I STILL HAVE A BLOG!

Hi everyone! It hasn't quite been a month since my last updated. I feel like I've been neglecting you all! I haven't, really; I've just been so busy with school this semester. Taking three writing classes is definitely do-able, but it's a whole lot of work! It's a damn good thing I don't have a job or anything. I'm right in the middle of midterms right now--last week I had to write an essay and two short stories, which doesn't seem like that much, but I put a full workday into one of those short stories and it's only a draft. (Everything is only a draft right now.) And much to my surprise, I'm totally rocking my Statistics class. Hooray!

Anyway, that's my life for now, and I have a recipe for you! I made this so long ago. I have so many things piled up on my camera that I stopped taking pictures of new things because they just weren't getting done with school. And I haven't had much time to cook, though I roasted a chicken for the first time ever a few weeks ago. This was made for my mom's birthday in August. It is yet another of Patricia's recipes over at Technicolor Kitchen--I'll admit, I have a total blog crush on her.

After my (arguable) success with the Strawberry Balsamic panna cotta, I was excited to try something new, but I generally have difficulty with the idea of making desserts just because. Unless it's something really easy--which it turns out this is! But unless I have all the ingredients on hand and it's only going to take a little while (like those peanut butter cookies*), chances are, I won't randomly make it. I'll wait for a special occasion of some sort, and given how much my mom loves Nutella, this seemed the perfect thing to do for her birthday.

RECIPE: Nutella Panna Cotta

not adapted at all from Technicolor Kitchen

Ingredients:

-1 tbsp powdered gelatin (I would imagine you could safely use less if you're not unmolding them)

-1 cup of Nutella (it's a lot of nutella)

-1/4 tsp salt

-1 1/2 cups heavy cream

-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

-1 cup whole milk

Instructions:

1. Whisk together the gelatin and 3 tbsp cold water in a medium-sized bowl. (Don't do it in something tiny--you'll be adding stuff to it.)

2. Put the nutella and salt in a different medium-sized bowl.

3. Pour the heavy cream and vanilla into a medium-sized saucepan, put it over medium heat, and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently.

4. Pour about a third of the vanilla and cream mixture into the bowl with the gelatin and whisk it together, then add that third back into the saucepan.

5. Pour about a third of the vanilla, cream and gelatin mixture into the bowl with the nutella and whisk until smooth. Add the rest of the vanilla-cream-gelatin mixture and whisk until smooth again, then add the milk and do it again.

6. Divide this mixture between ramekins or glasses or cups. Patricia says 8. I say 6-8. I think six would be a large amount, but it wouldn't be absurd. Instead of doing this, I saw that she put hers in teacups and thought it was adorable and I should do the same. Unless you have really small teacups, don't do this. You'll probably get sick. Divide it evenly between 6-8 different containers.

7. Refrigerate until set, then eat!

The end of Step 5: This recipe goes pretty quickly and I was cooking alone so I wasn't able to get pictures of all the earlier steps, but honestly, they would have been really boring. This is panna cotta in liquid form! I was amazed at how easily the nutella melted into everything else.

Right before eating. These teacups are deceptively large. The adorable pinkness and print always makes me think they're dainty little teacups, but no. Don't fill a teacup this size with panna cotta unless you really really want to binge on panna cotta. Of course, I'm stubborn, so once I started eating it I had to finish. Luckily I didn't feel all that disgusting afterward, but I'll definitely put it in smaller containers next time.

So...is it okay to talk about medical things on here? I hope so. I mean, it is MY blog. One reason I've been cooking less recently is because I have an ulcer (my doctor called it "peptic ulcer disease" but that sounds really bad, so I'm just saying an ulcer). I haven't been forbidden from any foods except soda, coffee, aspirin and advil (yes, aspirin and advil are foods) because different things irritate different people, so the best thing to do is apparently to eat stuff and then don't eat it again if it hurts you. However, this thing is friggen' painful. So if there's any chance that what I'm about to eat might cause a lot of pain, I'm avoiding it. Unfortunately, pretty much every food ever is potentially bad for an ulcer. If you look at that list, you may notice "garlic" is on it. And on the non-foods list of things you're not allowed to have with an ulcer is "stress." (Oh! Hi, midterms!) Unfortunately, a lack of garlic causes a lot of stress for me. Because of this and other similar problems, I've been ignoring the list and mostly just avoiding things that sound painful, but most of my "you should make this recipe" folder sounds sort of painful, so I'm restricted.

Does anyone have recommendations about what to eat with an ulcer that still has flavor?

Anyway, sorry for the medical stuff, and I hope you make the panna cotta! I would not be afraid to eat this right now, and it's super delicious. How can anything with nutella not be?

Chocolate Pudding, College-Style

So my classes started up yesterday. Hooray! I'm actually excited. So far, I like them all. Then again, I've only had 3 (out of 5) and only one session of each of those, so I might be completely wrong. I'm probably going to be super busy this semester with all my writing classes, but I'm going to do my best to update here at least once a week. Which really just means cooking something new at least once a week, which I'm usually good at. Recently I've been lazy. I blame knowing that school was about to start and allergies. Anyway.

