The Goody Life

Favorite Blogs: Smitten Kitchen

A big chunk of my Google Reader consists of food and cooking blogs.  A lot of the new recipes that I've made over the past year have been those that have caught my eye on various blogs.  Smitten Kitchen was one of the first ones I started reading, and remains one of my favorites.  I haven't made many of her recipes- actually, I'm not sure that I've made any- but I have a ton bookmarked that I want to try.  The food always looks delicious, the photography is beautiful, and the writing is usually witty and entertaining. 

On my must-try list:
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
Noodle Kugel
Apple Cake
Best Challah
Blueberry Crumb Bars
Pumpkin Bread Pudding

 

She does make things other than cakes and sweets, but please, I have my priorities.

 

No-cook Sundays

I enjoy cooking, most of the time.  I like looking for new recipes, planning out our weekly meals, washing and chopping the veggies, etc.  Pretty much every step but the clean-up.  Until recently, I was saving my more complicated, longer recipes for Sunday evenings, when I could start the prep a little earlier than on a weekday.  But a few weeks ago, we broke our routine and ordered take-out on a Sunday.  I LOVED it!  I was less stressed about everything that had to be done before Monday, and felt like I had so much more of a weekend.  I think the combination of my major weekly grocery shopping trip along with cooking a big meal had been robbing me of any Sunday evening relaxation.  So I instituted a new rule for Sunday nights...no real cooking.  We can go out to dinner, order in, or make something that takes little-to-no preparation (think frozen pizza.)  I think Stewart appreciates a relaxed and happy wife much more than a home-cooked meal. 

The no-cook rule doesn't apply to breakfasts though, and this Sunday we had a great one.  I'm not a bacon-and-eggs girl...I'd rather have pancakes, waffles, or french toast (bring on those carbs.)  But Stewart wanted eggs and even got up early to get bacon before I woke up, so who was I to argue?  I tried a new Maple Roasted Bacon recipe, Stewart made his go-to Scrambled Eggs, and we had the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins that I made on Saturday.  I took the rest of the muffins to work the next morning and had three requests for the recipe before lunch. So I figured I'd share with you too!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Yield: 24 muffins

Ingredients:
For the muffins:
3 cups flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 TBSP plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree

For the filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened (I used reduced fat)
1 cup powdered sugar

For the streusel topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp. flour
4 TBSP butter, cubed
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:
To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and whip until smooth.  Form onto a log on plastic wrap or foil, making sure that the diameter is small enough to fit into the well of a muffin pan.  Wrap the log up tightly and freeze until slightly hardened, about 1-2 hours.

To make the muffins, combing the flour, spices, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl.  Mix well and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, sugar and pumpkin puree.  Mix until well combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined. 

To make the streusel topping, combine all ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix together with a pastry blender or two forks until crumbly.

Preheat the oven to 350 and line muffin tins with paper liners (preferably cute, pumpkin-patterned liners).  Fill each muffin well halfway with batter.  Remove cream cheese log from the freezer and cut into 24 equal slices.  Place each slice in each muffin well.  Divide the remaining muffin batter evenly among the muffin cups, on top of the cream cheese.  Sprinkly streusel topping over batter.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Let cool completely before serving. 
Recipe from Annie's Eats

Here are the muffins ready for their second layer of batter 

hey bigspender

We have been trying our best to save money, but when I decide I'm going to do something, a little unforeseen cost (usually) won't change my mind.  Two weekends ago I decided I wanted to make Harvey Wallbanger cupcakes.  Growing up, Mom would occasionally make this cake based on the cocktail, which I believe was popular in the 70's.  I always loved it, although it wasn't until recently that I even realized that the flavors I was tasting were orange and alcohol.  Anyway, I had already loaded up my grocery cart with all the ingredients and was planning to stop at the liquor store to pick up the Galliano, but a huge storm started while I was in Publix.  The fear of death by lightning strike was enough to change my mind, so I put the plans for the liquor store run on hold.  All week long, I thought about those cupcakes, so you know the first thing I did on Friday afternoon was stop to pick up the booze.  And get this....the Galliano cost $32!!  I called Stewart and had him call two more liquor stores, but it was the same at all of them.  So when the liquor store manager assured me that this bottle would stay good for at least 40 years, I figured I could think of it as an investment.  In fact, I even categorized the purchase under "household", rather than "groceries" in my Microsoft Money tracking program.  The cupcakes were good, but I prefer Mom's recipe, so that's what I'll post here.  Clearly, with the 2 foot tall bottle of Galliano I now own, this cake is going to be my go-to dessert of the year (or perhaps, the decade.)  In fact, those of you coming to watch the Gator game with us on Saturday, you know what to look forward to!

