Strawberry Brie Popovers - BakeSpace Challenge

Who would've thought....here I am over, ummm.... 40 ....and I have never in my life had a popover, and I didn't even know it until I was almost done cooking these babies. I don't know what I thought popovers were...but I didn't expect a dessert version of Yorkshire Pudding. LOL

Soo sometime around 2 weeks ago, I came across a recipe for these little mini popovers on the Betty Crocker website. Bought the Brie cheese and then forgot about it. A couple of days ago I was scrounging around in one of the drawers in the fridge and came across this round box of Baby Brie Cheese and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the hell I had bought it for. I KNEW it was for something..... (getting old really sucks). Well...today I remembered (whew). So I dug through my email to find the recipe link I had emailed myself (ya, that reminder worked well to begin with LOL), and printed the recipe out. Then I figured in order to motivate myself to get some cleaning done I'd use the popovers as a "reward". Nothing like playing mind games with yourself. 

Then comes the BIG ta-da!!! We're in the middle of our monthly BakeSpace Challenge. Here's a little intro for this month:

OK, Calling all BakeSpace Challenge Entries... It's May and it's time to get your Challenge on!!! 

The Month of May all about Strawberries and Eggs; OK, it's also about gazpacho, but ya gotta draw the line somewhere. 

So the Challenge this month is a Strawberry and Egg-centric dish.... 

So let's see what everyone brings to the table  


Ready, Set....... GO!

If you'd like to participate....please feel free to do so. We'd all welcome you with open arms! The link is: BakeSpace Challenge May 2009 - Strawberries and Eggs

Can you guess what thought went screeching through my head? OMG...popovers contain eggs....lets add STRAWBERRIES!! wooo hoooo. I was really having a hard time trying to figure something out for this challenge. I don't know why. Guess I was just stuck on "duh". Anyways....that's the background to these fabulous little bites of yummieness. Know let's get baking.

8 oz Brie cheese

8 - 10 oz strawberries (plus more for garnish)

1 tsp or so of sugar to sprinkle over the strawberries, if needed / desired

2 eggs

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 450' F. Liberally grease 24 mini muffin tins. 

Divide your Brie Cheese into 24 pieces. I took that white paper-ish stuff off the cheese first. (obviously I'm not a cheese monger, otherwise I'd know what to call it). Whatever it's called, I'm not very fond of the flavor. If you like it, go ahead, keep it on. 

Now I have to admit something. Since I didn't know that popovers were hallow inside until later, when I was looking at those rather good sized pieces of cheese, I was thinking to myself...there's no way in hell that cheese is going to fit inside!! Plus the strawberries? But I dutifully continued with the recipe as directed. (sometimes I'm such a good girl ROFL)

Cut your strawberries into little bite sized pieces. The berries I had were from the grocery store, so I did sprinkle some sugar over them to sweeten them up a bit. Not to mention, when I'm having dessert....it has to be sweet! :)
In a medium bowl, beat eggs slightly with a fork or whisk. Add flour, lemon zest, milk, sugar and salt. Beat until smooth but don't over beat it. 

Fill your muffin tins about....well, the directions said 2/3 full, ROFL...umm...these tins are soo small and I had extra batter, so I ended up just about filling them up. Apparently, it's not a huge issue. Worst comes to worst, you might have to cook them a bit longer.

Pop them in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the oven temp. to 350' F and continue baking for another 10 minutes, or until they are crusty and golden brown. 

Cut a slit in the top of each popover. Put a small spoonful of strawberries inside and then plug up that hole with a piece of cheese

Put them back in the oven for 5 minutes. Immediately remove them from the pan and serve.

If you want to get creative for breakfast, omg....there's soooo much you could do with these. Make them savory with basil or rosemary instead of the lemon zest. Or use orange zest. Fill them with scrambled eggs and pancetta, or Italian sausage. What about sauteed mushrooms and onions? Your imagination is the limit! 

Happy Mothers Day to ME!!

I have never been into baking and cake decorating. Not that I didn't like it, I just never learned how. I mean...I've made cakes and used store bought icing and pre-made decorations, which is fine. I've always wanted to take cake decorating lessons, but icing intimidates me. Since hanging out in BakeSpace I've seen lots of cakes and various decorating methods. I had never heard of fondant (mmf) before and it caught my attention. The more I saw, the more I became intrigued. I'm not going to give you any lessons or even the ingredients...because I'm waaaay too new at this. What I will do is give you the source of my knowledge...DDPiesSlice!! She has an awesome blog with several entries about fondant...plus some of the most exquisite cakes I have ever seen. I was himming and hawwing about it last night and another great BakeSpace member called Grammadotcom really encouraged me and gave me some awesome tips. Thank you both for sharing your knowledge :). 