Since I commute to school, I don't suffer from cafeteria food the way that most college students do. There was, though, a time when I lived in a dorm and had to eat at the dining hall for every meal. Our dorms didn't have any kitchenettes or anything, either. All we had was a refrigerator (mine was usually filled with Mountain Dew) and a microwave (for making Annie's Microwaveable Mac & Cheese). No toaster. No stove. Darkness, desolation. Borderline starvation. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating here, but you get the point.) I wasn't as into cooking then as I am now--I always liked cooking, but I never spent time clicking around the internet looking for new things to make. Which is good. If I had, I would have become increasingly disappointed that I couldn't make anything. So today, I'm going to share with you all something I could have made back then, and something that those of you who are in college and don't have access to much in terms of appliances can make now.

A few weeks ago, I was bored on the internet and saw something that mentioned chocolate pudding. I'm not sure why, but I pretty much immediately needed to make chocolate pudding. I was about to go search for recipes when I thought, "Wait, I'm at Mike's house. He doesn't have things like heavy cream and a double boiler to make pudding with." I almost didn't even look, but I remembered that I had a little bit of cream left there from a cake I'd made, and maybe--just maybe--it would be enough to make pudding. Boy, was I surprised when I found that the top chocolate pudding recipe on Food.com didn't use cream at all. In fact, it called for skim milk. The total calories from fat in one serving of this recipe is seven. Seven calories from fat. In PUDDING. So not only can you make this in your dorm room, but you won't get fat if you eat it every day.

If you're at home, and you really don't feel like making stuff in a microwave, you can do this in a double-boiler. It's really not necessary, though. This was excellent pudding.

RECIPE: College Kid Chocolate Pudding

very very slightly adapted from food.com

Ingredients:

-1/3 cup sugar

-1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Dark cocoa powder. It's not any more expensive and it tastes SOOOOO good. If you like dark chocolate, I highly recommend it.)

-3 tbsp cornstarch

-1/8 tsp salt

-2 cups 1% milk (I know I said the recipe calls for skim, but I prefer to write what I actually did, and we drink 1%--use skim if that's what you have.)

-1 tsp vanilla extract (optional--I left it out because by the time I was supposed to add it, the pudding was way too thick.)

Instructions:

1. In a large microwave-safe bowl, mix sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch and salt. Make sure you mix thoroughly. If the cornstarch isn't incorporated into everything else, it'll clump when you add the milk and not come apart and your pudding won't thicken.

2. Add the milk and whisk (with a fork, if you don't have a whisk, which I imagine most college kids don't.)

3. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove and stir.

4. Microwave for another 2-6 minutes, for one minute at a time, removing and stirring after each minute. (The original recipe says 4-6 minutes. I thought it looked plenty pudding-y at 2, though, and after 4 it was too thick to add the vanilla.) When it's thick enough, add the vanilla and stir it in.

5. Separate the pudding into 4 dishes (bowls, coffee mugs, solo cups, whatever) and refrigerate until cold.

6. Serve, topped with whipped cream (if you have it or can steal it from the cafeteria) or just normal cream (if you have it; you probably can't steal this one).

Step 1: Dry ingredients in a bowl.

Step 2: After you add the milk, the dry ingredients will probably make it look really foamy, almost sponge-y. This might also be a side-effect of using the whisk instead of a fork. Regardless, it's okay.

Step 3: Action shot! I wanted to capture how it looked a lot darker under the thin layer of bubbles. This is right after it came out of the first 3 minutes of microwaving.

Step 4: This is after 4 minutes of microwaving. I don't think it needed to be this thick, but it was delicious, so I guess don't hesitate to over-thicken it if you're not sure.

Step 5: I like my pudding in coffee mugs. And if you're a normal college student, you probably have a few of them lying around. The important thing here is, I know there are people out there who can put pudding into serving dishes without making it look like a complete mess. Would any of those people like to volunteer to teach me? Because I clearly need help. (Though, fellow college kids, you probably don't have to worry about what it looks like. Anyone you're feeding this to should be happy enough just to have homemade pudding.)

So there you have it. The easiest pudding to make, EVER. Were you confused when I said you can serve it with just cream? Because Mike was sort of confused when I poured some cream onto mine. I'm not sure why I do this except that I grew up doing it, and I think it tastes wonderful. It's exactly like whipped cream, except it hasn't been whipped yet.

The ingredients and supplies necessary to make this would easily fit in one cube of those wire-grate-assemble-it-yourself shelving units that I know you have in your room. It would probably cost under 10 dollars to be able to make this a bunch of times. And that guy or girl you're after will probably be totally impressed that you made pudding in your dorm room, so it's worth it.

Taste&Create: 4 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Hi everyone! Look at me, blogging on a Tuesday like I'm supposed to. I was super excited to be paired with Dragon Musings for this month's Taste&Create. She has 3 kids, I believe, and does a lot of cooking with them that results in some pretty awesome things, like stegosaurus shaped calzones (which I can't find right now but I love dinosaur-shaped food so they must be delicious). She also posts a new flash game every Friday, which frequently consumes my weekends if I'm not careful, and menu plans on Monday which cause me to admire her ability to plan out what she's going to eat. I definitely can't do that. So check out her blog, but first look at how AWESOME these cookies are!

She emailed me to ask about my peanut butter and chocolate chip banana cookies, since she lives in Australia and they don't have peanut butter chips there. I, sadly, didn't know how to go about replacing things with peanut butter to get both tastes in there, but I asked her to let me know if she figures it out because I've been looking for a good peanut butter cookie recipe. She responded pointing out that she'd just posted a peanut butter cookie recipe the day before. Apparently I'd been too distracted to check my RSS feed, because I definitely would have noticed that, but I checked and was super excited to see that she had, and that they looked like the peanut butter cookies I remember eating when I was a kid. So here's the recipe! It's the most amazingly easy thing I've ever made. If you screw up every food that you ever cook, you can make these and they will be perfect. Just trust me.

