Miniature Blueberry Cheesecake Bites

YUM.

Okay, I've never made cheesecake before. I don't think I've ever even considered what's in it. There's no flour or anything, so I think its more like a pie than a cake. But I digress. I asked my friend what to make him for his birthday (which was three days ago, oh well) and he said he'd rather have blueberry cheesecake over a traditional birthday cake. So, here I am making cheesecake for the first time.

& It is SUPER easy to make. I decided to make them in cupcake liners because, well, cheesecake (cheesepie?) is very rich, and a bite or two is all you really need. Plus, they cook and cool quicker, so for those of you who are impatient to sample your baked goods- this is the recipe for you.

Ingredients

For The Crust
100 grams of graham crackers (grams of grahams!)
half a stick of butter, melted
tablespoon sugar

For The Cheesecake
16 ounces of cream cheese
4 ounces sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

How To Do It
1. Crush the graham crackers until finely crumbled. Add sugar and melted butter and stir. Mixture should be chunky but still pretty crumbly.

2. Spoon tablespoonfuls of crust mixture into cupcake paper-lined muffin tin. Use your thumbs to press the mix down into a solid pat. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

3. To make the cheesecake mixture, start with cream cheese at room temperature. Blend well with sour cream and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and the vanilla, mixing well after each addition.

4. Spoon cheese mixture into the cupcake liners, only about 3/4 from the top.

5. Dot the top with blueberries, or another berry if you prefer. I also sprinkled some of the leftover graham cracker mix on the top for a little extra garnish and crunch.

6. Bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes, or until cheesecakes puff up slightly and start to color.

7. Let cool IN BAKING PAN for 15 minutes or so, then remove and let cool in the refrigerator for a few hours.

THE Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

... & I'm VERY picky with chocolate chip cookies!

They were probably the first thing I learned to bake "from scratch"-- following the ingredient list on the back of a bag of TollHouse milk chocolate chips. This is just a variation of those same ingredients (minus any baking powder), yet the ratio makes a much more perfect cookie.

Perfect, to me means they get that good molasses flavor, and turn out slightly crispy on the outside yet still soft in the middle.

These are the perfect cookies.

ingredients:

1 cup flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (the real stuff)
1 egg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips




1. whisk together dry ingredients in small bowl; set aside.

2. cream butter for two minutes. add sugars and cream until well blended. add vanilla and egg.

3. slowly blend whisked flour mixture into the butter mixture.

4. stir in chocolate chips, refrigerate for half an hour.

5. place in rounded balls on parchment paper or a well greased cookie sheet.

6. bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Baked Purple Potato Chips

Behold! Purple potatoes.



Mmm, mm! Potato chips! Who doesn't love potato chips? And better yet, who doesn't love them when they're PURPLE!





Super easy recipe! Just slice the potatoes (I used "purple fingerling" ones, but any will do) with a mandolin slicer. Then in a bowl, combine with a hefty swig of canola oil and salt and pepper. Place the potato slices on parchment paper and bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes depending on how soft/crispy you want them. Then just try to wait for them to cool off a bit before you eat them all.

Nutella Swirled Bundt Cake

Interesting note!
When, at my parents lakehouse, I decided to make a bundt cake, my mom told me her bundt pan was the AUTHENTIC bundt, and she showed me the engraving on the bottom that said "Nordic Ware". Sure enough she was right! Nordic Ware trademarked the bundt in 1950. Read all about the history of this interesting-shaped cake here.

So, I chose to do a nutella swirl cake for two reasons:

1. I LOVE nutella, duhhh.
2. I have never "swirled" a cake before

For the cake recipe, I used the tried-and-true "Basic Yellow Cake" recipe from Martha Stewart (the "other" Martha, as my mom is a Martha, too.) The recipe can be found here. Her recipe calls for one 8-inch cake (about 3 cups of batter). To fit my authentic bundt pan, I doubled her recipe, but if your pan is bigger or smaller, you should adjust accordingly. I will print the recipe doubled as I executed it.



Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
2 2/3 cups cake flour (not self rising)
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup milk




1. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs one at a time. Add Vanilla.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt
3. Add flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture in small, alternating increments


The Nutella Batter
4. Take 1 cup nutella, blend with one egg
5. Add about 1/3 or slightly less of the cake batter to the nutella mixture and blend



6. Now that you have two batters, marble them together in the bundt pan by layering them and swirling with a knife.
7. Bake at 350 for about an hour
8. Dust with confectioners sugar or, if you really want to go all the way, a thin layer of nutella :-D !!

