Day 97 - Manicottis with Strawberry Spinach Salad

Two family recipes today.  The manicotti comes from my mom and the salad is from my sister-in-law, Karin.
Mom made these manicottis a lot.  I remember whenever she'd make the crepes for them she would always save me some and I'd eat them with maple syrup. 
Oh, they were so yummy! 
I miss mom's cooking.
Ok, I didn't meant that - need to clarify. 
She was an ok cook.  What I miss is her taking extra special care of me and her just cooking for me.
And Mother's Day is Sunday...

Ok, we're good.

Manicotti

French Pancakes aka Crepes - makes 12, can be frozen
(I actually ended up making 14, but I ate 2)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

Put ingredients into a bowl or blender.  Stir until smooth.  Cover and let stand at least ½ hour.

Batter should be thin.

Here's a video on how to make a crepe!  I wanted to take pictures of the process, but it's REALLY not easy, taking the pictures, pouring the batter and swirling it around in the pan. 
I needed two extra hands.  They explain it well, anyway, and the pan action starts at about 1:10.

In my daily perusals of blogs the other day, I happened across a site called Bloggers Bake for Hope. 

The following is taken from the About page on Bloggers Bake for Hope:
Bake for Hope is a week long, nation-wide, 100% volunteer-run, bake sale event happening, the week leading up to Mother's Day. Proceeds donated to local Susan G. Komen for the Cure affiliates.

Bloggers Bake for Hope is a virtual bake sale. Bloggers will donate their time, ingredients, and shipping costs so there are no expenses associated with this virtual bake sale. All proceeds from the bake sale will be sent to the Massachusetts Komen for the Cure.

Jen and Cara, two Boston area food bloggers have teamed up for a project called Bloggers Bake for Hope, a virtual bake sale as part of Bake for Hope. Jen serves up sweets at Beantown Baker, while Cara shares healthy, creative dinners at Cara’s Cravings. 

Both Cara and Jen have been successful fundraisers for Susan G. Komen for the Cure in the past. Cara is currently organizing the third annual Bake for Hope at her company’s office site in Marlboro, MA. Last year’s event raised over $2500. Jen has made breast cancer awareness part of her personal mission. In 2004, Jen’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then, Jen, her sisters, mom, and aunts walk the Race for the Cure every year. Jen and her family have raised thousands of dollars for the various Komen for the Cure affiliates.

Jen and Cara feel a strong connection to the cause, and are avid bloggers with a strong following. Thus, teaming up to host an online bake sale seemed like a fun and natural way to take things to the next level. The virtual bake sale will take place on May 4-6, 2011. Bloggers and bakers from across the country will agree in advance to donate baked goods. Buyers will make virtual pledges on the Bloggers Bake for Hope site, and at the close of the bake sale the highest bidders will be awarded the donated baked goods. They will make their donations via PayPal, and the bakers will then bake and ship their goods. Because the bakers are donating their ingredients, time, and shipping costs, there are no expenses associated with the virtual bake sale. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Massachusetts Komen for the Cure. Jen and Cara are challenging their fellow bakers and bloggers to help them raise $2000 through Bloggers Bake for Hope. 


Years ago I participated and raised donations in a cancer walk back in Rhode Island. 
As many of you know my mother passed away from breast cancer in 1992 at the age of 47.  She had been diagnosed in 1977 at the age of 32.  I am also doing this in honor of her sister and my aunt, Jeanne, and my very close friend, Tina, who are both breast cancer survivors.  I am baking two dozen Pignoli Cookies and then shipping them to the person who pledges the most.  
There are many bloggers who will be participating and I am honored to be able to contribute.  I know there will be absolutely delicious items donated and I encourage you all to look at the site and make a pledge on some baked goods.  I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.It's horrible!

I was able to bake today and I'm now a happy camper. 
It was good to be back in the kitchen.

I used The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics, p. 569-570; author, Martha Stewart; publisher, Clarkson Potter/ Publishers, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 978-0-307-39383-8.

Cornbread Muffins - makes 12

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the muffin tin
1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup confectioners' sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise
2 large eggs
1½ cups buttermilk (I used buttermilk powder and water.)Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Brush a 12-cup standard muffin tin with melted butter; set aside.  In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

(*I added 6 tablespoons buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients and just added 1½ cups water to the liquids.*)

In a small bowl, scrape in the vanilla seeds; add the eggs and buttermilk (water), and whisk to combine.  Pour over the flour mixture.  Add the 5 tablespoons butter, and stir until blended, using as few strokes as possible.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin, filling each cup three-quarters full.

