Brownie Bites

I hope that everyone had a great day yesterday! My family enjoyed celebrating the birth of Jesus together, thankful for the grace of God! We also had fun eating, being silly, and opening gifts. Most of my gifts were kitchen oriented...a kitchen scale, an omelette pan(!!!), a candy thermometer (no excuses now), a Wilton decorating kit, some animal cracker cutouts (that will be fun), and a Gail Pittman mixing bowl. Fun stuff! This week has been full of cooking. I've made two sets of sugar cookies (which makes four recipes for me this Christmas...I'll do a series on these at the new year and you can use them for Valentines day!), an apple pie, ritz cracker nabs, and brownie balls. Today...the brownie balls. I think they'd be perfect on a New Years' party table. My mom had these with a friend and loved them, so we made them. The recipe we saw made them with raspberry jam, which would be DELICIOUS! However, we used peanut butter chips. This added a little different texture and taste. So, now for the recipe...
Brownie Bites
1 box brownie mix (made as instructed for the fudge style)
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 package white almond bark

Bake brownies as instructed. Allow to cool a bit so you don't burn your hands. In a large bowl, crumble the brownies, add the peanut butter chips, and stir together. If you want to melt some of the chips you can (I did) but since the brownies are hot, they'll melt on their own anyway! After mixing them together, form the mixture into walnut sized balls and place on a cookie sheet. Place this in the freezer for 30 minutes. Remove tray from freezer and melt the almond bark. Roll the balls in the bark
and place on some parchment/waxed paper to harden. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Biscotti

And the last of the Christmas Tin cookies! This was a last minute decision because of the failure of my mint thumbprints and the pumpkin fudge. I saw the recipe for these gingerbread biscotti at Picky Palate. I thought they looked pretty good...but almost ruined them because of my lack of a kitchen timer...don't worry, I bought one at Wal-mart the other day! Anyway, instead of being baked twice, I just baked them for the entire time at once...totally by accident! However, they still turned out the texture of properly baked biscotti! I even got a couple of nice compliments. My mom's best friend said they tasted like the kind you buy and my aunt said they were better than Starbuck's! So, I'd say this recipe is a keeper. Gingerbread Biscotti from Picky Palate

1 1/4 cups flour
1 Cup whole wheat flour
1-1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
1-1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
1 bag of white chocolate chips (Picky Palate used cinnamon chips)
1/4 cup molasses
2 large eggs

2 Cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place flours, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, baking soda pecans and cinnamon chips in the bowl of a stand mixer. In a medium bowl, mix eggs with molasses. Pour in egg mixture to dry ingredients until well combined. Divide dough into 2 equal parts and form into 10 inch logs 4 inches apart onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Each log should be about 2 inches wide. Bake for about 30 minutes and let cool for 10 minutes. Cut each log into ½ inch pieces on the diagonal. Place back onto the baking sheet and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until nice and crispy. Remove and let cool completely. OR if you mess up and cook it for around 45 minutes in one sitting by accident, just cut the pieces and let cool! Don't cook any more!

Place chocolate chips into a double broiler over boiling water. Melt until smooth or follow package direction for microwave melting...I usually do it in 30 second intervals, stirring after each one. Dip the top half of each biscotti into melted chocolate and place onto wax paper to dry.

Cranberry Cream Cheese Oatmeal Cookies

My next cookie recipe comes from a blog that I found through Anna. It's called the Oatmeal Cookie Guy and he comes up with all kinds of cool recipes for oatmeal cookies. This one is a SLIGHT adaptation on his Golden Girls cookies. The cookie has the taste of a graham cracker base for cheesecake and then it's filled with a sweetened cream cheese filling. I added cranberries to make it more Christmas-y. Now, these were DELICIOUS....but....filling the cookies was a bit difficult. I told someone that they were wonderful but I'd probably only make these specific ones again if a certain couple of people asked me! Maybe Mrs. Snowman will keep making them for Mr. Snowman, because it appears that they enjoyed them as well! I will, however, continue looking at Oatmeal Guy for more recipes! For a very well organized recipe that is easy to follow, go here.

