baking by picture

{This post first appeared as a guest spot over at Real Housekeeping Magazine}

I love dessert (who doesn’t?!).  So when we were invited to dinner at a friend’s house I offered to bring dessert, especially since I had seen this recipe for “heirloom” Oatmeal-Ginger Cream Pies in the latest issue of Country Living magazine. Now, I didn’t exactly set myself up for success. I waited until that afternoon to start… and then I got called into work.  But if I’m anything, it’s Mistress of Crunch Time, so—on to the baking!

In order for a recipe to become “heirloom,” according to the authors, it must:

• Be delicious,
• Be (relatively) simple to make,
• Have ingredients that are readily available to everyone.

Delicious? The picture looked pretty good. Ingredients? Looks like I have everything… Simple? Turns out that was relative…

The hopeful end result. Yeah. Right.

I should have realized I was in over my head when the first step of the recipe was to toast the oats. Riiiiight. Instead, I laughed and called my sister.  You’ve gotta share the fun when a recipe asks for more effort than you’d put forth to eat it…

Oats to toast.

Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be stirring everything else together, but I’m also supposed to go back to the oven and shake the pan with the oats, or turn it around a few times, or something like that.  You’re lucky these oats aren’t getting burned, buckos. There’s no way I’m shaking them around while stirring everything else. Nope.

Meanwhile, stirring…

This next part of the recipe was the best, and illustrates why you should read the whole recipe before starting out. You’d think you could just “drop by rounded teaspoonful” in the every-other-cookie-type-recipe-in-the-world manner…but no:

…roll dough, two tablespoons at a time, into balls, or use a #30 (1-ounce) ice cream scoop; for each sheet, drop 12 balls, 2 inches apart. With dampened hands, flatten each ball to a 1/2-inch thickness..

Umm…not gonna happen.  Didn’t I mention that I was throwing these together in the 12 minutes I had left before having to wake the sleeping baby up and throw everything in the car to go to work?So, I ended up winging it, as usual, and just made some blobs on the pans.

But look…she used parchment papers!  Pro.  For sure.

Now, on to the cream filling! Luckily, I had some candied ginger (“readily available ingredients”—ha!) in the cupboard from the last time I thought about trying a ridiculous recipe but stopped at the smartest point: Never starting.

Chop chop with the Cutco.

And…stir it up!

This looks kind of gross. It’s cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and the candied ginger bits.

Into the oven.  When I pulled the cookies out, I didn’t really look at them, except to think, “Those don’t really look the same, now do they?” I came home to these:

Pretty dang flat.

But, if life gives you flat cookies, and you’re bringing dessert to the party…what do ya do? Add more sugar and get going!

Finished product. Nailed it.

They looked nothing like the picture, but everyone said they tasted great. Never forget the cardinal rule of baking: add more butter, more sugar, or both, and you win! Happy baking!

Baking for Real People: Oatmeal Ginger-Cream Pies

Preach it, sister.

{Baking by Picture}

So, I saw this recipe in my latest issue of Country Living magazine, in an article entitled "Heirloom Desserts" from contributors Josh Kilmer-Purcell  Brent Ridge, of  the 'Beekman 1802' brand.  It sounded so simple, and they even gave criteria for a recipe to become "heriloom": 

1. It must be delicous
2. It must be (relatively) simple to make.
3. It must have ingredients that are readily available to everyone. (source)

Delicious? The picture looked pretty good. Ingredients? Looks like I have everything...Simple? Turns out that was relative...

The picture. Hopeful end-result. Yeah. Right.

I should have realized I was in over my head when the first step of the recipe was to *toast* the oats. Riiiiight. Instead, I laughed and called my sister.  You've gotta share the fun when a recipe asks for more effort than you'd put forth to eat it...

Oats to toast. 

Then, *meanwhile*, I'm supposed to be stirring everything else together, BUT, I'm supposed to go back to the oven and shake the pan with the oats, or turn it around a few times, or something like that. You're lucky these oats aren't getting burned, buckos, there's no way I'm shaking them around, meanwhile stirring everything else. Nope. 

Meanwhile stirring

This next part of the recipe was the best, and illustrates why you should read the *whole* recipe before starting out. Or not. Do what you want. I usually do ;).  You'd think you could just "drop by rounded teaspoon-ful" in the old *every other cookie type recipe in the world* manner...but no:

...roll dough, two tablespoons at a time, into balls, or use a #30 (1-counce) ice cream scoop; for each sheet, drop 12 balls, 2 inches apart. With dampened hands, flatten each ball to a 1/2-inch thickness..

Umm...not gonna happen.  Didn't I mention that I was throwing these together in the 12 minutes I had left before having to wake the sleeping baby up and throw everything in the car to go to work?  With all due respect to those of you with 1-ounce ice cream scoops (I'm thinking of you, Mrs. M!)...

(source - w/ changes by yours truly)

So, I ended up winging it, as usual, and just made some blobs on the pans.

But look...she used parchment papers! Pro. For sure.

Now, on to the cream filling! Luckily, I had some candied ginger ("readily available ingredients" - ha!) in the cupboard from the last time I thought about trying a ridiculous recipe, but stopped at the smartest point: never starting.