Well, this is the result of my very first ever experience with fondant. I had sooo much fun!!! I'm really looking forward to exploring all the possibilities. Oh, before I forget, I have to confess that I still used a cake from a box (confetti cake)....but let me tell you...I had a blast playing with my cake "play dough"!! 

Pot Roast, Veggies and Yorkshire Pudding

When ever I make a pot roast, I'm reminded of my grandmother (Nana) with her old victorian ways (even though she was born and raised in Canada), prim and proper but when she laughed (which was often) it came from the core of her soul. She made the best ever pot roast. She was able to get the potatoes to brown just right and the gravy was never lumpy. Oh wait, thats not true..I do remember a lumpy gravy once but she poured it through a fine mesh strainer and everything was fine. The one thing she added to her pot roast meal that none of my friends had (or had even heard of) was Yorkshire Pudding. What a treat it was when Nana made her Yorkshire Pudding! So of course that was one of the recipes I had to get when I started cooking. 

I always wondered though, why it's called Yorkshire Pudding. In my little kid mind, pudding is that stuff thats sweet and smooth and is either caramel, vanilla or chocolate flavored. But...the dictionary says otherwise. But still....Yorkshire pudding isn't the same consistency as other non-sweetened puddings...ie: corn pudding? Yorkshire Pudding is more like a bread thing to me, except hallow. I think it's in a class of its own...unique yet simple. 

Well, the other day, the local market had chuck roast on sale. It was less expensive that ground beef...go figure THAT one out. I figured I'd better cook it soon before the weather got too hot for "comfort" food. And its a good thing I did. I made this last Sunday and by Wednesday it was pushing 100' outside!!

Usually when I make a pot roast I cook it in the oven. My oldest daughter has decided to play basketball again (YAY!!!) and she had a game early that evening. Since I wasn't going to be home during the time I'd be cooking the roast, I decided to put it in a crock pot. The only drawback was that the potatoes didn't get to roast and get brown. Owell...next year :) I did refer to a nice cookbook I have for crock pot cooking, just to make sure I got the cooking time right and the proper liquid amounts. The book is called Crockery Cookery by Mable Hoffman. It has some very nice recipes inside.

 

Basically, this is what I had in my pantry. I don't usually put bell peppers in, but I didn't have any celery so I improvised. By the time the dinner was ready, there really wasn't anything left of the bell pepper other than the flavor. Also, I don't usually use red onions...but thats all I had. aaaaand I used the snack carrots from a bag that my husband eats for lunches....(wonder if you noticed they were almost all gone). Ya, I was out of regular carrots too. Guess I seriously needed to make a trip to the grocery store. And I did....later in the day but I needed to get this baby started early that morning so it would be ready for dinner. 

Ingredients:

1 beef rump or chuck roast (3 - 3.5 lbs) trimmed of fat

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon Cajun Seasoning (or your favorite seasoning salt)

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1 onion, cut into wedges

3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1" slices

4 potatoes, cut into chunks

1 4 oz can of mushrooms (or fresh would be better if you have it. of course I didn't)

1 celery stock, chopped

1 cup beef broth

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup water

shoot...I forgot to put garlic in it. Ok...well, add a few cloves of garlic, chopped.

Place vegetables in the bottom of your slow cooker.

Rub all sides of meat with salt, pepper, seasoning salt and paprika.

Pour broth over the vegetables and then place the meat on top. 

Cover and cook on LOW for 8 - 9 hours or until the meat and vegetables are tender. 

Man...I need a new crock pot! I think this one is about 20 yrs old. I'd love to have one of those cool oval ones. Have you ever tried stuffing a chicken in a round pot?

Oh look....the meat is tender! 

Now...if you're going to make Yorkshire Pudding, see that fat floating at the top? Skim off about 2 tablespoons of that fat and set it aside. 

Remove the meat and vegetable and keep warm while you tend to the juices left in the slow cooker....mmmm....gravy.

Turn the control to HIGH. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water; stir into the crock pot. Cover and cook on HIGH for 15 - 20 minutes, or until slightly thickened. 

Now...lets get to this Yorkshire pudding. You should probably start this about 45 minutes before you take the meat out of the crock pot. 

Here's what you'll need:

1 1/4 cups milk

1/4 cup water

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

4 eggs

2 tablespoons melted fat off roast (pan drippings!!)