Holiday Golden Girls adapted from the Oatmeal Guy

Filling:
8 ounces room-temperature cream cheese
4 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup dried cranberries
Creamables:
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Dry Ingredients:
2 cups finely ground graham crackers
1 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Add the filling ingredients to a medium bowl and mix well. Let the mixture cool and solidify in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350º. Cream together the creamables. In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients and then add to the creamables. Mix together until smooth. In another large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined. Shape dough into balls—about 2 tablespoons each. Remove the filling mixture from the refrigerator and stuff each dough ball with 1 teaspoon of the mixture. Do this by flattening your ball of dough and placing the cream cheese in the center. Then fold over the dough to reform into a ball. Put the stuffed dough balls in the freezer for five minutes to firm up. Place about 2 inches apart on baking stone or Silpat/parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350º for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.

Cake Bon Bons!

Every year I like to take Christmas tins and fill them with yummy goodies to give to my friends. This year, I had quite an adventure doing these this year! Two of my treats failed! I tried to make some mint chocolate thumbprints; however, the cookies basically fell apart...hard to put a filling in a cookie that falls apart! The other failure was pumpkin fudge. All of the recipes I saw were a bit too involved than I wanted, so I just took a peanut butter fudge recipe and swapped the PB for pumpkin. Ummm...yeah, didn't work! I guess I needed to do less pumpkin than there was PB. It NEVER solidified like fudge should. Even when I tried to rescue it by making bark it never solidified...even in the freezer! Oh, well.

The three treats that ended up working were gingerbread biscotti, some holiday oatmeal cookies, and cake bonbons. The first recipe I'll share is the cake bonbons. These are a very versatile treat. Basically you take a cake mix (yep, this is semi-homemade!) and bake as instructed. Then instead of icing the cake you stir the cake (crumbled) with the icing, make balls, and cover in a chocolate. Turned out great! I used butter pecan cake mix with coconut pecan icing. The flavor of this turned out wonderfully; however, I think a more traditional textured icing would hold together better than this one.
Cake BonBons
1 cake mix (made as instructed)
1 can prepared icing
melted chocolate (you might have to temper it with oil, mine seized up if I didn't)
Bake cake as instructed on box. Allow to cool slightly. Crumble cake into a bowl and stir in the entire can of icing. After washing your hands, roll the cake mix into walnut sized balls. Melt the chosen form of chocolate. Dip the balls in it and place on waxed/parchment paper and allow covering to harden.

Suggestions for other versions:
strawberry cake, vanilla icing, dark or milk chocolate dipping
chocolate cake, chocolate icing, white chocolate dipping
funfetti cake and icing, chocolate or white chocolate dipping
yellow cake, caramel icing, chocolate dipping

Tagged - edited

I was recently tagged by The French Kitchen to do a meme. I'm supposed to tell you 7 random or strange things about myself. I've done this before but hopefully I can come up with NEW weird things!!! Here goes!

1 - My middle toe on my right foot is shorter than my left. I mean, the top of it is even with the fourth toe! It kind of feels like I'm missing one the joints in it, but I think it's just sitting low on my tarsals (the bones that make up the main part of your foot right behind your toes.

2 - I hated my surgery rotation but my favorite part was trauma call. I know, who likes to be forced to stay overnight, get no sleep, see people come in with gunshot wounds, do random exploratory surgery at 3am and almost pass out from hypoglycemia, and then have to do a half day of work the next day? I did...but that call was only Q10-12 (every 10-12 nights) instead of the normal Q4 for wards!

3 - I like fresh cherries but do NOT like any kind of candied, marachino (that is SO not spelled right!), or chocolate covered cherries. Ick!

4 - I lived in Bishkek, Kygyzstan for a year (during my fifth grade year). Learned how to make several local dishes. I also had the opportunity (hmmm?) to try horse. Not bad but won't do that again!

5 - This was kind of prompted by TFK, but, I could SO lived without ketchup; however, I do like it with roasted sweet potatoes and salmon. Otherwise, I don't use it!

6 - This is a random one...I would love to have a child with curly, auburn hair! I have really red highlights in my very DARK hair, so the auburn is possible. My hair is pretty straight but it has some wave but nothing NEAR curly. Maybe if I marry someone with curly hair it would happen. :-)

7 - I've never had lobster, scallops, mussels, oysters, mahi mahi, or tuna (the real kind, not canned!)...but I LOVE seafood!

Now, I'm supposed to tag 7 other people - and I'm back to do it! Y'all have fun doing this and I'll have fun at home all by myself while my parents go to an out of town wedding and my brother and his girlfriend go to an out of town concert!

Here are the rules:
1. Link the person that tagged you and post the rules.
2. Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end and link to their sites.
4. Let each person know about the tag in the comment section of their site.

Now, I tag:
1. Pearl of Fresh and Pure
2. Katrina from Baking and Boys!

3. Jessica from Coffee and a Cookie
4. Gail from More than a Song
5. Stacy from Exceedingly Mundane
6. Maryanna at Taste and See
7. Red Dirt Mummy

Cute Little Pumpkin!

What a blessing it was to be a part of the Christmas music at church! I'm kind of sad that it's over. If you'd like to see pictures follow this link. Also, if you're in the Jackson, MS area and get WLBT it will be on tv at 2pm on Christmas day! A good way to celebrate Christmas. Anyway, just before Thanksgiving, I made some pumpkin scones that I found on Maryanna's site Taste and See. They have this FANTASTIC spiced glaze on top...I really think that made the scones. I didn't do the plain glaze and did change a couple of things, so for the original recipe, go to Maryanna's! Since pumpkin is holiday-ish, I thought I'd share with you so that you can try them for yourself! Scones
2 cups all purpose flour
7 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
6 tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup canned pumpkin

Spiced Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch ground cloves

Directions:
Scones:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or line with parchment paper. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Using a pastry knife, fork, or food processor, cut butter into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly and no chunks of butter are obvious. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, half and half, and egg. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Usually, the instructions here say to knead; however, EVERY time I make scones, I find the dough too sticky to do this. So, I just spread the dough out into a large rectangle directly on the baking stone (or sheet) and scored the dough into triangles using a pizza cutter.
Bake for 14–16 minutes. Scones should begin to turn light brown. When you remove from the oven, re-cut the scored scones using a pizza cutter. Place on wire rack to cool.

Spiced Icing:
Combine the ingredient for the spiced icing together. Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone and allow the icing to dry before serving (at least 1 hour). A squirt bottle works great for this, or you can drizzle with a whisk.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Right now, my church is in the middle of our Christmas music. This year, I have the privilege of portraying Mary, the mother of Jesus! It's really neat, because the song I sing is from scripture; it's the song of Mary. If you did Celebrate Life (the musical), it's the one from that. Anyway, I have been doing my Christmas baking as well because I will be leaving town on Tuesday to go to an interview and then Christmas at home. Those treats will be shared here later. First off, though, I want to share a fun recipe I got from Deanna! It's kind of like rice krispie treats, except it used Honey Nut Cheerios. I took this to our Christmas party at my children's choir. I thought they were good but the kids were more interested in the Cheetos...go figure! Instead of using the jelly candies, I used skittles. No kids like those gummies anyway! This is a fun treat to make and I think kids would enjoy helping!
Cheerios Christmas Trees

Ingredients:

6 cups Honey Nut Cheerios® cereal
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
Green food color
Skittles (or whatever candy you desire)
White chocolate, melted, to secure the skittles
Directions:

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Pour the cereal into a 4-quart bowl. Set the bowl aside.
Place the butter and marshmallows in a 3-quart saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
Stir in the food color until the mixture is evenly colored. Pour the marshmallow mixture over the cereal and stir until the cereal is evenly coated. Moisten your hands with water to shape the trees; you'll have to do this often through the process, but it works well! I tried spraying with cooking spray but that didn't work. For each tree, shape about 1/4 cup of the cereal mixture into a Christmas tree shape on the cookie sheet. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Remove from refrigerator. Place a dot of melted white chocolate on a skittle and strategically place on the trees - I made sure each skittle was a different color! Store the trees in a loosely covered container.

Pizza by Philip!