Chop chop w/ the Cutco

And...stir it up!

This looks kind of gross. It's cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and the candied ginger bits.

I actually made the frosting later, after I came home from work.  I pulled the cookie parts out of the oven, and off I went.  I didn't really look at them, except to think "those don't really look the same, now do they?"  I came home to these:

Pretty dang flat.

But, life gives you flat cookies, and you're bringing dessert to the party...what do ya do? Add more sugar and get going!

Finished product. Nailed it. 

SO...they looked nothing like the picture....BUT, everyone said they tasted great. I suppose I forgot the cardinal rule of baking (of all cooking, really): add more butter, more sugar, or both, and you win! 

Happy Baking!

Balsamic Beef Roast...sort of!

Domestic Adventures of the Not-So-Rich-or-Famous
Another *Fabulous* Attempt at a Food Blog

(since Marie asked so nicely)

{joining Jen for day #2 of the blog challenge}

>>Balsamic Beef Roast<<

This is the official Pintrest picture
designed to make you think: YUM!

So, I decided to try to make something yummy tonight for dinner. AND I followed a recipe! Woo-ee! :0). Miss Sarah suggested this website the other day, a Pintrest gold-mine board of crock-pot/freezer meal ideas, wherein I found the above goodness and the following crock-pot recipe:

1 3-4 pound boneless roast beef 1 cup beef broth ½ cup balsamic vinegar 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon honey ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes 4 cloves garlic, chopped.
Into the crock pot for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.

I did the same recipe, with a few exceptions, per my usual kitchen m.o. I used venison loin and shoulder chops instead of beef...and no soy sauce, because who needs to add MORE SALT to a recipe with BEEF BROTH already for cryin' out loud (...also, I didn't have any left...which is inexplicable, since I normally feel the too-much-sodium vibe and leave out the soy).

Here is everything in the pot just after I put it there.
So that I could send a picture to my sister and claim domestic goddess-hood.

Crock-potting away!

yum yum yum and it smelled very good

Actual picture of my dinner plate.
As if I were one of those people who tweeted her dinners.

We added barbeque sauce, but that was all. Steve said, "it's good". Which is about an 8.5 out of 10 on the scale of dinners I make ;)

Happy Eating!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

...but cookies taste much better.

Yesterday morning the boyos and I set out down to the end of the front yard to pick raspberries. This activity is largely made up of:
1. Keeping Daniel out of the road
2. Keeping Daniel from throwing fistfuls of picked berries into the ground, having snatched them for the pot
3. Letting Leo eat all the berries he can pick

It's no surprise, therefore, that the fruit of our efforts was a mere few cupfuls of the ruby gems.

So, in an effort to be like one of those much more classy and more often updated etc. etc. blogs....here's what we did.

Fresh Raspberry Cookies with some Oatmeal

1. Put this guy down for a nap. One small man vying for the cookie dough is enough.

He's just as mischieveous as he looks, folks.

2. Looked online and found a cute blog with this recipe. Buuhhhht, didn't have the white chocolate chips, or the patience to use frozen berries. Also found this recipe from Emeril. But seriously...I don't have white chocolate chips, you think I have actual lemons and raspberry liquor? Uhhmmm...nope.

3. Ended up using my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, but w/o the chippies, and w/ (cold, not frozen) raspberries. Plus some oatmeal. Because there wasn't enough oatmeal just to go that route.

This is flour in a bowl, so that you know I actually did these things.
...and this is an actual post about food. Something like that.

The dough. It was too moist from the berry juice, so I added oatmeal,
but we didn't have enough oatmeal.
Mostly I need to go grocery shopping, huh? :)

NO PAPARAZZI IN THE KITCHEN!
"No picture!"

5. Here's what they look like. Consistency of muffins, really, but the boy-os still called them cookies...so I win, right? I was positive that Steve would call them "healthy", which is what he says when I make cookies like this that don't really taste like cookies, but all he asked was, "what's in these?", which is what he says when I make something that tastes weird. Le sigh.

"What's in these?"

  Too young to know that I made them fake cookies...

The chocolate chip cookie recipe I use is actually really good though! You can try that if you actually want to bake something!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies*

*very slightly adapted from a recipe I found online in another cute blog
Disclaimer: "Best" is obviously what I consider to be best: chewy, moist, yummy, yummy cookies

What goes in:

3/4 c. butter, softened (not melted)

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla plus extra to moisten as needed

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. dark chocolate chips (good ones, like Ghiradelli's)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350

Cream butter and sugars together until "fluffy" (whatever that means...!)

Add egg and vanilla (I just pour some out of the bottle...)

Mix the flour, soda, salt in a different bowl, then add to your sugar-butter-egg-vanilla combo and mix.

Add more vanilla if the dough is too crumbly (I literally slosh it in there...but I live on the edge, ya know?)

Stir in your good dark chocolate chips. (Ok, you can use lameo milk chocolate chips...these are just way way better).

Put blobs on your cookie sheet (they end up the exact size you put down, so form accordingly)

Bake for 8-10 minutes ONLY, barely baked looking, just golden-brown on the edges. Do not bake longer. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES.

Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, than remove to wire rack if you feel fancy/can wait that long to try one.


I think I'll retire from food posts forever now...