Yeah, almost completely filled and I still had batter left over.

Bake until golden and firm to the touch, 17 to 20 minutes.  Serve warm.

I don't think they were supposed to look like this.

See the little vanilla bean seeds?

I have to say that these were the most moist cornbread muffins (say that 3 times fast!) I have ever had!  They were delicious!  I like cornbread and corn muffins, but I can't stand how dry they are sometimes. 

I use a rating system from 1-4 with 4 being the best, so these muffins earned 3½ rolling pins.  I will definitely be adding these to my recipe collection of keepers even though there was spillage on the tin.

No biggie. 

They were yummy anyway!

Happy baking!

Day 88 - Popovers

     It's been brought to my attention that some people are trying to leave comments, but I am not receiving them. Please make sure when you do post a comment that you scroll down to the bottom of the day's post and where it says 0 comments or 2 comments, click that.  'Post a comment' will come up.  Enter your comment in the box then you can preview it or post it.  You'll be asked to "Comment as:______ and pick an account or set one up if you don't already have one.  It's really pretty simple.  Also, you will have to type in a security word for spam purposes, and I moderate all comments before they are posted.  It sounds complicated, but I gave you play by play instructions.  This is important because of my upcoming announcement.  (DRUMROLL!)  In celebration of my 100th day of baking, I will be doing a giveaway here on the blog!  So, stay tuned for rules and requirements.
     I hope everyone had a wonderful, blessed Easter and were able to spend it with family and friends!  If you didn't celebrate it, I hope you had a really wonderful weekend and were able to spend it with people you really love and care about. 
     We had a quiet one here.  Yes, the Easter Bunny brought some treats to the teenagers, and brought an extra Cadbury Creme Egg for mom (I'm looking forward to when they go on sale tomorrow!).  Since our daughter was heading back to college today, I decided I'd surprise the kids and make them the strawberry (of course, strawberry!  It seems like those and lemons are really the only fruits I make things with.) blintzes they love so much.  It requires a good 2-3 hours of prep work between making the crepes, filling, and frying, but it's well worth it and I only do it 3 times a year at the most for those "special occasions".  I started putting all the ingredients together before the three of them woke up.  As they walked into the kitchen at separate times they saw that I was busy, but never even put two and two together or asked what I was doing which was odd, but I like flying under the radar.  So, the look on my son's face was priceless when I told him I was making them!  His jaw dropped, his eyes were huge and he was speechless.  He then ran over to me professing his love for his mother and wouldn't stop hugging.  It was very funny.  His sister just kept looking at him as if he'd lost it.
     Since it was a long morning in the kitchen, and I'm starting to feel feverish again (really thought I was kicking this bug), I decided to take it easy on the baking today and made popovers to go with the tri tip roast we had for dinner.  Having never made them before, I imagined that they'd bake up pretty high and would be delicious like the Yorkshire Pudding I had made years ago.  I found this recipe in my New Doubleday Cookbook, p. 662; authors, Jean Anderson and Elaine Hanna; publisher, Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 0-385-19577-X.

     Popovers - makes 6

     1 cup sifted flour
     ½ teaspoon salt
     ¾ cup milk
     ¼ cup cold water
     2 eggs

     Preheat oven to 450ºF.
     Beat all ingredients in a small bowl with a rotary beater until just smooth.  Scrape bottom of bowl with a rubber spatula once or twice during beating. 

     Spoon into a well-greased muffin tin, filling each cup two-thirds.

Ok, not two-thirds, more like really close to the rim!

     Bake 40 minutes until well browned, puffed, and firm.

     (Note:  For dry, crisp popovers, bake 35 minutes, quickly cut a small slit in the side of each popover so steam can escape, and bake 5-10 minutes longer.)

     Serve immediately with plenty of butter.

With butter...YUM!!!

     I didn't use a small bowl or a rotary beater.  I used my Kitchen-Aid which worked just fine.  My rotary is making funny noises and me thinks it's time to retire it, especially since with funny noises comes a certain burning smell.  I filled the muffin tin just below the rim as you can see in the picture, and still had some batter left over, but I didn't want to completely fill them.  Also, I baked them for 35 minutes, thought they were becoming too brown, put a slice in the top (because I can't follow directions) and left them in for only another 5 minutes.
     We thought these were really good and earned 3½ rolling pins!   My rating system is on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the best.  My husband didn't like the fact that they didn't have much flavor, but they're to accompany a meal and complement it, not detract from it.  They were really tasty plain, but quite delicious with the butter.   
     Happy baking!

