Monthly Muffin Challenge: March

It's been a busy March and I practically forgot about my own personal Monthly Muffin Challenge but luckily I remembered this morning. I decided to bust out a long archived I'll-try-that-one-day recipe for Ham and Cheddar Muffins - a nice savory twist on a typical muffin. I chose the mini muffin option on these since my mini muffin pan hasn't seen any action in awhile. What a cute little addition to your weekend breakfast! I should mention I skipped the onion step, since my hubby doesn't like them but otherwise followed this to a T. So easy!

Ham and Cheddar Muffins

(from myrecipes.com)

3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 medium-size sweet onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups all-purpose baking mix
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg
1 cup finely chopped cooked ham

Melt butter in a skillet over medium-high heat; add onion, and sauté 3 to 5 minutes or until tender.

Combine baking mix and half of cheese in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture.
Stir together milk and egg, blending well; add to cheese mixture, stirring until moistened. Stir in onion and ham. Spoon into lightly greased muffin pans, filling two-thirds full. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese.

Bake at 425° for 18 minutes or until golden (approximately 14 minutes in a min-muffin pan). Let stand 2 to 3 minutes before removing from pans.

Yields 12 (3-inch) muffins or 2 1/2 dozen mini muffins

Recipe Remix is making its debut....

....next week. Stay tuned!

And they said....let there be dessert!

I just realized I forgot to blog about Easter dessert.

You know those little recipe booklets that you find at the supermarket near the register? Well a couple of months ago I fell victim to the impulse buy and bought a Pilsbury one all on pies. I had made all of one recipe out of it so far. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago to look for something good for Easter dessert. I found what I remember being called a Strawberry Cream Tart and figured I could modify it to be something that my father-in-law, who is diabetic, could eat. It was very few ingredients, it called basically for a pre-made pie shell, cream cheese, some sugar, strawberries, and fresh whipped cream. I had decided using Cool Whip would just be a lot easier. So when I went shopping I didn't reference the recipe at all. But when I went to make the recipe on Saturday night I realized I couldn't find my little Pilsbury recipe booklet at all. I searched high and low, and in any room I could have brought it into. Nothing. I decide to search on the Pilsbury.com website. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

At that point I was pretty much forced to make it up myself from memory and it came out quite good I think! Below is my best re-creation of what I did - which was, in the end, super simple! I had leftovers of this and thought enough to take a picture of it last night before it disappeared. And that's dots of cool whip on those strawberries. I always seem to pick the worst piece of something when I photograph it. *sigh*

The second dessert I made was an easy one - I was all about easy dessert so I had more time to focus on brunch. It's a cookie dough cheesecake from Kraftfoods.com. I failed to take a picture (I know, you're totally surprised...not!) so I'm borrowing one from Kraft. This was easy, rich, and tasty. Can't get much better than that.

Last, is the dessert my mom made. She wanted to bring dessert but couldn't make up her mind so I sent her this Shortcut Carrot Cake recipe. Wow, was it good! Super moist and yummy. Thanks, Mom!!!

I'm also borrowing pictures from the Kraft website for the 2nd and 3rd recipes. I am sick of not having pictures and they are a lot easier on the eyes than my own pictures would have been anyway!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Tart

(Inspired by a Pilsbury recipe)

1 Pilsbury pre-made pie crust, softened according to package directions

1 8 oz block of low fat cream cheese, softened

1 small tub light Cool Whip

1/2 cup Splenda

About a 1/2 pint strawberries with stems removed and cut in half lengthwise

Heat oven to 450°F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell, using 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Bake about 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool.

In a medium sized bowl, combine cream cheese, 1/2 of the container of cool whip, and Splenda. Beat on medium/low until combined and creamy. Spread into cooled crust and refrigerate for about 2 hours.

Using the rest of the Cool Whip, spread across the top of the tart (I did this more for looks than anything else). Then lay strawberries on top of tart in a concentric circle formation until tart is "full" with strawberries.

PHILADELPHIA® 3-STEP® Cookie Dough Cheesecake*

2 pkg (8oz each) Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup prepared or refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough, divided
1 Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs; mix just until blended. Remove 1/2 cup of the dough; drop by teaspoonfuls into batter. Stir gently until well blended.

Pour into crust. Top with level teaspoonfuls of the remaining 1/4 cup cookie dough.

Bake 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

*Picture from Kraft Foods

Shortcut Carrot Cake*

(from kraftfoods.com)

1 pkg. (2-layer size) spice cake mix
2 cups shredded carrots (about 1/2 lb.)
1 can (8 oz.) crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup PLANTERS Chopped Pecans, divided
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare cake mix batter as directed on package, stirring in carrots, pineapple and 3/4 cup of the pecans until well blended. Pour into 2 (9-inch) square baking pans. Bake 25 to 30 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool. My mother used 2 - 8 inch round cake pans. She noted that she had to increase the bake time by about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer or wire whisk until well blended. Stir in whipped topping until well blended.

Place 1 cake layer on serving plate. Spread with 1-1/2 cups of the cream cheese mixture. Carefully place second cake layer on top of first cake layer. Frost top and sides of cake with remaining cream cheese mixture. Garnish with remaining 1/4 cup pecans. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

*Picture from Kraft Foods

Tuesdays with Dorie & my 100th post

***Updated for picture below***

***Unfortunately you can see that my flan does not appear caramel-topped at all. I'm not sure if I messed up the caramel part of the process, if it had anything to do with using a nonstick pan, or I just needed more caramel. Overall it's a tasty recipe though, certainly not bad, just was looking forward to that little something extra in the caramel topping***

Last week I joined with Tuesday with Dorie after a little gentle prodding from my friend Danielle. Tuesdays with Dorie is a weekly event of sorts where one member of the blogroll picks a recipe out of the Baking From My Home to Yours cookbook by Dorie Greenspan.

This week's featured recipe was for Caramel Topped Flan chosen by Steph from A Whisk and a Spoon. I was going to make it for Easter dessert but I decided not to last minute and save this one for...well...for last minute!

I made this only just tonight and as of right now, since I don't want to be shamefully late for my first TWD post, I can only provide a picture of it fresh out of the oven perched upon a cooling rack. I did, however, get a smidge of a taste of this when I stuck a knife in the first time to check for doneness. I have to say that when I licked the knife clean of the remnants (yes, I admit to being a knife licker) it was quite tasty. I hope to update this with a fresh picture tomorrow once this has had ample time to cool and then chill for the 4 recommended hours.

I'd also like to mention that this is my 100th post! I have really come to enjoy food blogging even though, at the beginning, I was off to a slow start. Once I got myself going, now I find that I just can't stop - kind of like a bag of Lays chips...or was that Pringles?! Either way, I'm looking forward to the next 100!

Caramel Topped Flan


For the Caramel
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp water
squirt of fresh lemon juice

For the Flan
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1-1/4 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a roasting pan or a 9-x-13-inch baking pan with a double thickness of paper towels. Fill a teakettle with water and put it on to boil; when the water boils, turn off the heat.

Put a metal 8-x-2-inch round cake pan-not a nonstick one-in the oven to heat while you prepare the caramel.

To Make the Caramel: Stir the sugar, water and lemon juice together in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Put the pan over medium-high heat and cook until the sugar becomes an amber-colored caramel, about 5 minutes-remove the pan from the heat at the first whiff of smoke.

Remove the cake pan from the oven and, working with oven mitts, pour the caramel into the pan and immediately tilt the pan to spread the caramel evenly over the bottom; set the pan aside.

To Make the Flan: Bring the cream and milk just to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a 2-quart glass measuring cup or in a bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks and sugar. Whisk vigorously for a minute or two, and then stir in the vanilla. Still whisking, drizzle in about one quarter of the hot liquid-this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they won't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the hot cream and milk. Using a large spoon, skim off the bubbles and foam that you worked up.

Put the caramel-lined cake pan in the roasting pan. Pour the custard into the cake pan and slide the setup into the oven. Very carefully pour enough hot water from the kettle into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan. (Don't worry if this sets the cake pan afloat.) Bake the flan for about 35 minutes, or until the top puffs a bit and is golden here and there. A knife inserted into the center of the flan should come out clean.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven, transfer the cake pan to a cooking rack and run a knife between the flan and the sides of the pan to loosen it. Let the flan cool to room temperature on the rack, then loosely cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

When ready to serve, once more, run a knife between the flan and the pan. Choose a rimmed serving platter, place the platter over the cake pan, quickly flip the platter and pan over and remove the cake pan-the flan will shimmy out and the caramel sauce will coat the custard.

Yield: 6 to 8 Servings

Easter Eats!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we hosted Easter brunch. This was our 2nd year so and I really enjoy hosting a brunch. It's a change in pace from the typical holiday-type dinner that we are all accustomed to, likewise Easter and brunch are a perfect fit.

Per usual when entertaining, in my haste to get everything out of the oven and served before it got cold, I neglected to take pictures of most of my meal. However, here is how the menu looked:
* Fruit & cheese kabobs
* Orange Cream Mimosas
* Broccoli, Chicken, and Mushroom Quiche
* Bacon, Onion, & Cheese Quiche
* Scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese in puff pastry pockets
* Corned Beef Hash
* Mashed Potato Hash Brown type casserole
* French Toast Souffle
* Blueberry Bread (confession: this came from a box mix!)

The Fruit & Cheese kabobs were a great little idea I had seen on KraftFoods.com. Strawberries, kiwi, and grapes on wooden skewers and alternated with cubes of Monterey Jack Cheese. I gave my husband the distinct honor of cutting and assembling these. I was quite impressed with the results - very nicely laid out - go Greg! I thought this was easier than making a huge fruit salad. These were easy and fun to eat! No good excuse to not have gotten a picture of these since they were done an hour before guests arrive, I just simply forgot!