Chunky Tomato Basil Soup

My mom read this blog yesterday for the first time; she made the interesting note that so far I have been remaking all of my childhood favorites. Well, this is certainly no exception. Campbell's tomato soup and grilled cheese was definitely my comfort food. This tomato soup though is way, way better. Its chunky and delicious and perfect for dunking grilled cheese in!

ingredients
3 pounds ripe, hothouse tomatos
2 small yellow onions
2 cloves garlic
Olive oil
Salt / pepper
Basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup half and half
1 Cup Milk (or stock for a less creamy soup)




1. The first step is to peel the tomatos. You can roast and then peel, but then you loose too much tomato. The best thing to do is blanch the fruits in boiling water for a few minutes, then transfer them immediately to cold water. The skins should just slide off. (Is anyone else a bit grossed out by the fleshiness of raw tomatoes?)

2. Half the peeled tomatoes and throw into a deep roasting pan, with a hearty swig of olive oil and the chopped onion and minced garlic. Add a pinch of salt and pepper now if you want. Roast at 400 for 25-30 minutes.

3. After roasting, put the tomato mixture into a food processor and puree it.

4. Add the pureed mixture to a soup pot, adding the half and half and the stock/milk as you desire. Then, season and spice! Cook for about 10-15 minutes until hot and well seasoned. Enjoy!

Hand Made Pop-Tarts

Pop tarts were a favorite of mine as a kid. I used to eat them even if I didn't prefer the pastry's specific flavor- I would just eat the crust off of it all around. But have you ever looked at the ingredient list? If not, know this: it includes bleached, processed flour with tons of preservatives and flavor "enhancers". Also, the box says they are "made with real fruit" (which I suppose isn't a lie) and yet a closer examination of the label reveals that the "real fruit" content is really "less than 2%". Not to mention all the added high fructose corn syrup-- yikes!!! Read a nutrition label and ingredient list here, from the Kellog website directly. Now, this isn't to say that my home-made pop tarts are necessarily a health food (as I have always viewed any pastry as a dessert rather than a breakfast) but at least they are void of all of this American, corporate, factory-made bullshit. Plus, they are way, way yummier.

First, know that pie dough is one of the trickiest things to make! It seems so simple; it is, after all, a mixture of simply flour, butter, sugar and water! They are the most basic ingredients of baking-- but don't let that fool you! While the recipe seems easy, it's the technique that makes the difference between a hard, crunchy blanket of butter and a flakey, delicious pie crust! My favorite foodie blog, The Purple Foodie, recently posted a GREAT pie dough 101, complete with tons of very helpful hints! I highly suggest reading it if you aren't already an expert at pie dough! And even if you are- you might learn something.
So here's how I did it...



**note** This is a doubled recipe, as the original only makes one 9'inch pie crust, and I wanted to make a few more pop tarts than that. If you want, go ahead and half the recipe.


Crust (Basic Pie Dough) into Pop-Tarts!

Ingredients
3 cups flour
3 sticks butter
4 tbsp confectioner's sugar
1/3 cup ice water (more or less)
egg whites, beaten


preheat: 400 F

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour and confectioner's sugar.

2. Dice butter into cubes; If you're using a pastry smashing device (which I don't have at the moment), larger chunks are okay. If you're doing this by hand (like me!) the smaller the cubes, the better! Work butter into mixture with smasher (or hands) until it is crumbly, with the biggest chunks of butter left pea-sized.

3. Mix in the ice water with a fork a spoon at a time, until the dough sticks together but isn't too dry.

4. Refrigerate ball of dough for about an hour.

5. Take a fist-sized ball of dough. Work into a rectangle on a floured board, roll dough out. Scoop either jam, peanut butter, Nutella, chocolate pieces, apple slices, or whatever else you want onto one half of the rolled-out rectangle. Fold the dough over; crimp the sides with a fork or fingers.

6. Place pastries on parchment paper or a VERY well-greased baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg white and dust with a big of sugar if you want.

7. Bake 15-20 minutes, "or until golden brown" (ahhh num!)


Let cool and enjoy!

Minestrone Soup

Once, I looked up what "minestrone" soup meant, since the recipes are so many and varied. It boils down to this: Menstra is Italian for soup and -one is a suffix meaning "the big one". So Minestrone is "the big soup", literally, but colloquially means a (usually) vegetable soup made up of whatever leftover vegetables are in season, plus some sort of pasta or rice. Thus, everyone's is different and so are the recipes. Its great though, because you can tweak it to be precisely to your taste.



