Chef's Corner

           As expressed in my "Flour Everywhere!" post on the Home page, my current kitchen goal is to cook 2 new or special meals a week and bake one delicious baked good a week. This is the place where I would like to share these endeavors, complete with picture, recipe, and things that may have gone wrong through the process, those being known as Baking Bloopers or Cooking Conundrums. I am learning so much and am excited to share these experiences. As they say (and over-use) "from my kitchen to yours!"
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June 28, 2012
Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

(See previous post with recipe link and more pictures on home page under "Flour Everywhere!")

Baking Bloopers:

Complete with Cream Cheese Icing!

1. I used Active Dry Yeast instead of Instant or Quick Rise yeast which made the rising time WAY longer...this was the cause of at least one of the frantic phone calls to my dad...and one to my mom.
2. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT use a whisk to substitute for a standing mixer whisk or bread hook in making the dough by hand. The use of this utensil will result in sticky mess all up in the whisk's business and flour everywhere.
3. Did not have a mixer to do the icing...consequently there were little blobs of cream cheese in the icing because of my inferior mixing by hand, not horrible but a little annoying. 
4. Definitely needed to PAM the baking dish...Mr. Brown said to rub butter on the pan, but once the rolls cooled and all of that buttery-sugary goodness mushified together and cooled, it made getting those rolls out of the pan a little bit difficult.

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July 5, 2012
Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
Recipe:
1 C. Flour                                                       1/2 C. Pumpkin
1/3 C. Packed brown sugar                             2 Eggs
5 Tbs. Softened Butter                                     1 tsp. Allspice
1/2-3/4 C Finely Chopped Walnuts                  1 tsp. Vanilla
1 8-oz. package Cream Cheese                       1-1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
3/4 C White Sugar

           Combine flour and brown sugar in mixing bowl; cut in butter and stir in nuts.  Reserve 3/4 C mixture for topping. Press the remaining mixture into an 8x8 inch baking pan (PYREX all the way!) Then, in large mixing bowl, mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla at medium speed until blended. Add pumpkin, eggs and spices, mix until blended and pour over crust. Sprinkle the remaining topping and base at 350 for 30-35 min. Allow to cool, cut and enjoy.
(Courtesy of the Ruralite Cookbook Special Collection)

Baking Bloopers:

1. Did not have allspice, the store did not have allspice, so I used cloves and it was delicious!
2. Bought a HUGE can of pumpkin, definitely should have looked one more time at the recipe before shopping....now I have all of this pumpkin left over.
3. Not necessarily a blooper, but nuts are expensive! I am going to eat every last one of those walnuts! Are they so expensive because they pay people to train birds to pick the nuts, to crack them and run the factory that bags them? I'm perplexed.

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July 6, 2012
Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Recipe:

Getting all yummy and
simmering before blending

           This recipe came from my The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, remember, the one we received as a wedding gift, and written by the woman I would love to be cooking best friends with so I could just eat all of her food? This soup is so much tastier than soup in a can, so much healthier for you, and is beautiful to make!! Also, let it be known that the first time I used trimmings from my Basil plant was for this recipe. Although in my book, you can find the recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-tomato-basil-soup-recipe/index.html

Cooking Conundrums:

1. I cut this recipe in half, well sort of in half....used about 2 lbs of tomatoes but cut all the rest of the ingredients in half. Was still super delicious but really thick after I blended it all. Just depends on how thick you like it. Also have an idea that it could possibly be used for a pasta sauce with it being so thick! Brilliant!
2. I had put the tomato halves on a baking/cookie sheet to roast in the oven. While sitting in the living room after putting them in, I hear them sizzling nicely, and about 10 min later I hear a huge POP, like a gun going off in the oven. Holy crap I broke the oven!! Nope, not the oven, but the cookie sheet had bowed and gone all morphed and deformed. What could I do?! Of course! PYREX Saved the day!! Just transported them into a pyrex baking dish and they were fine. Need to be careful I guess of the type of baking sheet you use and the temperature it can handle in order to avoid gang activity in the oven.
3. I used a blender to puree the soup instead of a fancy food mill and it was perfect! Success!

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July 10, 2012
Rosemary Bread

Recipe:

          I looked all over for a recipe to try. Since getting my rosemary plant Rose, I really wanted to use it to make bread! If you have been to the Macaroni Grill Restaurant rosemary bread is what they bring you before your food, you know that delicious bread that you dip in the olive oil that you eat too much of so you have tons of leftover dinner at the end?! That was the kind of bread I wanted to make!! Overall, first bread I have ever made was a success! (Banana, Pumpkin, and Zucchini Bread don't really count...those are like desert breads) The below recipe is the one I settled on:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/almost-famous-rosemary-bread-recipe/index.html

Baking Bloopers:

1. So a lot of the reviews said that when you are using fresh rosemary instead of the dry rosemary, then you are supposed to triple the amount. That blew my mind first of all, so I am supposed to use 6 Tbs of my fresh Rosemary plant?! That's seemed like a lot to cut off my baby, so I settled for 3 Tbs. After tasting the bread, I definitely could have used more, but it still tasted delicious for a first go.
2. In order to avoid more gang activity in my oven, because I haven't bought any new baking sheets yet, I used my pizza stone to cook these on! I let the little dough balls rise the second time on a piece of parchment, preheated the pizza stone in the oven and then placed them with the parchment paper on the stone, worked really well.
3. Just remember to take the pizza stone out of the oven before preheating your oven later for your lasagna....ooops.