TWD: Not pretty enough to photograph, good enough to eat

This week's TWD recipe, Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte, was selected by Amy of Food, Family and Fun. I was very excited when I was reading this recipe...until I got to the part where the chocolate ganache called for EIGHT eggs, and not just EIGHT eggs, EIGHT RAW eggs. I said ewww and thought about skipping this week. However, since I skipped last week's recipe, I didn't want to be a two-weeks-in-a-row skipper. So I checked out the TWD page and read some of the comments the other bloggers had posted about this recipe. One participant said she used brownies in place of the ganache, so I decided that was the way to go for me as well. (I can't remember who used brownies, but I'm checking for her blog and will post when I find it.)

So off I went searching for a brownie recipe and I decided to check the past recipes from TWD. One of the very first recipes made was the quintuple chocolate brownie (I'll post that later) which I have been drolling over ever since buying Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, the inspiration for Tuesdays with Dorie. My husband likes fudgy style brownies, and the quintuple chocolate brownie recipe said that it was a fudgy style brownie, so a win-win in my book...please the husband AND avoid making a ganache that has EIGHT RAW eggs in it. Score!

The problem was this...I have no patience. Zero, zilch, nada...especially when it comes to something chocolate and me wanting to eat said chocolate. So the brownies weren't as cool as they should have been when I attempted to assemble the Chocolate (brownie) Banded Ice Cream Torte. And my ice cream kinda melted. And I wanted to make mini tortes in a mini loaf pan lined with plastic wrap. And I thought it would be a good idea to take the mini tortes out of the mini loaf pan, wrap them tightly in the plastic wrap and put them in the freezer that way. With nothing to hold the melting ice cream in place. Do you see where I am going with this?

Yeah, the ice cream just oozed out, but eventually did harder up a bit, which is when I took a big bite and yum, yum, yum. I used Edy's Raspberry Chip Royale ice cream, which is vanilla ice cream swirled with raspberry ice cream and chocolate chips. Heaven on a spoon I tell ya!

I have brownies and ice cream left and am going to attempt to make another Chocolate (brownie) Banded Ice Cream Torte tonight. Hopefully the second time around will be pretty enough to photograph.

Mexican Lasagna

My husband thinks that in a past life I was a Mexican Mamasita named Rosita since I could eat Mexican food every day of the week and be completely, blissfully happy. He often shouts...No More Cilantro!...everytime I say...Let's go to our favorite Mexican place for dinner, or I'm making tacos tonight! But he obliges because he loves me, and because if I didn't cook for him, he'd be eating Mac and Cheese or cereal for dinner every.single.day.

Although I am starting to open my culinary horizons a bit and am more willing to try new things, sometimes I still like to keep things very simple for a quick meal. And in my kitchen, it doesn't get any quicker than my lazy version of enchiladas that I don't even bother to roll up and instead layer and call it "Mexican Lasagna" just to make it seem fancy. I forgot the jalapenos when I made this last time and I definitely noticed the difference. That little kick of spice was surely missed.

Mexican Lasagna (or Enchiladas)

Ingredients:

18 Corn Tortillas
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
1 can refried beans (I like to use the fat free version – they taste the same)
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can whole corn kernels, drained (which if you are like me you will forget to actually add in)
2 cans (or one large 28 ounce can) tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
¼ cup dried onion flakes (softened in water and drained – or you can use onion powder or fresh onion)
3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees and have a lasagna dish on hand.

Rinse chicken and slice into small strips or chunks. Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium heat in a sauté pan with a few tablespoons of EVOO. When the chicken is mostly done, drain any excess EVOO left in the pan, then add the tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin and onions and stir. Let the sauce and chicken simmer on medium low heat while you prepare the other ingredients.

Mix the refried beans and pinto beans together in a bowl. Add a little water if the mixture is too thick. Spoon enough of the sauce (minus the chicken) into the bottom of the lasagna dish to coat it. Layer the bottom of the dish with the corn tortillas (my lasagna dish is large enough to fit 6 overlapping tortillas per layer). Spread 1/3 of the sauce and chicken over the tortillas, next spoon on and spread half of the bean mixture, then sprinkle on half of the corn and top with cheese. Repeat the layers: tortillas, sauce and chicken, beans, corn and cheese. Then top with one last layer of tortillas, the last of the sauce and cheese.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes on stove top, or if you are like me, serve right away without letting cool so it comes out as one big mess from the dish! Top with sour cream and salsa if you'd like and enjoy.

