Oatmeal Pumpkin Rejects

Let's just say there's a reason I don't write recipes. My intentions are good, but I don't really know enough about baking chemistry to just throw together a bunch of ingredients that sound good, in theory, and make it work.

Case in point, the muffin things above. They may look promising, but they're terribly deceptive. I wanted oatmeal, pumpkin, sour cream, and chocolate chips. I love oatmeal and chocolate chips. I love pumpkin and chocolate chips. I love the puffiness of sour cream and pumpkin. So I needed to know what all of these combined would be like. The possibilities!

Turns out, the taste wasn't bad at all (except I had used cheap chocolate chips, ew), but they probably would have worked better as cookies. These chewy little bricks just never cooked all the way through, and they held on tight to their wrapper. I tried them hot, I tried them cold... I threw them all out before they reached three days old. Har har.

If anyone knows of a good recipe that uses oats, pumpkin and chocolate chip, though, please send it my way!

White Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting Swirls

I'm switching to larger pictures, hooray!

On Tuesday I made cupcakes. (Hooray for cupcakes, too!) This recipe for yellow cupcakes from the Food Network kitchens was a little more complicated than I was hoping for, but it wasn't difficult. (Though having an old hand mixer made it portions of it miserable. What I wouldn't give for a Kitchen Aid stand mixer....) I would certainly make these again.

Finally got to try out the frosting dispenser my roommate got me for Christmas. It worked wonderfully! I was quite pleased. It's probably safe to say that my coworkers were also pleased that they got to feast on cupcakes. :)

One final note, I didn't use the frosting in the recipe. I was afraid it might come out not thick enough for the swirls I wanted. I used 8 0z cream cheese, 5 tbsp of butter, 1 tsp of vanilla blended together and then gradually added roughly 2 cups of sifted powdered sugar. Make sure you don't mix it too much or you'll break down the cream cheese and it won't hold its shape.

Happy cupcaking!

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ravenously inspired by a picture of a pumpkin cookie in a magazine last week (which ultimately looked nothing like the picture above), I decided I needed to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies pronto. Pumpkin and whole wheat and molasses, yum!

For being just an experiment, I think they turned out pretty good. Coworkers sure gobbled them up. Of course, coworkers in general are notorious for eating just about anything, so that's no big accomplishment. I was asked for the recipe twice and I'll post it when I ask to borrow it back... oops. I wasn't blown away by the cookies, however, there was something about the whole wheat and pumpkin texture that wasn't quite what I had been looking for. I'm glad they're gone so I can't keep eating them, though. I simply adore pumpkin and chocolate together and I made a little piggy of myself with these guys.

Comfort Food: Chicken and Wine Sauce

Since the monthly female "condition" has been unnecessarily cruel this time around, I decided it was time to self medicate. I had put forth my best these last two days, indulging on a day trip adventure with two of my girlfriends and kept up with the guys for a gruelingly long soccer match, but now it was about time for some down time. After soccer, I needed some comfort food.

Growing up, the family favorite was unanimously what we called "chicken and wine sauce." A simple dish that my brother and I were easily capable of making comprised of chicken, a can or two of cream of mushroom sauce and a few cans more of white wine baked in the oven. Served with rice, we always gobbled it up with big appetites. Leftovers stood no chance in the fridge. My brother and I would fight over who got to lick the pan after it was all said and done.

I didn't need an entire batch of the stuff tonight, though. Cooking for one, as I often do, I only had two pieces of chicken to prepare. Quick and simple was what I needed so I just cracked open a bottle of red wine and set to whip up a pan of cream of mushroom sauce, the last of my (gasp!) $2 bottle of white wine from Walmart and the chicken. It wasn't as quick as I had hoped, but my little experiment worked out to be rather tasty.

A glass and a half of pinot noir later, and a stomach full of chicken, brown rice and mushroom sauce later, I am ready to curl into bed and watch episodes of Sex and the City high on my little buzz. Hooray for Netflix! Hooray for comfort food!

Give Squash a Chance

I used to think I liked butternut squash. Not only does it have a name boasting creamy goodness, a delightful color, is good for you, but it's a vegetable and I love vegetables. Thus, butternut squash received an automatic sporting chance (just like brussel sprouts, but that's a whole different can of worms). In college, my room mate would bake it up with brown sugar, cooing about how it's like eating candy. I enjoyed the spoonful or two that I tried at some point, or at least I think I remember enjoying what I tasted.