RECIPE: 4-ingredient peanut butter cookies

Ingredients

-1 cup peanut butter (the kind with lots of ingredients, like Skippy or Jif, not the kind that is just peanuts or peanuts and salt)

-1 cup sugar

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1 egg

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them until they reach an even consistency.

3. Roll them into balls and place them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Squash crisscrossed fork marks in them (as pictured below).

4. Bake for 8 minutes.

Step 2, part 1: put everything in the bowl.

Step 2, part 2: Mix everything until it looks like this.

Step 3: roll into the balls so they look like the balls here, and then squash with a fork so they look like the fork-squashed ones here.

Right out of the oven. Isn't that the most gorgeous peanut butter cookie you've ever seen?

I was SO impressed with this recipe. Not only is it incredibly simple, but it tastes exactly like a peanut butter cookie should. The consistency is very cookie-like, which I didn't expect given the lack of flour--Mike just ate one and asked me how they seem so cookie-like without any flour. So, other bonus: gluten free! (Assuming the peanut butter is gluten free. I'm not sure. I couldn't find anything on the label saying it was, but I couldn't find anything saying it wasn't, either. And I'm sure if it's not there are brands out there that are.) The whole thing took probably 20 minutes, and most of that was fork-squashing because I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

The only problem I had with this recipe was actually the cinnamon. I feel blasphemous even saying that--anyone who knows me knows that I put cinnamon in EVERYTHING and a teaspoon of cinnamon in a pie recipe translates to two tablespoons, but it was sort of weird with the peanut butter flavor. I think, though, that this is my fault--it was only weird for two cookies, so either I got used to it quickly OR I should have mixed the cinnamon and sugar together first so that it was evenly integrated. Whoops. I should know to do things like that by now. I'm pretty sure that the cookies that tasted too strongly of cinnamon just had a higher concentration of cinnamon in them than the others and it would be fixed if I followed normal baking protocol instead of getting excited to take a picture that clearly showed the four ingredients. Oh well.

So go make these! You probably have all the ingredients. I got 17 cookies, so it doesn't even make so many that you'll have to give them away or get sick from eating only cookies for the next few days. And don't forget to stop by Dragon Musings and check out her flash games...er...recipes and such.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I promised a post today, didn't I? Was I specific? I hope I wasn't specific. I intended to post my new favorite summer food (from Poor Girl Gourmet), but...well, last week, I went to water my tomatoes around 2 in the morning and the faucet for the hose broke and I couldn't turn it off, so we ended up having to turn the water in my side of the house off completely in order to avoid having a constantly-running hose until the plumber came. This happened...Friday or Saturday night (well, Saturday or Sunday morning). I ran away to Mike's house because not being able to use the bathroom near my room is kind of disconcerting when I wake up in the middle of the night and, well, forget that I can't use that bathroom. I returned to my house yesterday to sit around and wait for the plumber to come (he was supposed to come yesterday). He never showed up. I called and left a message asking if he could come today and for some reason I thought he was going to, but he didn't. So I wasted two days sitting around waiting for a plumber (and canceled plans with a friend I haven't seen in ages) and promptly ran away to Mike's house again, where I don't have to worry about whether or not there is water, because there is water.

However. I left my cookbook at home. Which means I can't share the recipe I planned to share, so you're getting pancakes that I forgot I had pictures of.

See? Pancakes!

These are Strawberry-Almond-Chocolate Chip pancakes. I adapted them from my Banana pancakes that I posted a long time ago. Strawberries mix in differently (and they're much more liquid), so you get a much denser pancake here--you could probably add a little bit more flour if you want them fluffy, but despite my usual dislike for dense pancakes, these were quite delicious. The recipe is just going to be for strawberry pancakes, though, because I honestly have no idea how many chocolate chips were added. Lots, I'm guessing--I always just pour them in until it looks like a good amount. Mike sprinkled slivered almonds on top of the pancakes after I poured them into the pan--they got slightly toasted and added a great texture to our breakfast!

RECIPE: Strawberry Pancakes

Ingredients:

-1 cup flour

-4 tsp sugar

-2 tsp baking powder

-dash of salt

-1 large egg

-1/2-1 cup milk (less for fluffier pancakes, more for denser)

-2 tsp almond extract

-2 tbsp vegetable oil (or melted butter)

-1 pint strawberries

-Chocolate chips (optional)

-Slivered almonds (optional)

-Butter (for the pan)

-Maple syrup

Instructions:

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda and salt) in a small bowl.

2. Mash the strawberries in a large bowl until they are liquidy, but with plenty of strawberry pieces remaining.

3. Add the egg. Mash it in with the strawberries.

4. Add 1/2 cup milk, almond extract and vegetable oil/melted butter to the strawberry and egg mixture. Stir.

5. Add the flour mixture to the strawberry mixture. If you want to add chocolate chips, this would be the time to do it. Stir until combined. Don't over-stir, a few clumps of flour are okay.

6. Add more milk, stirring, until the batter reaches your preferred consistency. The more liquid your batter is, the denser your pancakes will be.