My mom got this excellent recipe from Cooks illustrated; when I recreated it, this is how mine ended up:


3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 sweet onion, peeled and diced
4 small ribs celery, chopped
1 baking potato, chopped
4 cups spinach leaves, sliced into strips
8 cups water
1 cup finely grated parmesean cheese
salt, pepper
28 oz can whole tomatoes, sliced
1 can cannelloni beans (white kidney beans)
whole wheat bowtie pasta


1. Finely chop all the vegetables (except the beans) and add to the soup pot with about 8 cups of water.

2. Cook on medium heat uncovered, stirring occasionally for about 1 hour

3. Add bow tie pasta, cook until al dente (8 minutes)

4. Add beans, heat and stir until temperature is even

5. Serve and enjoy

Baked Apple Crisps

Little says "Hey, autumn!" like the smell of baking apples.

So if you don't have the time and wherewithal for an apple pie, try these baked apple crisps instead!



Mmmmm how yum do these look? They're super easy to make and disappear quite fast. The steps are simple... first, select an apple. I've tried this both with red delicious and teeny tiny gala apples.

Then, slice the apple with a mandolin slicer (Bed Bath and Beyond, guys. Not expensive and comes in handy for lots of kitchen tasks!)

Immediately put the slices in a bowl with water and a splash of lemon juice. The acidity keeps the apple from turning brown. Orange juice works as well, and adds a tangy flavor.



Place the apple slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, or anything else you might want.




Then bake them at your ovens lowest setting-- mine was 200 degrees-- for 1.5 to 2 hours, or more or less depending on how gooey/crispy you like 'em.

I know thats a LONG time to wait for apple chips but it has the added effect of making your home smell great!

Faux-reos

Okay! So yesterday was a lazy Saturday and I decided to indulge my sweet tooth. There's two recipes I've been wanting to try- one for homemade oreos over at the Smitten Kitchen blog, as well as a "cookies from cake" recipe from allrecipes.com. I decided to combine the two- instead of making the chocolate cookies from scratch, I made them from a box of cake mix. The EASIEST cookies EVER, and they turned out perfectly! I used to be a huuuge oreo fan (I ate them not by the cookie but by the "sleeve") but now, I can't bring myself to eat even one. Something about the trans-fat laden animal lard in the center... throws off my appetite. Well, these are still pretty fatty and sugary but nowhere near as disturbing to think about! So indulge!



What You Need


1 box chocolate cake mix (dark chocolate is preferable)
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

8 oz cream cheese
1-2 cups confectioners sugar



The cookies! First, preheat your oven! 325 degrees F. Combine the cake mix, eggs, and oil in a bowl and whip it up! Since the full amount of cake batter is used with fewer eggs and less oil than the actual cake would call for, the batter will be SUPER thick and sticky! Place teaspoon-sized balls of chocolate-y gooey goodness on either a VERY greased baking sheet or parchment paper. Now, unlike regular butter cookies, these will not melt into shape in the oven. Gently flatten the balls with either a greased spoon or wet fingers as they will be sticky! Then bake 10-12 minutes or until slightly firm. They will firm up when they cool off so don't overcook them! Let them cool on a baking rack.

The filling! I was initially going to make a butter icing, but that is so plain and I've done it too much. So I decided to make a cream cheese frosting, it turned out quite nicely! Blend 8 oz of cream cheese with 1-2 cups confectioners sugar, depending on how sweet (or not!) you want them. Then, put a glob in the center of one cookie and press down with another. Voila! Creamy sandwich cookie.

try not to eat them all!

Cornbread

Ingredients
1 1/2 Cups Cornmeal
1/2 Cup Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon or more Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Soda
1/4 Cup Oil (not olive)
1 1/2 Cups Buttermilk
2 Eggs



1. Heat oven to 450
2. Place oil in pan and heat in oven
3. Mix dry ingredients and liquid ingredients in separate bowls
4. Carefully add the oil to mixture and pour back into pan
5. Bake 25-30 minutes

Auntie Ann's Kugel

INGREDIENTS

1/2 C Butter melted, reserve 2 Tbls for topping
12 oz Extra Wide Egg Noodles, slightly undercooked
8 oz Sour Cream
1 Lb Cottage Cjeese
2Tbls Sugar (or more!)
3 Eggs Seperated
handful of Crushed Corn Flakes




1. Mix all ingredients except egg whites and corn flakes
2. Beat whites until fluffy, gently fold into mixture
3. Pour into greased 9x13 baking dish
4. Top with cornflakes and drizzle with melted butter
5. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes