Sunday, March 30, 2008

Tomato Soup: Easy and yummy

This is what you need:

3 cups milk
1 stick of butter
1/2 of an onion
3 TB of garlic powder
pepper
salt
tomato paste
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 TB sugar
1/4 cup red wine


Put wine, onions and butter into pan, and simmer for 10 minutes ish.. while you do other things

Like gather ingredients
Dice up real or stewed tomatoes, or if you have diced.. then use those
add them into the mix

Then add milk, all spices and an inky bit of flour

lastly, add the tomato paste


Stir it, let is simmer for a few more minutes and serve =D
I made grilled cheese and it was perfecto!

Jean's Famous Oatmeal Cookies 1 & 2

Recipe 1 Soft Cakey Oatmeal Cookies:

BOWL 1
3 eggs
1 stick butter/margarine/shortening
1 cup sugar

BOWL 2
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda, baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp all spice


Waiting backstage: 2 cups Oatmeal, 1/2 cup milk and Raisins

STEP 1
Mix ingredients in Bowl 1

Then mix ingredients in Bowl 2 and gradually add, alternating with milk



After this is mixed, add oatmeal

Then add raisins (or other ingredients of choice) and drop onto cookie sheet.
Then bakc 8-10 minutes at 350º or 10-12 at 325º

and you get:
Aaron gives these cookies the thumbs up, and I think I know many people who would like them.

After making these cookies, I asked Jean and google what I could do to make these cookies less soft, and more chewy and thin. The consensus brought me to the altered version below. KEY: less soda and baking powder, substitute white sugar for brown, press down cookies after dropping on sheet and bake less time.


Recipe 2: :
BOWL 1

Melted Butter 1 stick
3/4 cups Brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

BOWL 2
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cup oatmeal

STEPS
Melt Butter and mix in first bowl with brown sugar and eggs (like above, but you get a darker looking mixture.


Mix Flour, Baking soda, salt, cinnamon in another bowl

Then add to wet mixture

Add oatmeal, then raisins

and put on cookie sheet, flattened down after dropping
I baked mine at 300º for 10 minutes. and they were almost exactly what I was looking for, and yummy none the less
Somewhere, sometime I had an oatmeal cookie that changed my life. I can't recreate it, and for that reason, I'm quitting the oatmeal cookie search/fiasco, I'm going to leave the oatmeal cookies to other people.

next week: Monkey Bread

commenting and future baking

Hello everyone. Just so you know, anyone can post a comment on my blog postings. You don't have to have an account, so don't be scared.

Later today I think I'll take a stab at oatmeal cookies, since I have spent much time using multiple recipes and never had any that i thought were 'the best' oatmeal cookies ever.
So, I'm working on it.

Also, later this week I think I'm going to try Monkey Bread.
ta ta.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

cinnamon rolls

Well, I"m rather upset with my first stab at homemade cinnamon rolls. It's harder than you might think. I also think I got kind of a bad recipe.. it just started off weird, and then it never felt like everything got fully mixed in.
Additionally, the recipe didn't really leave enough time for 'rising' of the yeast. anyway, wah wah.. I think i'll try a new recipe.

But I'll put up the pics and a review of the taste later on.

****edit***
Now I will loathfully add the pictures and explain where I think this recipe went wrong.

First the recipe said to heat the milk and oil and then add the yeast. This went against everything I know about baking, but I did it anyway, just so I could follow the directions.

Then the recipe said to add 8 cups, yes.. 8 cups of flour... this seemed wrong, i thought I should add it gradually, but it said to add it all at once and mix around. WEIRD.

Then I was to mix that together add 1 more cup of flour with other dry ingredients like.. baking soda, powder and salt.

then let rise, then roll out on counter.
At this point I knew it was all wrong, because the rolling out was just TOO difficult. But i pushed through.


I baked them, made the icing and then poured it over. Needless to say, these weren't very delicious, actually they weren't good at all, truthfully.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Apple Dumplings

These are delicious apple dumplings, and so easy I"m pretty sure a kid could make them.

Here's the original recipe:
2 sticks of butter
2 cans of Pillsbury crescent rolls (don't judge me until you've tried this)
1 small can of Mountain dew
2 apples (best if granny smith, fuji, or golden delicious) cored and sliced into 8 peices
cinnamon
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
some vanilla

Step 1. core apples and slice



Step 2: roll apples into crescent rolls


(see my fatty fingers? hehe)


Step 3: Melt butter in pan, add a little vanilla, and 1 1/2 cups sugar.
**** I altered this here by adding a little cinnamon and a little nutmeg to this mixture, it just gives it better flavor****



Stir it a little then pour over rolled apples..


Then sprinkle with cinnamon and pour Mountain Dew over the top. =D


And then bake at 350º until golden brown and crispy on top.. about 30-40 minutes.

YUM.

as you can see, my oven is.. about as wide as a 13X9 in pan is long. nice huh?

Thanks Nicole, for finding this recipe.

nyc baking

Hello all, typeractive compunicator here, I am beginning this blog to document my baking experiences in the fine city of New York. Moving here from the midwest has been a switch for sure, but the thing I have noticed that is most difficult is baking like you do in the suburbs. It's just not as easy to find confectioner's sugar, or lemon zest, or baking pans and sprinkles.

Even working part time in a bakery hasn't changed this, the accessibility to baking supplies is.. well.. bleak.

So, today for my first blog post, I'm making a recipe I found through a friend on pioneer woman's site for easy Apple Dumplings, with some alterations to the recipe. Pics and recipe to follow.