I don't know whether it started when he and Kenna started dating or when he moved into his apartment, but Philip, my brother, has a few specialties in the kitchen. One of them is a semi-homemade calzone. When he came home for Thanksgiving, surprising me Tuesday night...I was NOT expecting anyone when the garage door started going up...he started looking through the fridge for something to eat. Well, my mom had not stocked up, knowing that we'd have lots of food for Thanksgiving. There really was nothing to eat unless you had eggs or cereal! So, he went out to the grocery store and returned to make his calzone...while I napped on the couch at 8pm! I think that the concept is really good but my calzone would be QUITE different from Philip's...think lots of veggies and less cheese! However, because he's the chef for this meal, I'll give you his recipe!
Philip's Calzone
1 Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough
1 pack of pepperoni
1/4 lb sausage ("depending on how much you want" per Philip)
1 small can olives
1 bag (I believe the 2 cup variety) mozzarella cheese
pizza sauce

Preheat oven to temperature indicated on the dough package. In a skillet, brown the sausage; drain. Roll out the dough on a cookie sheet or stone (Philip prefers the sheet). On half the dough, pile all of your ingredients, spreading out the pepperoni and cheese. Fold other half over the filling and roll the sides to close edges. Put in oven and bake for time instructed on dough...I'm really not sure on this, Philip didn't tell me. Just be sure the crust is done and brown. I'm thinking 15-20 minutes. Let cool for a little bit so you don't have too many juices come out. Cut to the size piece you want (Philip ate half) and serve with pizza/marinara sauce on the side. Enjoy!

Ooey, Gooey, Sticky!

Well, I've done 3 interviews, one more to go. That's really not all that many. Lots of the people that I've been interviewing with are doing between 10-15 interviews. I am so thankful that I'm not doing that many. My next one is in Louisville, KY. THEN, I'll be ready for Christmas and home for a bit before my medicine rotation, that last major one of my school career.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we had a Pediatric Interest Group meeting. I was asked to bring a dessert to add to the lunch. I wanted to do something different and went in search of something with caramel! I found several but decided on this swirled blondie from Kraft. When I put it in the oven, it had a wonderful swirled look to it; however, when I took it out of the oven all the lovely swirls were gone! Boo! I don't know why it melded together but it did. Despite not looking swirled it tasted great. Along the edges, some of the caramel got hard and tasted like those graham cracker toffee things that people make at Christmas. I'd make this again and recommend that you try it...especially if you're looking for something ooey gooey! If you want to try another recipe with caramel, Anna posted one today; it's a traditional chocolate brownie instead of a blondie with chocolate inside.

Swirled Caramel Blondies
1-1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped PLANTERS Walnuts (optional)
2 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, chopped
1-1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. CALUMET Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 pkg. (14 oz.) KRAFT Caramels
1/4 cup milk
Make It


PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13x9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Lightly grease foil. Mix brown sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, walnuts and chocolate in large bowl until well blended; set aside. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to brown sugar mixture; mix well. Reserve 1 cup of the batter for later use; spread remaining batter into prepared pan.

BAKE 15 min. or until firm. Microwave caramels and milk in microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2-1/2 to 3 min. or until caramels are completely melted, stirring every min. Pour over baked layer in pan; spread to within 1/2 inch of edges.

SPOON reserved 1 cup batter over caramel layer; cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect. Bake an additional 15 to 18 min. or until center is set. Cool in pan on wire rack. Lift dessert from pan, using foil handles; remove foil. Cut into 24 bars to serve.

Ole!