TWD: A Recipe Rewind

This week's TWD was selected by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. Dolores chose the Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream recipe, but the ladies who run Tuesdays with Dorie decided to let those of us without an ice cream maker do a recipe rewind and make one of the past TWD recipes. I fall into the category of those without an ice cream maker, and I knew immediately what I would do.

My mom was visiting last week and since I have raved on and on about how wonderful the Perfect Party Cake is, I decided I would make that for us to enjoy. With a little twist!

Last year when my husband and I got married at Fabulous Caesars Palace in Fabulous Las Vegas, we had our cake made by the Fabulous catering department at Caesars. The cake was...you guessed it...Fabulous! (Sorry, there's just something about Vegas that makes me over use the word Fabulous. :)

One of the layers of our cake was coconut cake with pineapple filling and buttercream frosting. But the cake didn't have shredded coconut in it or on it (which I can't stand), it was just flavored with this wonderful hint of coconut and the pineapple was so sweet and tart and well, if I hadn't just gotten married to my husband, I would have eloped at the Little White Wedding Chapel O'Love with that cake. Yes, it was THAT good!

So as soon as I saw the recipe for the Perfect Party Cake when I first bought Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and joined Tuesdays With Dorie, I knew that one day I would recreate that Fabulous cake using Dorie's recipe.

My husband however, hates pineapple, so he has never understood my love of that cake and why I have been obsessed with it for over a year. So keeping in mind my vow to love him in sickness (yes, it's a sickness to hate pineapple) and health, I decided to divide the batter in half and make one cake using Dorie's recipe of lemon flavored cake with raspberry filling for him, and one with coconut flavored cake with pineapple filling for me to love and cherish.

I mixed the batter together leaving out the lemon zest and lemon extract. Then I divided the batter in half and added 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract to one, and 1/2 teaspoon of coconut extract to the other. I also left out the lemon juice from the buttercream frosting. In hindsight, it would have been great to add a little of the coconut extract to part of the buttercream as well, but that error in judgement can be corrected the next time I make this cake, which will probably be entirely too soon!

From there, I just made two 2 layer cakes. I did run a little short on the buttercream, but it wasn't a huge problem., both cakes still came out great.

Above is a pic of the coconut cake with pineapple filling. It was very light and fresh and had a great subtle coconut flavor to the cake. Not quite as good as the Fabulous cake from Caesars, but I mean come on...my kitchen doesn't house an award winning pastry team for crying out loud! It was definitely a winner in my book though.

I love this cake so much I am already thinking of other combos to try with it. Next...strawberry and lime? Orange and lemon? Oh so many possibilities!!

TWD: Black and more black Banana Loaf

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I'm just now getting around to posting my last 2 TWD's. Please forgive me, I'm a slacker and my mom was visiting, and well, I was lazy too.

I made the Black and White Banana Loaf (selected by Ashley of A Year in the Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs) a couple weekends ago and as you can see from the pic, it wasn't so much Black AND White, as it was Black and then a little more Black! Apparently I got a little over zealous with the swirling part and I mixed the two batters a little too much. I intended to make this again and not swirl it so much, but time got away from me and all I have is this one sad little picture of a black banana loaf.

Many TWD's reported problems of the batter being very runny and thin, and I have to agree, the batter was extremely runny and when I was attempting to create the swirl, it just sort of mixed all together. Despite not looking very pretty, it tasted great and the chocolate and banana combo was really nice. I do want to make this again, 1. so I can redeem myself and prove that I can marble without overmixing, and 2. so I can eat more of it since it was so tasty.

Even with runny batter and not so great marbling, this was still a great recipe. I have yet to make anything from Dorie's book that wasn't great!! Buy the book if you haven't already, trust me, it's spectacular.

TWD: Summer Fruit Galette

This week's TWD recipe was selected by Michelle in Colorado Springs.

I must admit, when I saw that this week's recipe was yet another fruit dessert, I wasn't very excited. I'm more of a cookie, cake, chocolate chocolate chocolate kind of girl. But then I remembered how amazing the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie was, and how delicious Dorie's pie crust is, and my mouth started watering a bit.

For this dessert, I ended up using peaches, apricots and plums as part of Dorie's recipe called for; I skipped the nectarines and rhubarb. My original idea for this recipe was to make it tropical and use pineapple, mango, papaya and kiwi. I wasn't sure how kiwi would bake though and my husband said he doesn't like tropical fruits, so that plan got tossed out the window. I might try it sometime though because it sounds really good in theory, so if you've ever baked with kiwi before and it worked out well, please leave me a comment and let me know.

