Showing posts with label snack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snack. Show all posts

Monday, April 26, 2010

Mini Leek and Asparagus Quiches

So my brother calls me up the other day and says "Hey, I'm making mini quiches, want to come take pictures?" To which I responded "Of course!"

I mean not only is cooking with my brother a good time in general, but I would be able to use both hands to hold the camera and I wouldn't even have to do the dishes (I'd get to eat some too, of course). How could I not? Heh. So I head over to his house and he has everything all set to go. He was making them lightish, so we have a couple eggs, but also some egg substitute, half and half, a little milk, Gruyere and Parmesan. First he prepped and roasted the leeks and asparagus. These leeks were extra sandy and wound up coming apart when he washed them, but it worked out fine in the end. Then it was just grating the cheese, whipping up the egg mixture and prepping the phyllo. He made little cups of the dough in muffin tins, filled them with the veggies and cheese and then the egg mixture. Then he cooked them up. A little spillage, but that's no big deal. There was a minor issue getting them out of the tin (and into, but that's phyllo for you), but nothing a little perseverance couldn't fix. Again, no big deal. But the bottom line, how did they taste? They were fantastic, you couldn't tell they weren't full fat. Plus they reheat well, which makes them perfect for a quick breakfast or snack.

And because I think so highly of you all I'll even ask my brother for the recipe that I forgot to write down while I was there. Heh.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Toasted Marshmallow Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup mini marshmallows, cut in half.

Preheat the oven to 375 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Beat butter and peanut butter until combined. Add the baking soda, baking powder and both sugars, beat until combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla, until combined. Beat in the flour (by hand is easiest, it will be a very stiff dough). Fold in the marshmallows. Roll generous tablespoons of dough into 1" balls and place them on the prepped sheet. Bake for 7-9 minutes, let cool on the tray for a minute or two then transfer to a cooking rack.
(adapted from BH&G Ultimate Cookie Book or UCB)

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Ok, you ready? Here is the deep, meaningful back story to these cookies. I wanted to bake something and I didn't want to leave the apartment. I had peanut butter and marshmallows. That's it. I didn't even scour the nets for a recipe. I still haven't made that many cookies from the UCB, which I got for Christmas, so I decided to step away from my go-to recipe and try out their classic peanut butter cookie. The marshmallows were the only adaptation from me, but they turned out wicked good. It's a good recipe, different levels of butter (my go to has half shortening, making them crispier) and different ratios of baking soda/powder made these a little thinner. I think. Well, I know they are thinner, but I don't know for a fact that that's why. Anyway, they are quite good, I think I like the slightly chewier and more buttery flavor of all butter over half and half with shortening. Let's make these things.

Pretty standard cookie making here. First I mixed the butter and peanut butter. Added the sugars, baking powder and soda.More mixing. Egg and vanilla, mix again. Now the flour. The recipe said add it a bit at a time, using an electric mixer. Once it started getting hard on the mixer it said to stop and use a spoon. I said screw all that and did the whole recipe by hand. Because I'm like that. So I just dumped it all in, mixed it up and folded in the marshmallows. I didn't have minis, those would have been easiest. I had the bigguns and I cut them into half inch pieces. Or so. Then I rolled them into 1" (or so) balls and made an attempt at crosshatches. The marshmallows made that tricky, but it worked well enough. Then baked for 7-9 minutes and out. Lovely. You want to let them sit for a minute before trying to move them. Otherwise the marshmallow will be too liquid and the cookies too soft and it will just be a disaster. Crap, I should have taken a picture of that. But I ate it. Oh well. I liked the way the marshmallows toast up, it adds a nice level of flavor. So next time you want something that's familiar but a little but different or don't feel like leaving the house to get more ingredients, give these a shot. Now, when I'm making peanut butter cookies I always use chunky peanut butter. I like the texture the extra peanut bits gives. But I've known people who will only use smooth. What kind do you folks use when you make peanut butter cookies?

Friday, September 18, 2009

Egg, Bacon and Cheese Biscuit Cups

1 tube of large size, flaky biscuits
3 eggs
2-3 tbls heavy cream
1-2 strips of bacon, cooked and cut into 1/2" pieces
sharp cheddar cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375. Prep a muffin tin by spraying it with nonstick spray (or rub it down with butter). Open the biscuits and and separate each biscuit horizontally into two rounds. Gently pull or roll them until they are big enough to line the tin to the top and press them firmly into the muffin tin. Whisk together the eggs, salt, pepper and cream. Fill each cup about 3/4 of the way with the egg mixture and top with cheese and some bacon. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until the eggs are cooked all the way. If the biscuits start to get too brown around the edges cover the pan with foil.