With the cold weather apparently here to stay...well, except for the random 70 degree day expected tomorrow...soup is the perfect food to satisfy hungry tummies. Well, at least in my opinion! During the winter, I think I could honestly eat soup everyday! The week before Thanksgiving, I decided to make some taco soup. It's a good think that I like this soup, because, even with my roommate helping me eat it, I ate it EVERYDAY that week! I changed just a few things from our original recipe. I didn't get any dry Ranch dressing mix at the store, so I just left that out. I also decided to add a cubed green bell pepper. This really added to the flavor. Finally, in an attempt to make it a little more healthful (ala Rachel Ray), I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. Mmmm...this was SO good! It would have been even better with some cornbread, but I didn't take the time to make any! So, pull out your stock pot and make a hot bowl of taco soup!
Taco Soup
3 cans pinto beans (I actually used 1 pinto, 1 canellini, and 1 kidney...a little variety never hurt anyone!)
2 cans rotel (or one large (14 oz) can chopped tomatoes)
1 chopped bell pepper
1 chopped onion
1 lb ground turkey
1 can corn
1 pack of taco seasoning
2 cups water
1 can green chiles
In a large stock pot, brown turkey along with onion and bell pepper. When cooked, add the remaining ingredients (all undrained). Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Ladle into soup bowls and top with desired taco toppings. I like sour cream (or Greek yogurt...it's JUST like sour cream), cheddar cheese, and lettuce. Serve with tortilla chips, fritos, or cornbread.

Finger-Licking Good!

Unfortunately, last month I did not get to do the Daring Bakers' Challenge; however, this month I was excited to see the recipe...a caramel cake. One of my parents' favorite desserts is a caramel cake. This one, however, proved to be quite a bit different, though delicious! I saved the cake for the end of the month when my entire family gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving. Typically, we have pies for dessert. My grandmother always made pecan pies. This year, I was pleased to see that the caramel cake was the ONLY dessert, out of pecan pies, chocolate pie, and baklava (which was DELICIOUS!), to be completely eaten by the end of the day on Thursday. I got many compliments...even a few silent ones from the kiddos! :-) Obviously the kids enjoyed the icing and no one here complained of it being too sweet. I thought it was perfect! The only thing that my family found strange was the size. Several people asked it if was supposed to be that short. Because I didn't have a deep dish cake pan, I used two regular sized ones and made a layer cake. However, it was shorter than your normal layer cake, ending up at the height that I think the deep dish pan would have produced. Despite that comment, no one really minded...hey, it just left more room for that baklava...or more cake! Thanks to Dolores, Alex, Jenny, and Natalie for hosting. And biggest thanks to Shuna Fish Lydon for the wonderful recipe! I HIGHLY recommend this cake. Though it did take a bit of hands on time it was not overly difficult and produces a beautiful and delicious cake. Check out more results here.

CARAMEL CAKE WITH CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING as published here.
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Notes from Natalie for those of you baking gluten-free:

So the GF changes to the cake would be:

2 cups of gluten free flour blend (w/xanthan gum) or 2 cups of gf flour blend + 1 1/2 tsp xanthan or guar gum
1/2 - 1 tsp baking powder (this would be the recipe amount to the amount it might need to be raised to & I'm going to check)

I'll let you when I get the cake finished, how it turns out and if the baking powder amount needs to be raised.

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back...or use an aluminum foil hood!

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

(recipes above courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon)

Banana Bread a la Jenna

Several weeks ago, I pulled some bananas out of the freezer...I wanted banana bread! Why? Well, I saw a recipe on Jenna's site. This bread turned out great...and it's whole wheat to boot! What else do I expect from Jenna? She's finishing up her internship for culinary school...baking to be specific! This ended up cooking perfectly...something I've had trouble with in my apartment oven. So, pull out some bananas and whip up this healthy banana bread...Thanks, Jenna! Whole Wheat Banana Bread - adapted from Jenna

1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 cup yogurt, vanilla
2 very very ripe bananas
1/2 cup nuts, optional - I had no nuts!

1. Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, mash the bananas and add the brown sugar, yogurt and egg. Mix well. In a larger bowl, SIFT the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently fold together—-do NOT overmix! Pour batter into prepared nonstick (or greased) loaf pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes in the loaf pan then release and cool 10 more minutes before slicing.

Leftover Candy Cookies

So, my interview went well. I was able to eat at two new to me restaurants. Julep and Nick's. It was all very good! At Julep I got the tomato and basil quiche with strawberry salad. SO good! The stuffed chicken looked delicious. I'd probably try that next time. At Nick's I got the blackfish. At first, I was a little turned off by the texture of the fish; it is a bit tougher than I'm used to in a fish. However, it grew on me and by the time I was done, I ended up enjoying it. After lunch, we returned to the hospital for a round of 4 20-minute interviews. They all went well though it was hard to come up with questions for a program that I feel I know pretty well. My next interview is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving; so, we'll see how I feel after that one.

