When Life Gives You Lemons

Make pants.

You heard me.  Ok so maybe there isn’t a direct correlation there but the end of the story has to do with pants.  |For instance, when your ex-fiancee moves out and decides either consciously or sub-consciously that he isn’t going to take a large portion of his belongings with him, I could have chosen several different adventures.  Bother him, give it to goodwill, clean it up, dump it in the street – the possibilities are endless.  Instead, I chose to try to turn a negative event into a positive one in a mature attempt to move on.

The negative:

OK, yeah.   It’s a shirt- so what?   I agree, one shirt is no big deal.  But it’s his shirt.  Now picture 20 of these.  Not trying to be a hateful person but, uh, I want as little amount of reminders as I possibly can have of him.

Now that there is a little kid running around my house, I took the emotion out of the t-shirts and thought quite plainly:  t-shirts = fabric.  So instead of dumping all this unwanted t-shirts on me, he actually had provided me with several pounds of fabric that I could use to make clothes for the little kiddo.

Since I am a tomboy who plays hockey, I have started teaching the Girl how to play hockey, too.  For a 3-year old  she has a pretty wicked backhand.  I thought I could use these old hockey shirts to make her something of her very own that she could wear when she came down to watch my games and play hockey with the other little kids.

Her own hockey pants!  I found the tutorial here.  It is seriously one of the easiest tutorials to make, and I am always impressed by how cool the pants look despite how little measuring and planning that go into them.  She loves them.  Every time she wakes up and Daddy picks up these pants, she gets so excited because she knows that means she gets to go to see a hockey game.  The other guys and gals at the rink recognize the shirt and are just in amazement of how cool it is that she is now wearing it as pants.  So, in a roundabout way, ex-fiancee, thank you.

 

Beer Bread

There’s nothing like having double your carb calories by baking a delicious loaf of fresh beer bread, am I right?  ”Fresh bread,” you say, “Doesn’t that take all day to make?”

If by all day, you mean five minutes with ingredients you already have on hand, then get ready to clear your plans.  I have really found that the crappiest beer has yielded the best results.  Perhaps this would be a golden opportunity for some of you to try the new Bud Light Platinum?  For me personally, I used a very limited edition $0.33 can of Walgreen’s own Big Flatts Premium brew.  Hey – better a fate than up a chicken’s ass!

  5-Minute Beer Bread
Adapted from A Pastry Affair

Yields 1 loaf

3 cups bread flour (all-purpose will also work)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
12 ounce can or bottle of beer (the shittier the better)
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Pour in beer and mix until just incorporated. Spread batter evenly in prepared baking pan. Pour melted butter over the top of the dough.  Dough will be very thick.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is browned. Allow to cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before serving.  Or don’t.

Try it in chunks on top of your favorite soup.  Pictured here atop baked potato and bacon chowder.

Pum is King

 

It’s pretty accepted around here that Southern Tier is the best widely-available pumpkin beer out there.   A lot of breweries whip up something special for the October month and many of those one-offs are delicious but it’s nothing like waiting for Pumking to come out every year, and the first one of the season is always an indication that fall is truly here.

So, logically, I put it into some cupcakes.  Clearly this was not so I could drink the rest…

 

This recipe comes out so spongy and delicious, maybe it’s because it uses a box cake mix – GASP!  The icing calls for 4 C. Confectioner’s sugar (holy shit!) but I put in about half of that.  I like to be able to taste the cream cheese in the icing before my teeth start throbbing.  In the interest of time, I did not make the topping, however it looked amazing.  Thank you Snappy Gourmet for posting the recipe!

 

Ingredients

• Cake:
• 1 (18.25oz) yellow cake mix
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3/4 cup pumpkin ale
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• Frosting:
• 2 (8oz) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• Streusel:
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (such as walnuts or pecans)
• 1/4 brown sugar (or granulated sugar)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin pans with 24 paper liners.
2. Add cake mix to large mixing bowl. Add pumpkin, beer, eggs, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Stir or whisk until just combined. Spoon batter evenly into prepared pans.
3. Bake cupcakes for about 19-23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean. Cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, prepare streusel but mixing together flour, nuts, brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in small bowl. Cut in 6 tablespoons butter with pastry blender or knives until mixture is crumbly. Spread out on a large baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper or silpat (or aluminum foil).
5. Bake streusel at 350 degrees F for about 20-30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, or until desired crunchiness. Cool completely.
6. For frosting, beat together cream cheese and 1/2 cup butter with electric mixer on medium speed until well combined. Beat in vanilla. Slowly beat in powdered sugar until desired sweetness and consistency.
7. To assemble, frost cooled cupcakes as desired and top with streusel crumbles. Store cupcakes in fridge but let sit at room temperature a few minutes before serving for best results.

Coffee Goddess

Occasionally I actually come up with something on my own and don’t steal it from Tastespotting.  I swear, it happens!  It happened just the other night in fact when my boyfriend brought home a bottle of Espresso Vodka.

“Do you have anything we could mix with this?”

Ha.  Who does he think he’s talking to?

I laid out two kinds of Kahlua, Amaretto Cream, Jameson, Coffee Liqueur, Godiva Cappuccino Liqueur, Two flavors of sugar-free DaVinci syrups, and two bottles of Bailey’s.

You were saying?