7. Cook pancakes in a well-buttered frying pan over medium heat. (I use a 1/4 cup measure to pour the right amount of batter into the pan.) If you want to add slivered almonds, sprinkle them on top of the pancake as soon as you pour it into the pan. Flip when the sides look solid and the bubbles on the top are beginning to pop.

8. Transfer cooked pancakes to a plate and cover with a clean dishtowel to retain heat. Continue repeating steps 7 and 8 until all the batter has turned into pancakes.

9. Top with real maple syrup and enjoy!

If you have an absurdly good memory and have been reading my blog since February, you may notice I basically copied and pasted and changed a few things. But, I mean, it's basically the same recipe--just a different way to enjoy it! (And it's 11:30 and I'm lazy.) But really, I do love versatile recipes, and I feel like you could adapt this to fit a lot of different fruits (right now I would really love some nectarine pancakes!)

I don't know when I'll be back home with my cookbook (my staying there hinges on the water getting fixed) but I'll be back here, at least, on Tuesday. And I'm warning you in advance--you should all get REALLY EXCITED for next Friday's post. It's gonna be exciting. I can't wait :D

Panna Cotta with Strawberries and Balsamic Vinegar

Wow, it's been a while since I posted a dessert on here! I don't actually make dessert all that often--in the summer it's too hot and we just go out for ice cream, and when I'm in school I don't have a lot of time. However, there are sometimes special occasions that call for homemade dessert--birthdays, holidays, sales on fruit, and most importantly, realizing that something you can get at your local farmstand is about to go out of season and then you'll have to get it at the grocery store and they won't be quite as delicious. I made these when the strawberries were about to go out of season, which means I'm about a month behind in my posting things. (I like to have a buffer of pictures, though, so don't expect this to change!)

I made this panna cotta (my first!) for our belated Father's Day celebration. Generally I'm the pie person in the family, and anytime I'm bringing a dessert pie is requested, but since this was a week after my cousin's graduation (for which I made three pies and a gluten-free crumble), I was all pied out and wanted to make something different. I'd seen panna cotta on a few blogs and was curious--partially because it was Italian, partially because I'd never made it before, and partially because it sounded like a perfect summer dessert: cold, creamy, and refreshing. It was also surprisingly simple to make and required very little heat--the stove for a few minutes, but that's it. Perfect! This particular recipe caught my eye because it seemed different--balsamic vinegar in a dessert? I was intrigued, and I know my dad and knew that even if it came out terribly, he'd appreciate the concept.

RECIPE: Panna Cotta with Strawberries and Balsamic Vinegar

Adapted (very slightly) from Epicurious

Ingredients:

-2 tbsp water

-1 1/4 tsp unflavored gelatin

-2 cups whipping cream

-1 1/4 cups plain greek yogurt

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 quart strawberries, hulled and sliced

-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

-1/4 cup sugar

-freshly ground pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Put the water into a small cup and sprinkle the gelatin on top of it. Let sit about 15 minutes.

2. Put half the whipping cream, the yogurt, and the vanilla in a bowl. Whisk until smooth.

3. Put the remaining 1 cup whipping cream, along with the 1/2 cup sugar, into a small pan on medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves and cream comes to a simmer.

4. Take the pan off the burner (or if you have a gas stove, simply turn the burner off) and add the gelatin (which will now be a solid squishy disc). Stir until dissolved. Add this mixture to the yogurt mixture in the bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined.

5. Divide between six ramekins or small cups (I used those little plastic chinet cups. I also only divided into 5, because that's how many people there were going to be, and it seemed silly to have one left over.) Refrigerate for a few hours until set, can be refrigerated overnight.

6. Make the strawberry sauce: combine sliced strawberries, sugar, balsamic vinegar, and a few grinds of pepper. Toss. Let sit for a while.

7. If you want to unmold the panna cotta, dip each cup into really hot water and flip it onto a plate, and then wiggle the cup around until it comes unstuck. You don't have to unmold it--in fact, for this recipe, I recommend against it, but if you want to you should definitely read at least through the picture captions, because it's important.

Step 2. This doesn't really require much explanation.

This is also step 2. See how it's nice and creamy and smooth? That's good. You want that.

Steps 3 and 4. When melting the sugar into the cream, it had a distinctly darker color and made the cream look very off-white. I think this is normal and okay, because it definitely didn't smell or taste burnt. Once you put the gelatin in (that round thing there), stir it gently as it dissolves and watch it disappear! It's like you did a magic trick.

I got a little worried when I saw the five individual cups and realized I needed to transport them, but a cupcake pan worked great! The cups were a little bigger than the...uhhh...cupcake-holes, but it held them upright and they survived the (very short) trip.

Uh...plop? I wanted to unmold them, but I expected that they'd hold their shape when I did. I'm not sure if this is my fault or the recipe's. The recipe said to refrigerate overnight, but I read a lot of other panna cotta recipes and they all said to refrigerate for a few hours. I went with a few hours. That might be the reason it plopped. However, I think it's much more likely that this is a recipe that is not meant to be unmolded--the ever-helpful Technicolor Kitchen posted a similar-looking panna cotta recently which called for 2 teaspoons of gelatin and said to use less if you don't plan to unmold it. (She also said that less gelatin tastes better, so maybe leaving it in the cup is the best option.) I want to try making this again and using the two teaspoons and see how it comes out. So: if you plan to unmold your panna cotta, you either need to refrigerate overnight or use more gelatin and I'm not quite sure which it is but I think it's the gelatin.