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Ok, I wasn't going to make these quite so soon but I really couldn't help myself. I was thinking about it all night last night and when I got up today it just had to happen. I had some concerns, mainly how the timing of egg vs biscuit would work, but it all turned out fine. In fact, more than fine. Phenomenal. As in "I'll give you my car if I can have the last one" kind of good. I ate six of them in about two seconds and still wanted more. But, I had to save the rest for my girlfriend or else she would harm me. And besides, those ones didn't have cheese, so they'll only be spectacular instead of phenomenal. This version is very simple, but you could put anything in the egg, provided you diced it small enough. Anything you would eat in an omelet would be awesome. But less talk, more rock.

First I cooked some bacon. I believe my feelings on bacon are fairly well known to anyone who reads my blog. Then I cracked three eggs into a bowl and added some heavy cream, salt and pepper. I had wanted to use milk, but we didn't have any. Tragic, isn't it? Mixed that up well and moved on to the biscuits. These are the ones I used. You can use any brand you like, but they need to be flaky and large. I'm sure you could use homemade too, but part of the thrill of these is the ease. Plus homemade aren't quite as pliable as the tubes of goo are. Now, if they aren't flaky you can't pull them in half horizontally like this. Which is important, if you don't do that then the cups will be too thick. You should also use two hands, it makes it much easier. Now you just pull them, a bit like pizza dough, till they are big enough to fill the muffin tins all the way to the top. It takes two hands and my girlfriend wasn't home, so I don't have pictures of that I'm afraid. You also want to be careful not to rip the dough, holes in the cups let the filling ooze out. Then you just fill the muffin tins. Like this. Press them in pretty firmly, don't be shy. It's pretty hard to hurt tube biscuits.Then you fill each one about three quarters of the way with the egg mixture. It took about one and a half tablespoons, I think. I would also like to point out that I guessed at how many eggs I would need and it came out exactly right. Score. Then you just put a little cheese on top and some bacon. I like sharp cheddar with eggs, but you could use whatever you like. It's all good. Then it was into the oven for ten minutes. I pulled them out and the egg hadn't finished cooking, but the cups were already pretty brown. So I loosely covered them with foil and popped them back in for another couple minutes. Then they were done. There was a little overflow, I think from when I covered them and stuck my thumb in one. But whatever. Here's a cross section, for those who like that kind of thing. So like I said, they were amazing. I would make them over and over. Next time I'm going to put some finely diced peppers and onions in, like a Western omelet. What would you put in them?


Friday, January 16, 2009

Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp raspberry extract


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease baking sheets.

With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars together at medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs, raspberry extract and vanilla, beating well.

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, and baking powder; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Stir in baking pieces. Drop cookies by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets. Bake 12 to 14 minutes.

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Ok, first off is the disclaimer: this recipe isn't terribly thrilling. The cookies aren't bad by any stretch, just not so great. The texture wasn't what I had been led to believe it would be and they weren't really chocolatey enough for my tastes. They didn't spread at all, so they were kind of dense and they weren't chewy like they were said to be. I got the recipe from Paula Deen, removed the chocolate chips and added raspberry extract. The flavor was all right (although it could use more chocolate and... something. I probably should have put some chips in.), but the texture was rather lacking and they didn't look anything like the pictures on Food Networks website (even taking into account the lack of chips). I don't know what went wrong, maybe someone can tell me. One odd thing was the recipe didn't call for salt. I was thinking that could have been the flavor problem, but I used salted butter, so there was some salt in there. Anyway, here it is.

I did them up just like normal, butter and sugars, creamed. Vanilla and raspberry extract, then eggs. Well, just the one since I halved the recipe. Mixed that together. I added the dry ingredients. Now I didn't mix them together ahead of time, but I almost never do and it's never made a big difference before. I did mix them together after dumping them all in... that should count, right? Right. Ok. Mixed that up. This is some seriously stiff dough here. Feels like a fudgey butter cream frosting. You know, the kind you can't spread so you have to press pieces of it to the cake? Like that. So then I dropped tablespoons of it onto a parchment lined baking sheet and baked them up. They barely even changed shape. They still had the finger dent from when I popped them out of the tablespoon. On the plus side, this one looks like the Millennium Falcon. Good thing I only made a half batch. Which I ate all of. Heh. So what happened? Why didn't they spread? Why aren't they chewy? WTF?

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