The recipe today is one that I got from Anna. After Halloween, I bought a bag of yummy candies on sale; however, I soon realized that I could not handle that bag sitting in my room, so I set off to make some cookies! The candy that I used included the following: KitKat (see it?!) , Reese's Whips (I REALLY like these), and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The Whips ended up being like a peanut butter marshmallow in the cookies. Yum! The base of these cookies is fantastic and could be used for any kind of cookie you want. I highly suggest you try it out! Can you tell I still messed up without a timer?! Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies–aka “Coffeehouse Cookies” - adapted from Cookie Madness

8 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Halloween Candy - whatever you have!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Beat in baking soda and salt. Add flour and stir until it is mixed in.

Stir chocolate chunks into the dough. Cut candy bars into small pieces and stir some of the pieces into the dough.

Scoop 1/4 cups of dough onto cookie sheet and flatten slightly into mounds. Leave about 3 inches between cookies because they will spread as they bake. Press remaining candy (decoratively) into cookie mounds

Bake 14-16 minutes or until cookies are almost set. Do not overbake; centers should be slightly soft. Cool on baking sheet for about 7 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Chicken Wrap

I have my first interview tomorrow. It's at my home hospital, so I already know all the residents and doctors, but it's still an interview. We start tonight with a dinner at a local restaurant called Julep. I've heard it's good but have never been. I'll post a review later but no pictures as I'll be "officially" on an interview dinner.
All that said, cooking is slim around here. So, let me give you a way to use leftovers from that crock-pot dish. I used it in a wrap for lunch one day and it was delicious! Just use a whole wheat high fiber wrap, place some lettuce on the bottom, top with spaghetti squash followed by some chicken and sauce, wrap in aluminum foil and you're ready to go the next day. When it's time to eat, just place it all (foil and all) in the toaster oven and toast. Be sure to check the inside to see that it's warm! YUM!!!

Crock Pot Chicken

Last week I thought about doing NoMo....whatever it is when you blog everyday in November. Then I decided that I'd get stressed trying to do that. So, I'll just try to post frequently! Last week, I decided to make a recipe that I found on a friend's website. Casey is a cute and precious friend from college who is now married to Jonathan (a dentist), has a cute 1-year-old Nora, and is expecting again! Needless to say, she's busy. So, this recipe is a great one if you don't have time to stand around in the kitchen. It is a crockpot version of chicken stroganoff. Usually, I'm not a big fan of chicken from the crockpot, and, at first, I thought this was going to have that same texture; but once you put the chicken over whatever you're serving it with, it's a non-factor. I chose to serve mine over spaghetti squash (SO GOOD) but you could use angel hair pasta or rice or even mashed potatoes. I really enjoyed this and even have another post coming with a way to use the leftovers. Originally, I didn't think there was enough chicken, but it ended up being fine. However, I think that if you did want to spread out the sauce some, you could put more chicken and/or mushrooms with no problem. I'd make this again but have a "real" chicken stroganoff I want to try first! Casey, thanks for the recipe.

Crockpot Chicken Stroganoff (from Weight Watchers)
1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces (I used 2 breasts)
1 package of Onion Soup mix (I used Kroger, Lipton's is recommended)
1/4 cup water
1 8 oz. fat free or low fat cream cheese, softened (I used fat free)
1 can fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 4 oz. can of mushrooms, drained (I used 6 oz)

Directions:
In crockpot, combine chicken, soup mix, and water. Cook on low heat for 4 hours. I cooked for 3 hours and it was ready.
In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese, mushroom soup, and mushrooms. Combine with cooked chicken in crockpot. Continue cooking for one additional hour. (4-5 hours cooking time total). Serve over angel hair pasta, spaghetti squash, rice, mashed potatoes...whatever you want!

Apparently, I Need a Kitchen Timer!