You may remember in my asparagus risotto post that I said I had two recipes from Epicurious that I wasn't satisfied with--granted, neither of the dissatisfactions had to do with taste, simply with their instructions. Assuming that the gelatin is the problem, I would have liked to see something saying to use a different amount to unmold it, especially considering that panna cottas are frequently served this way. Really, though? It tasted so good that I almost don't care. I'm going to try more gelatin just to see if my theory is correct, but if it's true that it doesn't taste as good, I'll eat my panna cotta in the cup from now on.

If you're serving this to kids or people with kid-like palates, you can separate out some of the strawberries after you add the sugar and before you add the balsamic vinegar and pepper. Mike and Mia both ate theirs with just cinnamon and sugar on their strawberries. It's super easy. It also probably doesn't need the amount of sugar I put in--the original recipe said to use one tablespoon, but I was worried that the balsamic would be overpowering and there wouldn't be much sweet. I loved it how it came out and though I would probably use a little less next time, I'd stay closer to my amount than theirs. I'm also not sure if the additional sugar is responsible for how soupy the strawberries got--does more sugar make strawberries bleed more? And is there a better word for this than "bleed"?

So, making this, I discovered two things: first, panna cotta is simple and delicious, and second, the strawberry and balsamic combination is really really good. I've only heard of it in terms of balsamic vinegarettes on salads with strawberries before, and it never occurred to me that the two would be so good on their own (well, with a lot of sugar).

Do you guys have any unexpectedly delicious combinations of flavors that you love? What are they?

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Okay, so given the pie crust post from the other day, I doubt any of you are surprised that I'm following up with the actual pie. (I don't remember if I mentioned that it was coming, but it was.) This was the first Strawberry Rhubarb Pie I've ever made. I don't remember ever having seen much rhubarb around before, but this year there was always a little basket of it in the grocery store, so I had been thinking about it for a while before I actually made it. Unfortunately, when I finally decided it was time to make a pie (as in, there were enough people around that I wouldn't be eating the whole thing myself) I had to make three stops before I found any! Luckily a little farmstand near my house had a few bundles, and I'm pretty sure they grow it themselves. I got strawberries there too, but they were from somewhere else. And HUGE. Like, strawberries the size of my fist. I was surprised to find that they actually had plenty of flavor--they were delicious!

Okay, so making this pie is pretty much the easiest thing I've ever done. Aside from Blueberry pie, which doesn't require cutting anything. Oh, and Pecan pie, which is really just "mix a bunch of stuff together and bake it." So maybe it wasn't the easiest, but it's up there, and soooooo tasty! I also discovered that I suddenly develop decent Knife Skills when chopping rhubarb. Usually I'm super slow at cutting things, but this was so easy!

RECIPE: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients:
-3 cups chopped rhubarb
-3 cups sliced strawberries
-1 1/3 cups sugar
-1/4-1/2 cup corn starch (both the strawberry and rhubarb release a lot of juices, so this keeps the pie from being a liquidy mess. My rhubarb was releasing a TON of juice so I added more, but I think earlier in the season you use less. I'm not quite sure. I just know I like my pies to hold together.)
-3 tbsp cinnamon (this is really approximate--after I put everything else in the bowl, I just sprinkle tons of cinnamon on to cover it. The recipe I was loosely working from called for a quarter of a teaspoon, but that's just not enough cinnamon.)
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-Pie dough
-1 egg, beaten

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 425F.
2. Place rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix it all together.
3. Line a 9-inch pie plate with your rolled-out pie dough.
4. If there's a lot of liquid at the bottom of the bowl of ingredients, add a little more cornstarch. If not, then don't. Pour the contents of the bowl into the pie plate.
5. Cover with the second rolled-out pie dough. Cut vents in the top to allow the steam to escape.
6. Using a pastry brush, brush the beaten egg over the top of the pie.
7. Place in the oven (you preheated it, right?) and let back at 425 for 10 minutes. At 10 minutes, reduce heat to 375F and bake for another 50-60 minutes.
8. Remove from oven. Let stand for 15-20 minutes (or longer) before serving. Serve with a generous scoop of french vanilla ice cream.

See how easy that was? Seriously, I think that's the simplest recipe I've posted here. Now, I think the quality of a pie is based almost entirely on the quality of the crust. Not everyone agrees here, but if you want a delicious crust and don't know how to make one then you should definitely look over my previous post and try to get a feel for it. Once you figure it out, it's easy as...well...pie.

This is what I mean about the cinnamon--just sprinkle a ton on top! I can't imagine eating a pie with only a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon. Blech.

I've tried using those things that go around the edge of the pie to stop the crust from burning, and I've tried just wrapping the edge in tinfoil, but neither of these things have worked for me. Now I just let it get a little burnt and make sure to have some ice cream in those bites.

Don't you just adore this pie plate? I have no idea where it came from; I couldn't find any of my normal glass ones but this was in the cabinet. It's ceramic with a cream-colored glaze and blue polka dots. I've decided that when I have a house with cabinets to fill with all my own cooking things, awesome pie plates are going to be one of my top priorities.

So, this was the Speedpie that came out of those crusts! (I've made pies quickly before, but never called them speedpie. I think I like it, though.) I think this might be one of my new favorite pies, and I can't believe I never made it before. I'll definitely be looking out for more rhubarb, though! How about you guys? What's your favorite pie? I'd love to know!

Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup: Raspberry Lemonade Ice Cream Cupcake Cones!