Beat milk, water, flour, salt and eggs until smooth and bubbly.

Set aside for 30 minutes. 

Beat again for 1 minute just before putting into the muffin tins.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 500' 

Put 1/2 tsp of fat into each of the 12 muffin tins (can you see how old this muffin pan is? It use to be my mother in-laws). Heat pan in oven for about a minute or two.

Evenly fill each tin with batter. 

Bake at 500' for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 400' and continue baking for another 5 - 10 minutes (probably closer to the 10 minutes). Serve immediately!

As you can see...in the few minutes it took me to get my camera (from the counter behind me), turn it on and snap the picture, the puddings were shrinking, which is normal.

Did I ever mention what the purpose of Yorkshire Pudding was? Apparently when meat was scarce and extremely expensive (back in the day...oooh say early 1700's)...they would serve the Yorkshire Pudding (originally known as Dripping Pudding) with gravy as a starter dish, hoping to fill you up so you didn't eat as much meat. (cheap bastards LOL)

Raspberry Tart in honor of National Raspberry Tart Day

I found out that today is National Raspberry Tart Day. Not sure why or what that means....but it got me thinking that I have never made a tart in my life. I love raspberries.....hmmm....could today be the day? Ta-Da!!! (or, as Karen from Will and Grace says.... taaaa-taaaaaa's). I know, I watch way too much late night T.V. What can I say? It's perfect for a numb mind after a long day. 

Anyways....today was the day that I made my very first ever tart.  I looked around at various recipes. I even found a tart pan in my cupboard. (It was one of those Baker Squares pans that I got eons ago, from some kind of mail-in offer, but had never used.) I was bummed out when I discovered that the pan didn't have removable sides (like those spring-form pans for cheesecake). I almost didn't go through with my tart plan but when I found out that my neighbor (who's old enough to be my grandmother) didn't have a removable side tart pan either, I felt....well...old-fashioned but normal. At least normal enough to continue on. 

Now for the recipes. I found a great recipe on BakeSpace but the crust required pie-ish type handling and I wasn't in the mood to deal with that. But the inside custard sounded great. The Betty Crocker website had a great cookie type crust recipe for a lemon tart so I decided, "what the heck...I'll use the best of both worlds and make my life easy". It worked (waddaya know?). I used the Better Crocker crust recipe and the BakeSpace custard recipe.....taaa-taaaaaaaaaa's!!! (nothing like a tart cooking a tart....hahahahaha)

Here's where I got the parts for my recipe, in case you wanna check out the souce: 

Piday's Raspberry Tart with Vanilla Cream

Betty Crocker's Lemon Berry Tart

Now that we have the recipe in order, the tart pan will suffice and all the ingredients are on hand.... I went to the grocery store this morning and made sure. Oh...I have to confess that fresh Raspberries were priced out of this world!! Something like $5.99 for a tiny little handful so I ended up getting the whole frozen raspberries instead....just so ya know. Ooook...ready?

For the "Cookie Crust":

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 tablespoons packed brown sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat oven to 400'. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. You will need to make sure its combined well (no clumps of butter). A soft dough will form. Press dough into your ungreased tart pan (I believe my pan was 9"). Make sure you press up the sides and along the bottom, making it as even as possible. Don't worry too much if its a bit thin as it will thicken when cooked. 

I could've pressed my dough a little more up the sides.

Bake 13 - 15 minutes or until light golden brown (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the cooked crust). Let cool completely (at least 45 minutes).

Now for the filling:

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

2 1/2 cups light cream (I used 2 cups half & half and 1/2 cup milk)

1 tsp vanilla extract (I always seem to spill in a little extra...oops..gee darn)

2 large egg yolks

Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together in a thick bottomed saucepan. 

Place the pan over medium heat and whisk in the cream and vanilla. Cook, stirring constantly and thoroughly for several  minutes with a heat resistant spoon

until cream thickens and begins to bubble. Remove pan from heat.

Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl.

Slowly pour about half of the warm cream mixture into the bowl with the eggs while whisking continuously.  This process will temper the eggs without cooking them so that you don't end up with scrambled eggs in your tart. 

Pour the egg / cream mixture back into the pan; return pan to heat and cook for another 2 - 3 minutes, until the cream is almost as thick as pudding. 

Pour into a bowl. Cover the custard with plastic wrap so that it doesn't develop a skin while cooling (you know what George Carlin use to say about pudding skins, don't you?). Refrigerate until chilled (at least an hour or more).

Here are my little frozen buddies, defrosting while the custard is cooling.