Years later I decided to replicate this "candy" and ended up sorely disappointed and slightly disgusted as I threw the baked squash away. That was strike one. Strike two came along when I was browsing the soups aisle at the grocery store and was won over by the packaging. After all, the creamy soup sounded really good especially with the allure of the word "butternut." "Butternut" just sounds like it'd be so lovely. Nope! Hated the soup. Pretty much just threw it away after two bites.

Despite all of this I was still willing to give the squash a chance. And then, out of the blue came strike three:

Orange Chicken with Potatoes from Real Simple Magazine. I will not be sharing the recipe since I didn't much care for it.

I made the ever so shocking mistake of not reading the recipe through before I forged ahead. In the back of each Real Simple magazine they are kind enough to include a grocery list of the items you'd need to pick up for each dish. At lunch, I had thumbed through and mentally noted several recipes that looked worthy, but I didn't really note any specifics and only took their grocery list with me to the store.

List in hand, I filled up my basket in the produce aisle. Onions, check. Orange, check. What the...?? Butternut squash?! How did that sneaky little guy make it into the recipe I was dying to try out? I was not amused but figured it couldn't be too harmless and threw it in the basket.

A little note about the Real Simple recipe... they don't mention how to actually prepare the ingredients. Never having made butternut squash before, I was clueless about how to proceed. Thanks to a quick google search I was on my way to cursing at the darn thing for being so hard to peel and cut up.

Anyway, long story short, I discovered again that I don't like butternut squash. Please pardon the slimy look of the picture, but the rest of it was pretty good (once Natalie picked out all of the the offending squash) and I was too antsy after soccer to wait for a good photograph to eat.


Note: The following day I went to the freezer in the lunch room at work to pull out a frozen lunch. There I discovered a Lean Cuisine with butternut squash ravioli staring at me. I had entirely forgotten that I actually really enjoy that meal. Thanks, Lean Cuisine, for doing whatever it is that you did to the squash to make it not just palatable for me, but quite tasty indeed.

Chocolate Pie: Bet You Can't Guess The Secret Ingredient

I bet you'll never guess! I baked my first batch of this dense and creamy pie for my coworkers and asked them to take a stab at what the "secret ingredient" was. Much to my delight, after sampling it, not a single person was able to guess correctly. Do you know what it is? It's tofu!

This pie is pretty much just tofu and melted chocolate, and once you mix them together they're ready for the pie shell. Slip it into the fridge and a few hours later you've got pie! Heavenly pie.

My greatest thanks for this recipe go to, none other than my hero, Alton Brown. Thank you Alton, you have yet to let me down.

Remy's Ratatouille

Last night my parents were planning to watch Ratatouille, and having recently stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen's recipe, I got all excited and decided to bake Remy's dish for the occasion.

Not only was it fun to make, but it came out fantastic and everyone wanted second helpings! I couldn't find an Italian eggplant, but I managed without. Couldn't find an oval baking dish either, so I just used a pie plate. It worked all the same.

Last night (my last dinner before returning to Tucson) we had a feast of food: ratatouille, lamb stuffed eggplant, veal marsala and chocolate tofu pie (will post later). No wonder I managed to gain at least five pounds during the span of my two week holiday vacation at my parents' house. Yikes!

First Friday

Denise, David, Patricia and I went to First Fridays in Phoenix. Met up at Patricia's and walked from there, what a great location! I am in love with the "big city" buildings. Spent the entirety of our Thai dinner staring out the window at the animated walking people displayed on the outside of the art museum. We were going to go to a wine bar, but they were closed.

My O My, Super Easy Pie

From this.

To this! ...with the help of Pilsburry's crusts (which you simply unroll). This one in particular is blackberry, but several blueberry and cherry also went into the oven. I don't even know how many of these pies I baked over the holidays, but I can tell you that I much prefer them to the ones you find in the supermarket. I like that I decide how much sugar is in them.

The recipe is on the inside of the can... and I don't have any more cans.... so aside from being able to tell you that you just drain the juice of one can and boil it with some sugar, cornstarch and maybe some lemon juice before you add the berries and transfer it into a pie crust, I can't provide instruction. Maybe when I get another can...