1 1/2 t. baking soda; 1/2 t. nutmeg; 1/2 t. sea salt
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9×13 pan. Blend oil, sugar, spring water and vanilla. Add in chopped apples, beaten eggs and nuts. Stir in flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Pour into pan and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over top. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when poked.

Monday evening.

ryan — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:28:56 +0000

Mmmmmmm Chocolate

Opened up the box of strawberries to top this little chocloate cake and the first one was kinda funky and mushy so I just tossed it across the kitchen into the sink for two points and it splattered so nicely I had to take a pic.

I halved the recipe below and made three little cakes, one for each of us. I’m adding a little salt to the recipe below because the cake came out tasting diet or vegan if you know what I mean. I’ve had vegan cakes that tasted wonderful so don’t get me wrong it just tasted a little bland. Although no one was turning it down so we’ll just leave it at that.

Chocolate Cake

From the book A colorful cookbook – Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. A book full of beautiful photographs and tasty recipes.

Ingredients: 13 T. butter; 1/3 c. semi sweet chocolate chips; 1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder; 3 eggs; 3/4 c. superfine sugar, I used unrefined brown; 1 c. all purpose flour; 1 1/2 t. baking powder; 1/2 t. sea salt; 4 T. milk
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9 1/2 inch spring form pan. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Then add the cocoa and chips and stir until melted then remove from heat and set aside. Whip egg whites until creamy stiff and set aside. Whip yolks in another bowl until foamy then beat in sugar. Slowly start adding the warm chocolate mixture into the egg yolks and sugar while beating. Then sift in the flour, baking powder and sea salt mixture and mix well. Add milk and mix until smooth. Gently fold in the egg whites until completely incorporated trying to keep everything as fluffy as you possibly can. Pour into pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

From the book A colorful cookbook – Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. A book full of beautiful photographs and tasty recipes.

Ingredients: 5 1/2 T. unsalted butter softened; 1/2 c. confectioners sugar; 1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder; 3 T. milk; 2 heaping t. honey
Preparation

Whip the butter and the sugar together then add in the cocoa powder and whip. Add the milk and honey and whip until smooth. I think I almost doubled the frosting but hey, I like frosting.