I present to you, my very own:

Coffee Goddess

• 2.5 oz. Espresso Vodka
• 1 oz. Godiva Cappuccino Liqueur
• 1/2 oz. DaVinci sugar-free chocolate syrup
• 1/2 oz. Heavy Cream

Shake into a shaker with ice, strain and serve into a dark chocolate-crusted rim.

Cheers!

Les Pommes!

Ok so Oven Lesson #1:  Clean your oven regularly (see previous post).  Oven Lesson #2: Don’t mistake the oven ‘cancel’ button for the timer ‘cancel’ button.

“I wonder why it’s not browning on top”.  I stared into the oven at 7 minute intervals, each revealing the same result as the last.  Something just wasn’t adding up here.  It should have been black for as long as I had had it in the oven.

Then it hit me.  I had turned the oven off a looong time ago, thinking it was the timer.  There was no telling how long that cake had sat in there and at what temperature.  This is when veteran baking experience comes in handy.  Just knowing when something is ‘done’.  Hey maybe mine didn’t look exactly like the picture of the one before it, and yea maybe I added some cinnamon thus making the cake less French, but, obviously at this point I’m just glad it was edible.  Even better than edible.  It was so tart and sweet, with a spongy buttery cake holding it all together.  Plus, my favorite:

IT HAD BOOZE IN IT

Cool thing about this recipe (besides the fact it clearly survives fuck-ups) is that it’s so simple.  I had all the ingredients on hand save for the Honeycrisp apples.

It is a Dorie Greenspan recipe but I found it here:

Oh, autumn.  How I love thee.

Fire in the Hole

You know that awkward moment when you’re making your boyfriend a cheesecake and your oven catches on fire?  No?

Let’s just tell this story backwards: the cheesecake is fine.  It’s like the honey badger of cakes.  Surrounded by fire?  Pumpkin cheesecake don’t care, pumpkin cheesecake don’t give a shit!

We were watching Evil Dead in preparation to see the corresponding musical, and at about the same scene where the fog starts to creep through the forest (yes you’re right; that is about half of the movie) I started to smell something aflame.  Then the smoke started pouring out of the oven, filling my tiny kitchen with a dense fog.  I did not even have to open the oven before I saw the flames reaching up from the bottom of the oven, trying to steal my dessert!

I removed the cheesecake, mid-bake, from the oven and took the next two hours to run the self-clean operation all whilst trying to breathe and clear the air.  I then baked it a second time for what I thought was to be the remaining time, expecting disaster.

Nope.

Just creamy, delicious goodness.

Pumpkin Praline Cheesecake
Adapted from 20 Something Cupcakes

Larger-than-Life Praline Cheesecake

{via Rebecca Rather}

Ginger Crust:

• 2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies (about 40 cookies)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Pumpkin Filling:

• 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger {instead of using these 3 spices, I used 1 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice}

Praline Topping:

• 1 cup pecans {I used 1 1/2 cups}
• 1/2 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

To make the crust: Line the bottom of a 9- or 10-inch springform pan with parchment paper and coat with cooking spray or Baker’s Joy. In a large bowl, stir together the crushed gingersnaps with the melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

{You can also put a big pot of water on the stove to boil. You will need it boiling by the time you’re done with the filling}

To make the filling: Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl on medium-high speed about 1 minute, until fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating on medium-high for 20 seconds after each addition. Add the vanilla, pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger; beat on medium speed about 1 minute, until incorporated.

Pour the filling over the crust. Put the springform pan into a larger baking pan and set it on the center rack of the oven. Pour enough boiling water into the larger pan to reach halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Bake about 1 hour, until the filling is set and golden brown on top. Cool the cheesecake on a rack about 3o minutes, then chill for several hours or overnight. Remove the cheesecake from the springform pan and set it on a serving plate.

To make the praline topping: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the pecans on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast them for 7 to 9 minutes, until golden brown and aromatic. Coarsely chop the nuts.

Stir together the brown sugar, cream, and butter in a saucepan set over medium heat. Boil the mixture for about 1 1/2 minutes, adjusting the heat to make sure it does not boil over. Do not stir. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla, salt, and pecans. Cool the topping at least 15 minutes before pouring over the top of the chilled cheesecake. Serve immediately, or cover and chill until ready to serve. The cheesecake will keep, well wrapped, in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.

 

Needa ‘Rita

The thing I love most about margaritas is that lime complements so many other fruits, making it easy to throw in strawberries, peaches, or even watermelon to create something fresh and delicious.

We stopped at the Hills Market Farmers Market Saturday and picked up some of these babies:

They don't always come from a can.

I had high hopes to make peach ice cream, but I confess I did not want to wait two hours to eat the peaches.  I made them into something more instantly gratifying  I do have to thank my domestic partner for peeling said peaches for me, since I want to barf every time I touch peach fuzz.  My mom and her dad were the same way; apparently there’s an icky peach fuzz touchy gene?

Ye-auh!  These peaches were literally falling off of the pit they were so juicy.  Please enjoy my favorite (after trying several) recipe for peach margaritas, courtesy of We Are Not Martha:

• 3 peaches peeled and sliced
• 2 T fresh lime juice
• 1 C tequila
• 1/2 C triple sec (orange cointreau)
• 3 T honey
• 3 C ice  (I use closer to 4)

2 and you are SET.