Christmas Cookies and Rasberry Muffins...yipee

I went a little crazy with the Christmas baking yesterday. I guess living with people who are really excited about the holidays has inspired me to be a little less humbug about the whole thing. The original thought was to make gingerbread houses, but that plan became a little complicated when I realized most of the ingredients don't exist here. Instead I used Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe and made a cream cheese frosting with vanilla and cinnamon which we proceeded to  fill with chemicals to make these beautiful colors. Everyone was really into the decorating as you can tell from the pictures. 

I also made some raspberry muffins using one of Martha Stewart's recipes for blueberry muffins. As much as I hate to admit it, I love that woman. 

Raspberry Muffins:

6 TBS butter

3 cups + 2 TBS flour

3 Tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg 

2 large egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

raspberries or any other kind of berry

(I also added some coconut and dark chocolate to half the batch)

Bake at 350 until done :)

I frosted a few of them with the leftover white cookie frosting, making them a little more cupcake like.

Sweet Potato and Pear Stir-Fry with Chicken and Chile Sauce

I am home for a week in Taos, NM and earlier today my mom and I were searching for something to make for dinner. We decided on this recipe, unsure of how it might turn out- but we very pleasantly surprised. It is more prep-work than anything, but totally worth it! The ginger, sweet potatoes, and pears compliment each other amazingly! Dad however, was hoping for lasagna, but nonetheless loved the stir-fry!





MARINADE

2 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 Tbs white wine

1 lb chicken breasts (cut into bite size pieces)

*Combine all ingredients, add chicken, and let sit for 30 minutes

SAUCE

2 Tbs cornstarch

1 cup chicken broth

1 Tbs soy sauce

1/2 Tbs fish sauce

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

*Combine all ingredients and set aside

STIR-FRY

2 large sweet potatoes (peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces)

2 Tbs oil (divided)

2 large garlic cloves (minced)

2 Tbs minced fresh ginger

pinch of cayenne

1 med yellow bell pepper (cut into bite size pieces) 

1 med red bell pepper (cut into bite size pieces)

1/2 c canned water chestnuts (drained and sliced)

2 bosc pears (peeled and sliced)

6oz baby spinach

3 c hot cooked brown rice

*Bring a large pot of water and the sweet potatoes to a boil, for about 3 minutes, drain with a colander and set aside

*In a large wok heat 1 Tbs of oil, add garlic ginger and cayenne, and stir-fry until golden; add chicken and stir-fry until almost fully cooked; transfer chicken to a plate or bowl

*In the wok, heat the remaining 1 Tbs of oil and add sweet potatoes, peppers and chestnuts and stir-fry until potatoes and peppers are not quite tender

*Add cooked chicken, pears, and spinach; stir-fry until spinach is just wilted

* Stir in the prepared sauce; stir-fry until the sauce is thickened

*Remove from heat and serve of a heap of brown rice

*ENJOY!

Pumpkin Bread and Gingerbread

Ok, so it is snowing and it is the holidays, so I am going a little baking crazy. Usually I go a little crazy without an excuse, but the holidays present a special excuse for massive baking endeavors. Hopefully someone will be around to start eating my creations before I give myself a heart attack.

Let's start with the gingerbread. I used this recipe from Epicurious:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Gramercy-Tavern-Gingerbread-103087
I added lemon zest and chunks of crystalized ginger and baked them in muffin tins (surprise surprise- I try to make everything into cupcakes), which was fabulous because it increased the amount of chewy top that I love so much. This recipe involves beer, and so there was an open bottle sitting on the countertop at 10 a.m. when the cleaning lady arrived. I made a point of saying that the beer was for the gingerbread and not for my morning consumption.

Then I made pumpkin bread from a fabulous recipe courtesy of The Martha Stewart Cookbook (page 111). It really is a great recipe, so I would like to share it with you. I was inspired to make pumpkin bread when my dad rescued some pumpkins from the porch after the first night of freezing. They were a little mushy, but I cooked them up and made bread. Then I talked to my mom, who informed me that they were not, in fact, sugarpie pumpkins like I had assumed, but the normal inedible cheap kind. Oops. The pumpkin bread tasted great despite this mistake, so I assume this really is a great recipe.

Pumpkin Bread

12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons molasses
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup orange juice
2 cups pumpkin puree
3 1/3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cardamom (I added this to the recipe)

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Butter three 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pans.
With an electric mixer, cream butter, molasses, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add orange juice and pumpkin and mix well.
Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl, and add the pumpkin mixture, stirring well with a wooden spoon.
Spoon into prepared pans. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to rack for cooling.