I used peach preserves on the bottom of the crust before adding the fruit. Dorie suggests ginger preserves, but I already had peach on hand and just used that. I also completely forgot to add the graham cracker crumbs on the bottom, which I think definitely would have helped since my fruit did seem particularly juicy. Dorie says that adding graham cracker crumbs helps to soak up some of the juice, and that's a tip that I am going to try to remember next time.

But I was so happy with how the Galette turned out, it was lip-smacking good with a dollop of whipped cream on top. We had dinner with some friends on Saturday night and I took this over for dessert and everyone raved about it. I will definitely make this recipe again.

My husband continually called my beautiful Galette a "Fruit Pizza" so I had to pinch him a few times and correct his error. Then he decided to call it a "gillette" as in the razor blades. Men!

Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest

Each year at the end of July, Columbus holds it's annual Jazz & Rib Fest along the downtown riverfront. My husband, Patrick, and I always enjoy going down to the Fest and eating lots of ribs, chicken and funnel cakes. Listening to the cool Jazz music is fun as well, and the hearing the musicians refer to each other as "cats" always makes me smile with glee. A smile that is usually covered in BBQ sauce, but whatever, everyone else there is covered in sauce as well so no one judges!

This year we not only skipped away from work on Friday to have lunch at the Fest, but headed downtown on Saturday for lunch again. You can never have too much BBQ Rib Fest food!

Patrick had a Pulled Pork sandwich from Famous Dave's which he covered in "Devil's Spit" sauce, and ribs from a local place, Lawshea's Southern Fish and Ribs.

I had a BBQ chicken sandwich from Famous Dave's with Sweet and Zesty sauce and double the Wilbur Beans. I love baked beans and these were absolutely delicious.

And we split a big ole plate full of fresh cut chips, half with cheese sauce and bacon bits. I was fasinated watching the people make these chips because they had a stand slicer on one end, then stuck the potato onto what looked like some sort of metal rod, and had a cordless power drill on the other end of the metal rod which spun the potato around and sliced it into this almost one entire piece, perfectly thin, spiral chip! It was amazing and I watched in excitement thinking...hummm...I wonder I could fashion one of these contraptions at home?!

A few pics from the Fest. Look at all that smoke! It smelled fantastic out there.

A couple of pics looking across the river at part of downtown Columbus.

We love going to the Jazz and Rib Fest each year. It has gotten better and better over the last few years as well, so I hope next year is just as fun and finger licking good.

Cheddar Studded Tex-Mex Meatloaf Patties

I'm not afraid to admit that I love Rachel Ray. I know a lot of people find her annoying, there are even several "I hate Rachel Ray" websites out there, but I have always enjoyed watching her shows and her cookbooks and magazine have some great and flavorful recipes. Can I get a YUMMO!?!?

This recipe for Cheddar Studded Tex-Mex Meatloaf Patties is my absolute favorite from Rachel's cookbook 365: No Repeats A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. These are simply the best burgers I have ever eaten. My husband and I make these for dinner at least once every couple of weeks. With Rachel’s Smashed Potatoes, this is an excellent and quick week night meal after a long day at work.

The Smashed Potatoes are super simple and I don’t even look at the recipe anymore, I just throw them together with the add ins we have come to like best.

As you can see, this is my favorite RR cookbook and it has taken quite a beating. The binding of the book actually broke right on this recipe because I use it that often. I told you these are good burgers!



Cheddar Studded Tex-Mex Meatloaf Patties (Rachel Ray 362: No Repeats)

Ingredients:

1 lb ground sirloin
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
1/8 cup milk
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon tomato paste (or ketchup)
1/2 green pepper, cored, seeded and finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1/2 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together (I like to season the meat first with the S&P and Worcestershire sauce and then throw everything else in). Form into 4-5 burger patties and cook on medium heat in a skillet or on the grill to desired “doneness”. Is “doneness” a word?? Yeah, I didn’t think so, but you know what I mean! ;)

Smashed Potatoes (modified from Rachel Ray 362: No Repeats)

Ingredients:

4-5 large Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
½ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons butter
S&P to taste
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
Handful of bacon bits

Directions:

Boil the potatoes until soft, drain and put back in the pot. Add remaining ingredients and use a potato masher to mash and mix. If you like the potatoes smoother, use a hand mixer to mash and mix together. If you don’t mind the potatoes lumpy, then just use the masher and stir.

I like to serve these like burgers, on a toasted bun with some extra cheese (like the first pic). My husband likes his more like meatloaf with brown gravy and no bun. Either way they are DELISH!