When you are ready to serve your tart, fill the crust shell with your custard. Place fruit on top and get ready to enjoy. If my berries hadn't been frozen and weren't so...soft, I could've "arranged" them instead of just tossing them on there. O'well....you do what you can do. In the end, it all tastes great.

Oh...and the reason I was so concerned about my tart pan was because I didn't think I'd be abot able to remove the tart slices very easily....but...no worries...all was good. The slices came out so easy....you'd think they were on a serving platter instead of the pan it was cooked in. I dunno, maybe thats normal for tarts. This tart is clueless....

Chicken in Creamy Herb Sauce

I've made a similar dish to this one several times using a seasoning packet. Tonight I didn't have the seasoning packet in my pantry so I had to wing it. It just sort of evolved as I dug through my refrigerator to see what I had on hand. What ended up happening was something very different in flavor and definitely worth repeating in the future.

2-3 Chicken breasts cut into bite sized chunks

Salt and Pepper to taste

6 oz mushrooms sliced

1/2 onion sliced

1/4 cup white wine or chicken broth

2 oz fontana cheese diced

2 oz smoked gouda cheese diced

1/2 ricotta cheese

2 - 3 garlic cloves chopped

1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley (I use flat leaf Italian Parsley)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon creole seasoning

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup cream or milk

1 cup chicken broth

Olive oil for skillet

R2-D2 to the rescue once again to quickly chop up my garlic 

(love it!!)

Heat oil over medium high heat in a heavy skillet. Saute mushrooms and onions until tender. Add the garlic and saute for another minute. Add 1/4 cup wine or chicken broth and continue sauteing until liquid dissipates. It won't take long so don't leave. (Look at all that steam!) Remove from pan and set aside.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. 

Add a bit more oil to the pan and saute your chicken.  

Once thoroughly cooked, remove from pan and set aside.

Here I have all the stuff for the sauce. mmmmmmm

Melt butter in the pan then add the flour, stirring constantly until bubbly and a nice golden brown. You want to cook away the flour flavor but you don't want to burn it. This will take a minute or so.

Add the chicken broth and stir, loosening all the crunchies from the bottom of the pan (gathering up all that flavor) 

Then stir in the milk or cream. Mix thoroughly. 

Add your cheeses and remaining seasoning.

Reduce the heat to medium low and stir while cooking until the cheese has melted.

Return the mushrooms, onions and chicken to the pan

Mix and continue cooking until heated through

Serve over pasta. 

The smoky flavor of the gouda really popped in this recipe...YUM! Love that smoked gouda. Of course you can use any cheese you want or have on hand. I recommend sticking with the softer cheeses that melt well.

Crispy Lemon Chicken - Again

I blogged about this recipe before but once again I have made a few changes...bringing it that much closer to how I remember it being made at a long-gone restaurant. I know I won't ever be able to make it taste exactly like theirs. For one thing, I refuse to add MSG (the chef confessed one afternoon before they sold the place). And well...there are several other reasons (the ones that separates me from a professional chef and my kitchen from a restaurant kitchen). But....aside from all that...my family and I love this chicken. It has a strong lemon flavor without being sour. The chicken is moist and the coating is crisp.

The ingredients are simple:

6 boneless skinless chicken thighs seasoned with desired amounts of  salt & pepper (if you prefer breasts....go for it, but I'd recommend 3 breasts, butterflied)

Essence from 2 lemons (save the lemons to squeeze for the juice)

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 - 3 lemons) 

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 - 3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 cups Panko

Vegetable oil 

Lemon slices for garnishing

In a heavy skillet, heat up about 1/4" of vegetable oil. You want it splattering hot when you add the chicken.

Get out 3 shallow, wide bowls (pie pans work great, but I couldn't find mine }: )

First off, get your lemon essence taken care and toss it into one of the wide bowls. Now squeeze the bald lemons and add the juice to the essence.

Add the egg and sour cream to the lemon bowl and mix well:

Put the flour in one of the other bowls and the Panko into the last bowl. Line them up: flour bowl first, then the lemon mixture bowl and finally the Panko bowl. Once you have your assembly line ready its time to get rolling...errr....dipping. 

Dredge your chicken in the flour:

Dip it in the lemon mixture (ya, aint that perty):

Then thoroughly coat that sucker with Panko, patting it down and adding more as needed: 

Fry the chicken in your hot oil until they're dark golden brown, and thoroughly cooked, turning once. If you find that the chicken is getting too brown and not cooked inside, you can stick it in a hot oven for a few minutes.

Serve over your favorite rice. Garnish with a lemon slice for drizzling.