She's Got a Muffintop

This was definitely last week's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge....but you can read my last post to learn why this is out of order, because I definitely had my ingredients in time to bake these the end of last week.

~Apple Muffins~
Mix together dry ingredients: 1.75 cups flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Whisk together 2 eggs and 1.5 cups light brown sugar.
Add 1/2 stick melted butter.
Stir in 1 cup sour cream.
Mix in dry ingredients slowly.
Stir in 1 cup of pecans (or walnuts), chopped.
Stir in small pieces of 2 diced apples (small, or in my case 1.5 medium apples).

Pour into muffin cups (in a tin), 3/4 full.

Streusel Topping: 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons softened butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Mix together and drizzle on each muffin before baking.

Bake 20 minutes at 400F.
Cool on a rack before removing muffins from tin.
Store in airtight container (refrigerate after 1 day).

Enjoy them warm! I forgot to photograph until after I took a bite...



The first batch looked weirder than the 2nd, because the original streusel recipe called for 1.5 T of butter and it was not quite fluid enough to drizzle, and I had to spread on with a knife, so it went on thick and the tops of the muffins didn't crack. But so delicious! And I was too lazy to take and upload pictures of the more attractive batch. Just believe me when I say they tasted amazing!

YUM ALL GONE!

~*~

Cheesecakepie

So, I am kind of doing my Iron Chef Blogger Challenges out of order, here. But I had a pie crust in my fridge I needed to use, and when Kevin and I shopped for ingredients for last week's recipe, we also got the fixings for a cheesecake, because for some reason, they call it a cake even though you bake it in a pie crust! Both apple muffins and lime cheesecake were on the agenda for the weekend, and two things convinced us (well, me, since I do all the work anyway) to do the cheesecakepie first:

1. Cheesecake has to chill overnight, and Kevin needed to help me eat it before he left for LA again!
2. Upon returning from the store, I found that the next ingredient was cream cheese, and I just so happened to have bought 16 ounces of the stuff!

~Lime Cheesecake~
First of all, you're supposed to use a graham cracker crust. The pie crust I had was regular pie crust, but the only other pie Kevin wanted was apple, and that requires 2 crusts. So we settled on cheesecake! It isn't as decadent as graham cracker crust, but still tasty!

For the filling: Blend together two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese with 2/3 cup of sugar (oh, I 2/3s a recipe that wanted 3 packages and a larger pie mold). This works best with a mixer, but I don't have one, so I let it soften on the stovetop as I cooked dinner, then cut it up before putting in the bowl, and used 2 whisks to simulate a mixer. Yeah, I'm that awesome.

Stir in 2 or 3 eggs (it calls for 5, so 2/3 of that!) one at a time.
Stir in 2/3 cup sour cream.
Stir in 1 tsp vanilla (the recipe we "used" didn't call for it, but others did, so I added it).
Stir in 3/8 cup lime juice and the zest of 1 lime.

I'm pretty sure that's all that was in the filling. I kind of Frankenstein'ed a few recipes because the original one we had wanted crazy things to be done (baking it surrounded by water??) and actually wanted the low-fat version of cream cheese that I saw for the first time at the store (and didn't buy!).

Bake at 350?F for 45 minutes.
Let cool, then refrigerate overnight.

It was tasty!

~*~

Meat Purse Filled with Cheese!

Kevin came to visit this weekend, and as always I had the task of feeding him. He's kind of picky, but he enthusiastically volunteered chicken cordon bleu as a dinner idea, so I found a recipe and dragged him to Safeway. Even though I did most of the work while he watched Venture Brothers (oh, I guess he did make the rice pilaf Riceroni!), it was fun and delicious!

~Chicken Cordon Bleu~
Cut 4 slices of swiss cheese and 4 slices of ham into halves. Stack 2 of each and roll up (cheese on the inside). Fold a thin chicken breast around each and secure closed with toothpicks so you have 4 meat purses (hehe).


To bread, set up 3 bowls:
1. Flour
2. Egg Wash: 1 egg, 1/4 cup water -- whisked together
3. Seasoned bread crumbs (note: I overlooked this part when I went shopping, so I had to toast and cut up bread and mix with Tony's Seasoning to make my own; it looked pretty neat, but they were too big and hard on the roof of the mouth, so I don't recommend it!)

