baking galore

Happy Friday the 13th!

I have found that when Brett is gone, I cook. This is bad for my waist but good for you who get new recipes and good for my friends who enjoy the tasty treats. Last weekend while he was away at drills I whipped up a batch of pumpkin spice muffins. Recipe courtesy of The Pioneer Woman. Since I knew I wanted to share them with the other Liquid Kids volunteers on Sunday I made mine in a mini-muffin pan and just reduced the cooking time. Without the cream-cheese frosting they are a great breakfast. I am sure they would be fantastic with it as well and might just have to try it when I whip up another batch with remaining pumpkin and milk I have. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned because tomorrow Bek and I are hosting a cake-pop party and I am sure there will be many stories and photos from that coming soon.

Muffin Ingredients:
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 t Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Butter - cut into pieces
• 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1/2 cups Evaporated Milk
• 1 Egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Topping
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

Frosting
• 1/2 cups Soften Butter
• 4 oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 lb Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins.

Sift flour, sugar baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkins, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mix and fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a muffin pan 1/2-2/3 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon/sugar/nutmeg mixture over each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 18 minutes if doing minis, 25 for regular size. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes then remove to cooling rack. Ice with cream cheese frosting.

(To make the frosting, mix all the ingredients on high until soft and whipped.)

eggs in a nest

This dish is a fun twist on hashbrowns and eggs. If I remember correctly the original recipe that I read just used potatoes for the nest part but these lend themselves so nicely for adding in whatever is extra in your kitchen.

eggs in a nest

3-4 medium potatoes (cleaned, peeled and shredded)

1 large carrot peeled and shredded

1 small onion shredded

anything else laying around (squash, pumpkin, zucchini) cleaned, peeled, and shredded

chopped garlic

1/6 c flour

1 egg

2-4 more eggs for in the nest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425° F. Lightly coat a baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.

2. In large bowl combine all ingredients but only 1 of the eggs.

3. In extra-large nonstick skillet (or two regular skillets) heat some oil over medium heat. To make a pancake, divide mixture in half and spoon both halves of potato mixture into skillet; evenly press and round edges with back of spatula to form two pancakes. Cook 4 to 5 minutes each side or until golden brown, turning once. Transfer to prepared baking sheet.

4. With the back of a wooden spoon or a 1/4-cup measure gently press each pancake, slightly off-center, to make a 3-inch-diameter depression, deep enough to hold an egg. Pour one egg in each nest (Brett was extra hungry so we made him a larger pancake with two eggs as you can see in the picture). Place pancakes with eggs in oven, being careful not to tilt baking sheet. Bake, uncovered, 10 to 12 minutes or until eggs are cooked through. Transfer pancakes to serving plates. Makes 2 servings.

the wonders of pumpkin

Our garden is all planted. It rained forever after we planted it and I was scared that the garden would get rained out. But other than an overwhelming about of weeds, things seem to progressing beautifully.

The evening following our garden planting the girls all went over to Bek's apartment and she made a fantastic parmesan risotto. She put roasted pumpkin, pine nuts, and spinach in it. In America, or at least everywhere that I have been, we tend to only eat pumpkin, and squashes in the fall. Bek has inspired me to work these gourds into my meals more often.

So here I present to you the fantastic risotto that Bek served us and I later recreated for my husband, and a fun little recipe I found for "Pumpkin Pie Squares".

Pumpkin, Spinach, and Pine Nut Risotto

Ingredients:
1 cup Arborio rice
2-3 cup vegetable or chicken stock
½ butternut pumpkin, cubed
1 onion, diced
1 glove garlic, chopped
1 piece ginger, chopped
1/2 c pine-nuts
1 bunch spinach, roughly chopped
1 cup parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place garlic and ginger in a saucepan with a little olive oil.
2. Add the cubed pumpkin, cooking until soft. Remove and set aside. (I actually cooked this in a separate pan so I could be cooking the rice at the same time)
3. Add onion and a little oil to a fry-pan and saute.
4. Add rice and fry for a further 2-3 minutes with a little butter.
5. Gradually add stock, stirring until absorbed but still moist before adding more stock.
6. While risotto is cooking place pine-nuts on a tray and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes or until they turn a golden color.
8. When rice is cooked turn off heat and add all remaining ingredients including pumpkin, and parmesan.
9. Leave for 5 minutes before serving.


Pumpkin Pie Squares

yellow/orange squash of some kind - acorn, butternut, pumpkin (we used the other half of the butternut squash from above and ate as dessert)
honey
cinnamon
sugar

1. Cube the squash into bit size pieces.
2. Roll the cubes in honey and a dash of cinnamon until well coated. Spread as a single layer on a foil lined pan.
3. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes - until really soft
4. sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar - serve warm

Rafael with the tiller

the boys working the dirt

Our pretty garden

(pictures stolen from Sim's facebook)

eat your veggies - tomato & zucchini gratin

Brett and I both want to eat a bit healthier and that included eating more vegetables. One of our favorite veggie dished is the following Tomato & Zucchini Gratin.


INGREDIENTS
An onion
a couple of cloves of garlic
Roma tomatoes
A few zucchini/squash
Grated cheese - such as Parmesan or Romano
Some olive oil
Breadcrumbs

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350°
1. Slice the onion thinly and sauté in a bit of olive oil.
Chop or thinly slice the garlic and sauté with the onions.
2. While the onions are cooking, slice the tomatoes and zucchini super thin. I love my mandoline, which make this so easy.
3. In a greased baking dish, layer half the zucchini, the onion mix and the tomatoes.
Sprinkle some cheese and a little salt and pepper, and then add the second layer of all.
Top with some more cheese, salt, and pepper.
Put a fine layer of breadcrumbs over the top and drizzle a little olive oil over.
4. Cover and bake for 20-30 minutes.
Uncover and bake 10 more minutes.
Let the gratin cool for about 30 minutes and then enjoy.

We like the gratin best when it is only warm and I know that some people prefer it cold.

popovers

Today marks 6 months of Brett and I being married. I thought it would be fun to make something special for breakfast and stumbled across a recipe for popovers. Being me, I then had to go brows for a couple more recipes to compare before starting the cooking process. The recipe I ended up using if from Allrecipes.com but with a couple of twists on my part (of course). They sell popover pans but since I don’t have any I just used large muffin tins. If you have a popover pan by all means, use it instead.

INGREDIENTS
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease a 6-cup muffin tin. I sprayed mine with pam.
2. In a medium bowl beat eggs slightly, Beat in flour, milk and salt until just smooth; being careful not to overbeat.
3. Put a dab of butter in the bottom of each muffin tin and set the pan in the oven to preheat for a moment before filling with batter. Be careful because your butter will burn if you leave it in the oven to long.
4. Remove pan from oven and fill cups ½ - ¾ full.
5. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more or until dark brown. (Mine took 17 more minutes) Immediately remove from cups and serve piping hot.

I added about ¼ t onion powder and ½ t Italian seasoning to the flour before mixing in. These popovers turned out perfect and were amazing just by themselves.

A couple of recipes I found make a sweeter version by adding some vanilla and sugar to the mix and then spreading the popover with jam or dipping in cinnamon an sugar. I hope to try that soon and will report on how they turn out.