Day 24 - Two Recipes for Dinner!

   I've been on various food blogs and came across one recipe this morning that I just had to make:  Southwestern Spiced Sweet Potato Fries with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream.  It is from the TasteFood blog: http://tastefoodblog.com/2009/11/19/sweet-potato-fries/
and it was chosen as the winner in a Sweet Potato Recipe competition hosted by Food52.  Our family devours the fried sweet potato chips that I make, so I knew that these would be very well received.  The dipping sauce sounded as if it would be a great compliment, too.  Also, for our entrée, I planned on making a chicken dish, Pollo Relleno from Better Homes and Gardens.com: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chicken/pollo-relleno/.
     The recipes were as follows:

     Southwestern Spiced Sweet Potato Fries with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream
     Lynda says she likes to leave the skins on to add texture and extra nutrients. (I did as well.)
     Serves 4-6 as a side dish or snack.
     2 large sweet potatoes, skins on, cut in large matchsticks/batons approximately 1/4 by 2 inch
     2 tablespoons olive oil
     2 teaspoons salt
     1 teaspoon ground cumin
     1 teaspoon chile powder
     1 teaspoon paprika
     1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
     1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
(I added about 118 teaspoon)HAHA YIKES!! No, 1/8 of a teaspoon)

     
     Preheat oven to 425ºF. (220ºC)
     Toss sweet potatoes and olive oil in a large bowl.  Combine salt, cumin, chile powder, paprika, pepper, and cayenne in a small bowl.  Add spices to potatoes and toss to coat.  Arrange potatoes in one layer on baking sheet.  Bake in oven on lowest rack for 10 minutes.  Turn potatoes with a spatula and bake 10 more minutes.  Remove from oven and serve with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream.

     Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream
     1 cup sour cream (I substituted 1 cup Greek yogurt)
     1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
     2 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
     1 small garlic clove, minced
     ½ teaspoon salt
     ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
     1 heaping tablespoon chopped cilantro

     Combine all ingredients except the cilantro in a medium bowl and whisk together.  Stir in cilantro.

     These fries are definitely going to be a staple in our home!  They were absolutely delicious with all the different flavors jumping around in my mouth.  They were so good plain that I was having a hard time putting them down.  THEN, I dipped one in the sauce!!!!  It was wicked (as we say in New England, right, Lynda), but better than that...the sauce on the potato, was killah!!!!!  The cream of the sour cream/yogurt and all of its' flavors balanced out the spices in the potatoes so wonderfully.  I would expect to taste something like this in a restaurant.  It is definitely award-winning.  Congratulations, Lynda, you nailed it, and thank you so much for sharing it with us!
     The rating for Southwestern Spiced Sweet Potato Fries with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream: 4 rolling pins!

     Pollo Relleno  Makes: 6 servings
     6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 1-1½ lbs. total)
     1/3 cup cornmeal
     ½ of a 1¼ ounce package (2 tablespoons) taco seasoning mix
     1 egg
     1 4oz. can whole green chile peppers, rinsed, seeded, and cut in half lengthwise (6 pieces total)
     2 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, cut into 2 x ½-inch sticks
     2 tablespoons fresh cilantro or parsley
     ¼ teaspoon black pepper
     ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
     1 8oz. jar taco sauce or salsa.
     ½ cup shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese (optional)
     Fresh cilantro sprigs (optional)

     Directions
     1. Place each chicken breast half in between 2 pieces of plastic wrap.  Pound lightly into a rectangle about 1/8-inch thick.  Remove plastic wrap.
  
     2.  In a bowl, combine cornmeal and taco seasoning mix.  Place egg in another bowl; beat lightly.

     3.  For each roll, place a chili pepper half on chicken piece.  Place a cheese stick atop chili pepper near an edge.  Sprinkle with some of the cilantro or parsley, black pepper, and red pepper.  Fold in sides; roll up jelly-roll style, starting from edge with cheese.

     4.  Dip rolls into egg and coat with cornmeal mixture.  Place rolls, seam sides down, in a shallow baking pan.  Bake, uncovered, in a 375ºF oven for 25-30 minutes.  Heat taco sauce, if desired, sprinkle chicken with shredded cheese.  Serve taco sauce or salsa.  If desired, garnish with cilantro sprigs.