About a month ago, one of the other food-blogs I read, The Cupcake Project, posted something that I found extremely exciting: they were having the third annual ice cream cupcake roundup! It's a contest that they do in conjunction with Scoopalicious, an ice cream blog that I was unaware of until I read the post on Cupcake Project. They also posted the contest, of course. And, well, ice cream and cupcakes are both delicious, but I'd never thought much before about how to combine the two. After a little thinking and some sketching, I had a plan--a layout, at least--but no idea about flavors.

I thought. And I thought some more. At first I was thinking, flowers? Lavender? But that didn't work; I wanted something fruity and summery and refreshing, and after almost a whole month of thinking, I finally figured it out: everyone likes raspberry lemonade in the summer, right? So if I could somehow capture that in ice-cream-cupcake-form, it would be delicious! I went about looking for recipes, but wasn't too pleased with any until Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen posted a recipe for Sour Lime Cakes, and I thought, well, how hard can it be to adapt that to lemon? (After thinking about this for a little while and getting excited, I read in her post that she actually adapted a lemon recipe to make the lime one, which made my idea seem even better, if slightly less original.) I then started searching my usual recipe haunts--Recipezaar in particular--for a delicious-looking raspberry frosting. When Recipezaar didn't come up with anything that seemed right for my vision, I went back to the Cupcake Project, but while there were lots of raspberry-related posts, nothing seemed to be frosting. I then returned to Technicolor Kitchen and was very glad I did, because back in November (before I started blogging and reading other blogs) she'd posted a cupcake with Raspberry Cream, which looked like the perfect consistency for my plan.

I found all this maybe two days ago, which gave me very little time to actually execute my plan. Originally, I'd hoped to try out a few recipes so I could change one if I didn't like it, but as the contest ends tomorrow (!) I was now in a hurry. Luckily, I've used recipes from Technicolor Kitchen before, and they've come out wonderfully--I was not afraid of the recipes turning out badly, just that my plan may go horribly wrong. Luckily for me, it didn't, and I would now like to give you another picture-heavy post (recipes included, of course) and make sure I've done everything else to enter the contest successfully.

I'm starting with the final product: each cone contained a raspberry at the bottom (inspired by those novelty ice cream cone things you could get at an ice cream truck when you were a kid, with the gumball at the bottom--Screwballs, they were called). On top of that was a layer of vanilla ice cream, which was scooped in very carefully with a very small spoon--I was terrified of breaking the cone! Two more raspberries, crushed this time, went on top of that, and then another layer of ice cream. On top of that went a nice layer of the raspberry cream frosting and two mini-cupcakes complete coated in the frosting, held together with a toothpick, and they actually came out looking like scoops of nice cream! YAY! (That was, of course, my goal.) I'll be honest here, though: I meant to top them with another raspberry. I forgot, though, because by the time the whole thing was assembled the ice cream was starting to melt and drip out of the cone and I wanted to be able to eat it like a cone of ice cream instead of dropping it in a bowl and eating it with a spoon. It was messy, yes, but it definitely worked--I ate mine over a bowl but didn't have to put it down. (Mike volunteered to eat the cross-section, and he ate his in a bowl. He seemed equally satisfied, so form probably wasn't particularly important. And yes, we did have to cut an ice cream cone in half to do this.)

This is Mia, my favorite little kid. She got to be our guinea pig (notice I remembered the raspberry on hers). She seemed quite happy with her special dessert (everyone else just had normal cupcakes), so these cones are great for both kids and grown-ups alike! (I've been babysitting Mia since she was two--she's almost eight now! Boy, do I feel old.)

So, if you want to make some of these yourself, here are the recipes! Don't double them! (I doubled them. I don't know why I always do this. I ended up with 55 cupcakes. Unless you want 55 cupcakes [granted 24 of them were mini] then don't double the recipes.)

Sour Lemon Cupcakes
Adapted from Technicolor Kitchen, link above!

Ingredients:
-1 cup unsalted butter, melted (not softened! actually melted!)
-1 1/2 cups plus 2 1/2 tbsp sugar
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
-1/4 cup lemon juice
-Zest of one giant lemon (or two normal-sized lemons, I don't know if giant lemons are a normal thing to have but my grocery store had them for some reason)
-2 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
-2 tsp baking powder

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven 325 degrees F.
2. Get all your ingredients out and in one place. Put the flour and baking powder into a bowl and sift together (or stir with a fork for a while). You'll want everything prepared because everything has to be sort of speedy once the butter is melted.
3. Cut the butter into small pieces (along the tablespoon lines) and toss it into a large microwave-safe bowl (everything else will be added to this, so large is important!). Cover with wax paper and microwave in 30-second increments, taking it out and stirring after each one. (I think it took me four or five 30-second cycles for the butter to be completely melted, and as I said, I doubled this so was melting two cups of butter--the point here is that it won't take all that long.)
4. Add the eggs, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and yogurt to the melted butter and stir until everything is combined. Add the flour and baking powder mixture in small amounts, stirring each pile until smooth before adding more (it probably isn't necessary to do it in bits, but I find it much easier--I'm not sure if it affects how the cupcakes come out, but mine came out fine). The batter will be thick and sticky and smell like lemonade.
5. If you forgot to preheat the oven, then heat the oven now. It's probably fine; the oven should heat in the amount of time it takes to fill the cupcake pan.
6. If you're using cupcake liners, put them in the cupcake pan. If you're using butter and flour, then butter and flour the cupcake pan. If you're using a baking spray (such as Baker's Joy, which works wonders) then spray the pan. Fill each cupcake-hole (is there a name for these?) to about 2/3 full with the batter.
7. For mini-cupcakes, bake for 12-15 minutes. For full-sized cupcakes, bake for 18-20 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and let cool. (I let mine cool overnight--partially because I didn't want the frosting to melt when I put it on, and partially because by the time all the batches came out of the oven it was 1am and I wanted to go to bed, not make frosting.)