Dip in that order and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, toothpick-side up (I guarantee your meat purses will leak delicious melted cheese!)


Bake 25 minutes at 350 F.

Serve with rice pilaf!

~*~

Knitting My Troubles Away

All fall and winter I have been working on a red and black scarf for Kevin, yarn and dimensions of his choosing. It was really small gauge (I couldn't tell you how small because I'm a pretty ghetto knitter -- in fact, I learned that I don't know how to knit, only how to purl!) so it took forevererer! Knitting about 10 rows of 30 stitches each per ~hour-long episode of House or Dexter, I'd say I spent about 45 hours just knitting, and let's say another 3 going back to pick up a lost stitch -- 2 whole days! Also, I ran out of yarn and had to get more RIGHT before Christmas when Joann's was having a sale and sold out of the colors I needed!! I went to 4 or 5 Joann's before I finally obtained what I needed to finish.


It is heavy but very soft! Kevin loves it. I gave it to him on our 7-monthiversary, and it matches the bracelet I made him with magnetic clasps (which he picked out during that first trip to Joann's when he picked out the yarn!)

~*~

I'll Bring Home the Turkey If You Bring Home the...

BACON!

Kevin really wanted me to choose bacon when it was my turn, but I picked mushrooms instead and included bacon in my stuffed mushrooms. Well, someone picked bacon this week, so I get another go, and I chose to bake something.

~Maple Bacon Biscuits~

First, cook 1 12-ounce package of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, in a frying pan. I used low sodium bacon. Pat dry on paper towels to rid of excess grease.

Whisk together 3.5 cups flour, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 2 Tablespoons baking powder (recipe calls for 1, but my roommate Will told me to routinely double that to make stuff rise better), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cut in 2 sticks of butter "until it resembles small peas", whatever the hell that means. This part was very hard, so do your best.

Stir in bacon, 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons maple syrup (I used regular Ralph's brand pancake syrup, because I have a lot of it, which may have been a mistake, but they tasted good to me), and 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk. Mix together until the dough comes together; it will still be clumpy. I suggest using flour to help with this process.

Roll out the dough to 1-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 2-inch rounds (I didn't have a cookie cutter, so I used the 1/4 cup measure, and it worked okay). This should make about 24 biscuits.

Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

While they are chilling, mix together egg wash: 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream.

Brush the egg was on the biscuits and sprinkle 1 pinch of coarse sea salt on each biscuit (I didn't have coarse sea salt and wasn't going to buy it just for this, so I used a salt grinder that had course sea salt inside of it -- salt is salt!).

Place 1-2 inches apart on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon of maple syrup (here I think the type of syrup is important...I probably really should have used maple, because mine came out REALLY sticky!) on each biscuit and bake for ~3 minutes more.

You tasted breakfast before you even got them in your mouth -- it was amazing! They were really sticky, which took away from the quality, in my opinion, because I don't like food that is too messy (sticky) to eat, but they were tasty. I brought them with me to LA when I visited Kevin, and he nommed on them pretty good.

~*~

Easy, Brie-zy

This week's ingredient was: brie!

Irony of ironies, the day before this ingredient was announced, Kevin and I picked up some brie and sourdough at Safeway to snack upon. But not quite enough left to do anything with, so another grocery trip was in order.

I shopped by myself this time around because Kevin was home with a fever -- pobrecito! That fact also resulted in a strange combination of foods in the meal.

I made Kevin soup out of chicken broth and rice noodles. For Iron Chef Blogger Challenge I made: quesadillas! Weird combo, I know, but if you ignore that fact, it was a tasty and filling meal!

For two quesadillas, split 1/2 pound of brie (including the rind, which I had to cut away from, so less than that), and diced: 1 roma tomato, half of an avocado, and 3 green onions. Using Kevin's new handy dandy sandwich grill (from Fry's -- impulse buy!), I melted the brie in the large, whole grain tortillas. When the brie was melted, it got everywhere! Then I added mixed veggies and served.

The brie was very mild, but the veggies added some good flavor. We added that red sauce you see at Asian restaurants, and it was pretty good, too. Quite the confusing combo of foods, but who cares as long as it tastes delicious?

~*~