I'm on a roll...four posts in a row! Let's see how long I can keep it going. :-) So far, my new rotation has been good. I'm in the child development clinic, which deals with children with learning disorders, ADHD, autism, etc. I'll have to come up with a "healthy" treat to take up there...I have the feeling the ladies up there would prefer that. In other school/work news, I have my first interview in a week. It's here but will still be pretty exciting.

Now, to the food. This is a recipe that I got from Maggie. She is wife of one of our chief residents and she is SUPER cool! I always love checking out her blog to see what kind to "trouble" little C has gotten into or what new recipe I can try out. This time, I found some cookies. Who am I not to try some cookies?! So, Saturday night, I made these to take to a viewing of Sweeny Todd (which is gross but SO fake looking!). First, let me apologize to Maggie...1 - I don't have a kitchen timer that works, which is apparent by the different coloring of the cookies. The lighter color is the perferred end result! 2 - I usually take better pictures but was in a hurry. Now that that is out of the way, let me tell you...these cookies were pretty good. They are not an overly sweet cookie but this only allows you to taste the chocolate goodness even more. The texture is more cakey than crispy but the edges do have a bit of crisp. A yummy combo! So, go try these cookies and enjoy the sour cream in them, I think this (besides the CHOCOLATE!) was Maggie's favorite part. BTW, Maggie, now you're famous! ;-)

Maggie's Cookies (from Martha Stewart and with SLIGHT changes from me)
Makes about 2 dozen

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
7 TBSP unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 TBSP sour cream
1 - 1.5 cup semisweet chocolate chips
optional, nuts if desired

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Beat butter and sugars with mixer on med-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes (this is SUCH a good suggestion...it seems to be the right amount of time, for cookies in general). Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture. Dump in sour cream and beat until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. (Maggie uses a bag of dark chocolate chunks. Put the bowl in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes or so. Place a tablespoon scoop or so, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies are golden brown, about 15 minutes. But don't overbake like I did...too brown and definitely more crunchy!

Perfect Banana Muffins

From a surprise source...the side of the Kroger bran flakes cereal box! A few weeks ago I had a bunch of bananas ready for use in bread. As usual, I wanted a different recipe and saw the one on the side of the cereal box. Well, I didn't have honey but we can change things, right? These were SO good! Not as soft as a sugary, mix-made muffin but not overly tough. They were the perfect I'm-not-hungry-because-I-didn't-sleep-any-on-call-but-need-something-to-eat post-call breakfast! I would definitely make them again. Thanks, Kroger! I'll put the original recipe with my changes to the side. Honey and Spice Banana Muffins
1 cup bran flakes cereal
1/4 cup skim milk
1 cup AP flour
1/2 cup honey (1/2 cup sugar)
1/4 cup melted margarine (1/4 cup oil)
2/3 cup mashed ripe banana (I used 2)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger (didn't use...my ginger was GROSS)
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg Heat oven to 375 F. Soak cereal in milk for 5 minutes (this is how I actually like to EAT my cereal...soggy!). In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients then add cereal mixture. Beat (or stir well) until will mixed. Spoon into greased muffin pan, filling 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool 5 minutes, remove from pan. Optional, top with a nut! Enjoy!

If you Run Out of Time...

Last year, I got some really cute jimmies and sprinkles that are autumn themed from Williams Sonoma. So, after I got my new cupcake holder, I decided that I wanted to take cupcakes to my 1st grade church choir. My grand plans were to make cupcakes and homemade icing. Then, after seeing how my Q4 call schedule was, I decided that I would use a cake mix and throw in some sprinkles to make my own fall themed funfetti cupcakes but make homemade icing. WELL, instead of getting off at 4 I was back from work at 5pm 20 minutes away from church and choir starts at 6pm. Hmmm...so, if you run out of time...just go get ready made frosting from the grocery store...1st graders don't care! Cupcakes are cupcakes and they will ALWAYS ask for seconds!

I'll be Back (More) soon!

Ha! I don't come back for long, do I?! Well, I am now finished with my wards/Q4 month and am on to a clinic month. So, hopefully I will be posting more often. I even had to miss my Daring Bakers challenge which I REALLY wanted to do, as it was pizza! However, I already have plans for some new recipes, so be on the lookout. If you want to see great pizzas check out the blogs here.