Step 3. I would love to tell you that this is a delicious hollandaise sauce or something. I really would. But in reality, it's four sticks of butter, melted in the microwave. I'm almost disgusted at the idea, but the end result makes it completely okay.

Step 4. Batter! Yet again, I didn't remember to take a picture until I'd already put one batch (consisting of 12 mini cupcakes and 12 normal-sized cupcakes) in the oven, so this isn't the full amount, but since I doubled the recipe you probably still won't have this much. Also, I know you're not supposed to eat batter due to it having raw eggs in it and stuff, but this is some delicious cupcake batter.

Step 6. I used Baker's Joy for the mini-cupcakes (since they would be going in the ice cream cone and the wrapper would be a kind of gross thing to bite into) and cupcake liners for the normal-sized ones. I don't think I got a great picture of the liners, but they're PLAID! If you don't know me then you don't know how much I love plaid, but it's pretty much the best thing ever. And I found it on cupcake liners. AWESOME.

Raspberry Cream Frosting

Also adapted from Technicolor Kitchen, also with a link above.

Ingredients:

-8 oz plain frozen raspberries

-2 cup heavy or whipping cream

-1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp confectioner's sugar

-1 1/2 tsp almond extract

-A small container (mine was 6oz) of fresh raspberries

Instructions:

1. At least a few hours before you want to make the frosting, place the frozen raspberries in a bowl and let sit at room temperature to thaw. (I let them sit out for a while, and then refrigerated them overnight.) Don't strain them or anything; you want the juices.

2. Pour the thawed raspberries (with their juices!) into a small saucepan. Place on the stove on medium heat. Cook the raspberries until they release the rest of their juices, mashing them as you go (I used a slotted spoon and it worked wonderfully). This will take about 6-8 minutes.

3. Now the cooked raspberries have to cool, so if you're in a hurry, put the pan in an icewater bath--just make sure none of the water gets into the raspberries. The icewater will cool them in about 15 minutes.

4. Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl (I used the same bowl I thawed the raspberries in) and pour the raspberry-mush into it. Using a rubber spatula or a spoon or whatever suits your fancy, press the raspberry-mush against the mesh, stir it around, scrape the edges, etc. until most of the juice has left the mush and is in the bowl. You won't get all of it; I ended up with a soft squishy ball of raspberry seeds and skin and a little juice after playing with it for 15-20 minutes, and a lot of my efforts were pretty pointless, giving me only very small amounts of liquid. So I guess the point here is: don't obsess over this! Just get as much of the juice out as you can and it's okay if there's still some in the strainer.

5. Add the confectioner's sugar and almond extract to the raspberry juice and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

6. Make whipped cream! I use my KitchenAid (with the whisk attachment) for this. I'm not sure how to do it without an electric mixer of some sort--if you have a handheld electric one that will work fine too, but I think if you used an egg beater or just a whisk it would take forever. The end result should be pretty stiff peaks of whipped cream.

7. Fold the raspberry juice/sugar/almond extract mixture into the whipped cream. I did this in small amounts too, but I think that would be unnecessary if you don't double the recipe. How long you spend folding it will affect how uniform the color is, but probably not the taste--I tried to keep some slightly darker pink areas and a few white streaks, but once I frosted things with it everything sort of blended together.

8. Chill until ready to frost the cupcakes. I recommend frosting them as close to serving time as possible, since whipped cream can lose its form if left alone for too long, but unless you're keeping them around for days you're probably okay. BUT! Do NOT frost the cupcakes until they're completely cool! Otherwise the frosting will just melt off of them, and that would be really sad.

9. When you frost the cupcakes, top each with a fresh raspberry. (This seems completely unnecessary, and it probably is, but it takes the cupcakes from looking like normal cupcakes to ADORABLE cupcakes. And it's so easy! So it's worth it.)

Step 2: After probably 2 minutes of cooking and a little mashing. There's already a lot of juice there!

Step 3: In the icewater bath, all mashed up. I was actually sort of surprised to see how many seeds there were--I think that is why I don't eat raspberries more often.

Step 7: This is after I'd folded a tiny bit of the raspberry juice into the whipped cream and poured a little more in to keep going. I only took this picture because it looked like my whipped cream was bleeding profusely and I found that amusing. I have a sort of sick sense of humor.

Also step 7: Yeah okay it still sort of looks bloody, but there's plenty of folding left to do. Don't worry, it came out a nice pretty pink color.

Step 9: You saw the Raspberry Lemonade Ice Cream Cupcake Cones up at the top, but this is what happened to the rest of them (well, okay, the rest of them are on my kitchen counters without frosting because I made way too many cupcakes and I'll have to give them to people). While Mia enjoyed her cone, all the grown-ups ate these "normal" cupcakes instead.