 

Harvey Wallbanger Cake

1 package super moist yellow cake mix
1 small package vanilla pudding mix
1 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup vodka
1/4 cup Galliano
3/4 cup orange juice

Mix all ingredients together and beat for one minute.  Pour into well greased and lightly floured bundt or tube pan.  Bake 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 oz Galliano
1 oz vodka
1 oz orange juice
Blend until smooth.  Drizzle over warm cake.

Ready for fall

Each season has it's own highlights....winter has Christmas, summer has the looooong break from school, and spring has flowers and Easter.  But purely on the merits of the season alone, Fall is hands-down my favorite.  Even though I grew up without experiencing the changing leaves and the nip in the air each year, I guess I just instinctively knew that it would be my favorite.  I like the spicy and cinnamon-y smells, the cuddly clothes, the warm colors.  Living in Nashville only increased my love for fall.  I remember driving to school right after the leaves had reached their height of color, and thinking to myself, "I get to live here??  I'm not just on vacation?"  It was that gorgeous.  Back in FL now I don't quite get to experience those awe-inspiring colors- although we do get some changing leaves in the panhandle.  And now that we're back in school and the stores are starting to put out fall clothes and decorations, I'm officially ready.  Yes, temperatures are still in the 90's, but I'm ready!  I made my first pumpkin dish of the season and bought a new pumpkin candle from Hallmark.  Come on, fall!

Here are some pictures from back in my Nashville days...

And just to make this post worthwhile, here's one of my favorite things to bake during the fall (ok, really any season, but now's a good time to give you the recipe)

Pumpkin Scones
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup white or milk chocolate chips (optional)
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup pumpkin
1 tsp. vanilla extract
For egg wash:
1 large egg
1 TBS milk or cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in the middle of oven.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I use my Pampered Chef baking stone, no paper needed).  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with pastry blender.  The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.  Stir in chocolate chips.
In a separate bowl mix together buttermilk, pumpkin, and vanilla.  Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture.  Mix just until the dough comes together.  Do not overmix.
Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead gently 4 or 5 times.  Pat into a circle about 7 inches around.  Cut into 6 triangles.  Places scones on baking sheet and brush tops with egg wash.  Place baking sheet inside another sheet to prevent over-browning of bottoms (again not necessary with baking stone).  Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.  Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Original recipe source: thejoyofbaking.com via Reservations Not Required. 

   

A Festive Fourth

Last week was my first full week of summer, since I finished summer school the week before. Let's just say I went a little crazy with all the time on my hands. Stewart's family was having a big Fourth of July get-together, so I decided to make some decorations and desserts. I'm not normally very crafty, so I pretty happy with how my star garland turned out. (Directions on Martha Stewart's website.)

I even managed to find some uses for the leftover paper:

I had been holding on to an picture of Corn on the Cob Cupcakes that I ripped out of a magazine a while ago, and decided that this was the perfect occasion to try it. I'm somewhat of an overachiever when it comes to baking, so I refused to just make the cupcakes from a box. Instead I spent way too much time searching for the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe and spent $5 on special turbinado sugar, only to have the cupcakes come out heavy and bland. But it didn't really matter, because noone really ate them! They probably didn't want to have to pick off all the jelly beans before eating a cupcake, but I just told myself that they were too cute to eat. Luckily I had also made my Strawberry Cupcakes, which were much better received in terms of taste. But you can't beat these Corn on the Cob Cupcakes when it comes to cuteness!

The 'kernels' are Jelly Belly's (lemon, coconut, and buttered popcorn flavors), the 'butter' is lemon Starburst, and the 'pepper' is black decorating sugar. Cute, huh?

I'll post some more pictures from the day soon!

Summer in a cupcake

Today I was in the mood to bake (not uncommon for me on the weekends) and decided to make some Strawberry Cupcakes. Strawberries just scream summer to me. When I was growing up, we used to have Strawberry Shortcake for dinner at least once during the summer- yes, I said dinner- a tradition passed along through my mother, who used to enjoy the same indulgence during her visits to an old family farm. Nothing beats Strawberry Shortcake night! But I was in the mood for something different today. There are tons of berries in the cupcakes and a little bit in the frosting. They turned out even better than I expected.

Here's a link to the recipe: Strawberry Cupcakes

Labels: baking