Baking in Ecuador

So I arrived in Ecuador Saturday night, and by Sunday afternoon my family had gone to the store and bought everything for me to bake them muffins...apparently I baked a lot when I lived here, big surprise. Since being back I have also introduced them to oatmeal cookies as well, which they were a little hesitant about at first. My little sister told me I shouldn´t tell anyone they contain oatmeal until after they try them. When I lived here 5 years ago I had to improvise a lot because I couldn't find brown sugar, and butter was hard to come by. Cookies never really came out right because they were made with margarine and panella which was the closest thing to brown sugar, but it had a pretty strong molasses-like flavor. Things seem to have changed though which means cookies in Ecuador taste like real cookies now! My family wants me to stay here and help them open a buisness that sells baked goods to all the Gringo cafes.

I am also adding a picture of bizcochitos (recipe my sister posted below) that I made a few weeks ago for a women's studies class. We had to make an aphrodisiac dish, and since anise, wine and chocolate are all aphrodisiacs it seemed perfect. It's also a traditional christmas cookie in New Mexico, and oh so delicious. (so delicious that I spent $15 on a bottle of anise in Korea last Christmas so I could make them)

A Sausage Fest

As some of you know, my sister Emily has some interesting projects. This weekend, Jake and I had the pleasure of making sausage. As you would expect, making sausage is extremely phallic. First we bought pork shoulder, which has just the right amount of fatty goodness for sausage emulsification. The pork was cubed, seasoned, and left to marinate overnight. The next day, we ground the meat in a handy dandy attachment for the KitchenAide (one more reason why I need to get married so my mom will buy me one). After the meat chills, it is stuffed into hog intestines and twisted into links. I can't explain how manly this whole experience was. We all tried to contain ourselves and not make excessive lewd comments on account of the 2 year old present. Still, no one can refrain from commenting about someone's ability to "handle sausage" or "how big that sausage is growing."

Rachel's Chai Cupcakes, Peppermint Bark and Biscochitos... oh my!

Today was a glorious day... it was Farah's birthday, it snowed 5 inches in Portland, and finals got cancelled for tomorrow! So I got to baking...
First, I decided to make Rach's yummy looking chai cupcakes for Farah. 

I made them extremely miniature, which took forever, but they are way cute. I also made a cinnamon vanilla frosting, which turned out a bit too sweet- but good anyway.

Here are some photos... I also included a photo of Ariel enjoying Rachel's batch that the recipe comes from. 

I want to go into the cupcake making industry. Rachel- are you down?

Also, we made incredible Peppermint Bark last night, and I decided to be artsy and take some pictures... so they are here too.

The recipe is easy- and makes for a nice gift!

-2 bags white chocolate chips

-2 bags chocolate chips

-about 30 peppermint candies-crushed

*Pre-heat the oven to 350

*Place aluminum foil on a pan, and sprinkle the chocolate chips over it. Melt them in the oven until they are soft enough to smooth down into a base layer. Let the chocolate harden.

*Place white chocolate in a metal bowl, situated over a pot of boiling water. When the white chocolate melts, quickly pour it over the hardened chocolate. 

*Sprinkle peppermint crumbles on top of white chocolate before it hardens.

*Place in the refrigerator until fully hardened- then cut into triangles!

ENJOY!

Lastly, I made the New Mexico state cookie- BISCOCHITOS!!!!! mmm! The smell of these make me feel like it really is December!!

-6 cups cake flour

-3 tsp baking powder

-2 cups crisco

- 1 1/2 cups sugar

-2 tsp anise seed

-2 eggs

-1/4 cup brandy (or red wine)

-cinnamon

-more sugar

-melting chocolate

*Preheat oven to 350

*Combine flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl

*Cream crisco, sugar and anise together in another bowl- beat in the eggs one at a time

*Mix in flour

*Roll dough out, and cut into shapes (or use a cup for circles)

*Sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on each uncooked cookie

*Bake about 10 minutes, until they begin to lightly brown

*Melt chocolate, and once cookies have cooled, dip 1/2 in 

 

A word about this blog...

The banner on top is a photo I pulled off of a stock photography website - royalty free downloads type thing.  And there are a lot of pictures out there people just run around and steal, while there are also a lot of picutres under creative commons public domain licensing. Just wanted you guys to know I got the photo off of http://sxc.hu all legal and stuff, and I also wrote to the artist to let him know we are using the photo in a publicly accessible work, and that I modified the photo for use (cropped it). He read our blog and thinks is really cool and likes the photo where it is. 

His name is Felipe Peternella, and he is from Salvadaor, Bahia, Brazil. Mmm.. Yummy. (His profile)