So, if you want to make the cones, the only extra things you'll need are the cone and the ice cream! The vanilla was perfect--I got it at a local farmstand-type ice cream place. It would be easy to play around with the flavors, but you don't want anything too strong--the raspberry and lemon flavors are the important part. As for the normal cupcakes: they were SUCH a great summer dessert. The raspberry cream is light and airy and complements the fairly dense cake perfectly. Each has a little bit of sweet and a little bit of sour--I made the frosting a little bit sweeter than the original recipe called for because they'd be going on a sour cake, and it came out wonderfully. And seriously--don't the little raspberries on top make them look so adorable?

Okay, so: if my creation comes out in the top three of the contest, I will be (a) thrilled because I'll win an Oxo gift pack and (b) begging all of you to go vote in the public-voting part so I can win the ice cream maker. I have no idea what my chances are of getting that far, but I'm warning you in advance that it might happen.

Now, go make some cupcakes and enjoy the wonderful weather!

UPDATE: It turns out that while doubling the cupcake recipe was a little on the silly side, doubling the frosting didn't make nearly enough to cover all of them--it seems that keeping the cupcake recipe as is and doubling the frosting would be the way to go. I have therefore EDITED THE FROSTING RECIPE to show an amount that will cover all the cupcakes (and probably leave you with a little left over, but that's not really something to complain about).

Best Basic Cupcake Recipe

There is a gorgeous food (mostly baking) related-blog out there on the internets called Technicolor Kitchen. I think, aside from the beautiful food she makes, the most amazing part is that she posts every single thing in both English and Portuguese on two different blogs (click on the language to go to the blog in that language). Anyway. The Wednesday before Easter, she posted a recipe for some delightful-looking cupcakes that she called "Almond cakes with sugared apple icing." The recipe is apparently from Donna Hay but I can't find it anywhere on that site. Regardless, these were delicious and simple, so I'm posting the recipe for your enjoyment. (We doubled it--I'm going to post the original measurements, because you probably don't want 32 cupcakes. But if you do, double what I'm posting here.)

ALMOND APPLE CUPCAKES--Recipe
Ingredients (for the cakes):
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (note: if you want really almond-y flavor, substitute almond extract)
1 cup plus 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk

for the icing:
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup clear apple juice

Directions:
1. Okay, so the recipe technically calls for caster sugar (in both instances) which is really hard to find in the US (at least in my part of it) so put the sugar in a food processor and pulse for a few seconds to make it a little bit finer.
2. And I'm assuming that you didn't find ground almonds (or almond meal) at the store, so put some almonds in a food processor until they're finely ground. My advice (for both the almonds and the sugar) is to do small amounts at a time and fill measuring cups to make sure you have the right amount once it's ground.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
4. Put the butter, sugar and vanilla (or almond) extract into the bowl of an electric mixer, or into a normal bowl and use a handmixer. Beat until fluffy.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well before adding the next one.
6. Add the flour, ground almonds and baking powder. Mix thoroughly, then fold in the milk.
7. Pour into cupcake pans (that are either buttered or lined with cupcake liners). Fill each about 2/3 full. I sprinkled a couple almond slivers onto the top of each of mine so they'd look prettier. I think one almond slice would work well, too, or just one almond. Or whatever you think would be appropriate.
8. Bake for 15-17 minutes. They are done when a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.
9. Make the icing: put the sugar (that you've put through the food processor) in a bowl. Add small amounts of apple juice, stirring, until it becomes something that you can ice a cupcake with. Spoon it over the cupcakes, spreading if it's thick enough to spread.

The batter before folding the milk it. It made a heart!

In the oven. (Do I recommend opening your oven to take a picture? No, not really, but I forgot to take pictures before putting them in the oven.)

Fresh out of the oven! They look so pretty here, I almost didn't want to ice them.

This didn't come out well at all, but that's basically what happens when they're iced. Except this was a leftover cupcake and I'd forgotten to take the picture until just a little while ago and it's a week old. So really, it looked prettier than this. (Also? Still delicious.)

My thoughts on this recipe:
-It was good. Really good. But, like I mentioned in the ingredients list, you'd probably need to substitute almond extract for the vanilla if you wanted a lot of flavor. As it was, they were a pretty basic cupcake and I think I'll use them whenever I need a basic cupcake recipe for a fun frosting.
-The recipe that I got said to ice the cupcakes as close to serving time as possible. It wasn't really possible for me to ice them right before serving them as we were traveling with them. The apple juice in the icing sort of sunk into the cupcakes and they ended up with a hardened layer of sugar on them. Was it delicious? Yes. But I couldn't taste the apple at all.
-Also, I think I should have put more apple juice in the icing. Mine was at a point where I could spread it, and I think if I could have drizzled it, there would have been more apple flavor.
-I used slivered almonds and I think this was a bad idea. Almonds are one of my favorite foods, and I ate some of the slivered almonds afterwards and they didn't have nearly as much flavor as normal almonds. Perhaps using normal, whole (or at least sliced) almonds would give better flavor to the recipe. And a tiny bit of color.
-They probably would have come out fluffier if I'd remembered to take the butter out of the refrigerator and let it warm up and soften a bit. Instead Mike stuck it in the microwave and it ended up melted. I read something recently on how important it is that your butter is softened as instructed and how melted butter is useless--I disagree, but whatever you're making usually comes out much fluffier if you actually follow the instructions.
-I'm definitely using this recipe again. And I highly recommend you check out Technicolor Kitchen for more wonderful sweets.

Mike decorated one of the cupcakes. With a chocolate frosted mini wheat. A special cupcake for a special boy.