     This I made a few adaptations to.  I omitted the crushed red pepper because it already had the taco seasoning, I was using jalapeno peppers, and we were eating the spicy fries.  I wanted to make sure the kids wouldn't opt for cereal because dinner had too many spices.  I made the recipe for four instead of six, and we still had a whole chicken breast left over.  We aren't very big eaters here.  Instead of using the canned chili peppers, I roasted two Jalapeno peppers; removed the skin, and seeds, cut them into fourths and put two slices on each breast.  I used four slices of Pepper Jack cheese instead of the cheese sticks and used one slice on each in addition to also using ½ cup shredded Mexican cheese.  I sprinkled this evenly on all four pieces.  I also used toothpicks to secure the rolls.  It was served with the salsa and some Greek yogurt.  I also didn't sprinkle the cheese on top or garnish with the cilantro.

     The rating:  3 rolling pins.
     Happy baking!
  

Day 19 - Baking Powder Biscuits with Cheese and Roasted Garlic

      I was finally able to clean my house today!  Well, at least part of it, but it's a start.  I felt like I was able to accomplish so much, but there's still so much left to do.  I have the habit of starting one project and then moving on to another before the first one is finished; something I inherited from my mother.  Consequently, I tend to feel very disorganized and my "projects" tend to be scattered throughout the house.  Right now I feel like I'm nesting and want to sort, organize and throw away.  Out with the old, in with the new!  Or maybe the new should wait until the old is completely taken care of.
Wow!  I just noticed that you can purchase the cookbook I use for $.77!  Granted it  would be used, and is 20 years old, but it has a lot of recipes (some of which have proven to be tasty so far), contains very good information regarding the kitchen, and baking and cooking, and it has these wonderful little hints and equivalent charts on the inside of the front and back covers which I use constantly.  I've gotten in the habit of writing in all of my cookbooks and making notes whenever I use a recipe.  That way I know if I've made it and if it would be worth making again depending on the reviews it received from the family.  I know that this book is going to be filled with various markings by the time I am done with this challenge.  It's funny, I've always had this thing about not writing in books like it was sacrilegious or something.  But then when I started cooking more once we had kids, I kept thinking how was I ever going to know if I made something and if we like how it tasted.  It seemed logical to notate it, but I still had to overcome that hangup about writing in my books.  It's like how I only used to buy 2 kinds of cereal until we started watching 'Seinfeld'.  Then it was like I had permission to keep a lot of different kinds of cereal in the pantry at one time.   It was so exhilarating to go to the cupboard and have so many choices in the morning!  Weird, I know.  It's the little things that make us all unique.  Like sniffing pizza crust.
     Today's recipe, Baking Powder Biscuits, comes from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Thirteenth Edition, pg. 544; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.

     Baking Powder Biscuits
     2 cups flour
     ½ teaspoon salt
     4 teaspoons baking powder
     1 tablespoon sugar
     ½ cup vegetable shortening
     2/3 cup milk

     Preheat oven to 425ºF.  Grease two 8-inch cake pans.  Put the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl.  Cut the shortening into the flour with two knives or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add the milk all at once and stir just until the dough forms a ball around the fork.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead 14 times.  Pat until ½ inch thick.  Cut into rounds with a 2-inch cookie cutter.  Place touching each other in the cake pans and bake for 15-20 minutes.
     Cheese Biscuits.  Add ½ cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese to the dry ingredients.
     Drop Biscuits.  Add an additional 1/3 cup milk and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a buttered baking sheet.

     I wanted to make the biscuits in the cake pan, but the cookie cutter I had was 3-inches and I didn't feel like free-forming a circle.  So, I went for the drop biscuit technique.  I added the cheese (didn't have sharp cheddar, so I used a Mexican combination) and 3 cloves of roasted garlic into the ingredients before I added the milk.  I roasted the garlic in our toaster oven at 425ºF for 20 minutes and then crushed it.  I left the biscuits in the oven longer than I should have because I was side-tracked with making dinner, so the bottoms were a little darker than I would have liked.

 They were tasty, but were also a little drier than we would have liked.  I don't know if it was because I baked them too long or if they are drier biscuit.  I also think that baking them in a cake pan would have made a difference, too.  Overall, they weren't such a big hit with the family, so I won't be making them this way again.  Next time, I'll use the cake pan and am going out to purchase a 2-inch round cookie cutter.  I also think I'll use Parmesan cheese and some herbs.  The rating for this one: 2½ rolling pins.
     Happy baking!