Unfortunately I don't have a real recipe for the 2 quiches. I had decided on my fillings in advance and prepared them in their own containers so that on Easter morning I just had to beat the eggs, throw the fillings in, and pour everything in the pre-baked pie shells. I had a basic quiche recipe that I intended to use as a guide for the number of eggs to use, cooking time, etc. That plan went out the window. I added more eggs, half-and-half, etc. then the "guide" called for. To be honest I couldn't even tell you how many eggs I did in fact use, nevermind any other measurements. Trying to recreate my recipe here probably would only spell disaster. What I can tell you though is that they came out good!

The scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese pockets were a last minute inspiration. My friend Lindsay had mentioned something of the like to me a couple of weeks prior and it clicked with me this could be fun for Easter. Basically all I did was scramble eggs to the semi-runny state, and then laid out a little egg, a sprinkle of cheese, and some diced ham into a little puff pastry pocket. I got 3 pockets for each sheet of puff pastry (I used the fold lines as my divider). It worked out nicely and despite my fears the eggs weren't dried out at all.

There are 3 recipes I can provide you with though...

The first being is homemade Corned Beef Hash. I got this from one of my buddies, Pam, on my local Nest board for my Easter brunch last year. Since it was so popular last year, I didn't think twice about including it on this year's menu. I love how easy it is and how it's something I can prep and then not think about again! You'll never find something this good from a can!

The next recipe is for Paula Deen's Mashed Baked recipe. It's a cross between mashed potatoes and hash browns. I thought this might be a nice bridge between breakfast and lunch and hence fitting of brunch. It was delicious. I lightened it up a bit by using low fat cream cheese, low fat sour cream, and low fat cheese.

Lastly is a French Toast Souffle from myrecipes.com. I don't really know why they call it a souffle, because it's really not a souffle. I digress. It was good, but not great. I really enjoy Paula Deen's French Toast Casserole that I've used in the past (including last Easter) more. I'm sure that has something to do with this recipe being from Cooking Light and Paula's recipe...well...let's just say 2 sticks of butter can change everything!

Corned Beef Hash

3 Cups cooked corned beef
2 small chopped onion
3 potatoes, peeled and diced into small chunks
1/2 Teaspoons salt
1/2 Teaspoons black pepper
1 Cups beef broth

Run first three ingredients through food processor. Mix well with all the remaining ingredients. Press into well greased pot. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.

Mashed Baked
(from FoodNetwork.com)

4 cups frozen hash browns
1 (7.6-ounce) package butter and herb mashed potato mix
1 stick butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups boiling water
2 cups prepared French-fried onion rings

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the hash browns. Cook for 5 minutes and drain.

In a large bowl, mix together the cooked hash browns, mashed potato mix, butter, cream cheese, jack cheese, sour cream, garlic salt, salt and pepper. Stir in the boiling water.

Place in a greased 2-quart casserole dish. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Sprinkle the onion rings over the casserole and bake for about 5 to 8 minutes longer until onions are golden brown.

French Toast Souffle
(from myrecipes.com)

10 cup (1-inch) cubed sturdy white bread (such as Pepperidge Farm Hearty White, about 16 (1-ounce) slices)
Cooking spray
1 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat-cream cheese, softened
8 large eggs
1 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
2/3 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
3/4 cup maple syrup

Place bread cubes in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Beat cream cheese at medium speed of mixer until smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add milk, half-and-half, 1/2 cup maple syrup, and vanilla, and mix until smooth. Pour cream cheese mixture over top of bread; cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Remove bread mixture from refrigerator; let stand on counter for 30 minutes. Bake at 375° for 50 minutes or until set. Sprinkle the souffle with powdered sugar, and serve with maple syrup.

Tasty Tools!

My husband and I hosted an Easter brunch on Sunday for 8 of us. Last year I served mimosas but this year I was looking for a little something different. Since I had fewer guests this year than last, I thought it wouldn't hurt to put a little extra time into the featured brunch beverage du jour. After some research, I found a great recipe from Tyler Florence on the Food Network website for Orange Cream Mimosas. It sounded like a fun, easy, and delicious twist on the standard mimosa and it was the perfect opportunity to take part in the Tasty Tools event that Joelen from Joelen's Culinary Adventures is hosting this month.

These two factors combined gave me the perfect excuse to buy the microplane grater I have pined after for so long. It's true, everytime I watched the Food Network and one of the chefs whips out his or her microplane grater, I turned green with envy. So it was an Easter present for myself! I was able to zest the orange for this recipe like a pro. I just love it! While my box grater is still a useful tool, I love the ease of the microplane grater, not to mention I find it neater. I definitely intend on using it often!

Let me just say, these mimosas were Stupendous, despite my horrible choice of where I took the picture. I was scrambling around the kitchen and as you will soon see, I didn't even take a picture of the rest of my Easter meal! (p.s. I love my Keurig Coffee maker!)

Anyway, I digress. They were Stupendous...yes, with a capital S. When we ran out of champagne and still had some of the frozen portion left we switched to ginger ale. Still Stupendous. I almost wished I had doubled the batch - in fact next year I will!

Orange Cream Mimosas
(from FoodNetwork.com)


2 1/2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (5 to 6 oranges)
1 orange, zested
1 cup half-and-half
1 cup superfine sugar
1 bottle sparkling wine or Champagne*
Strawberries, for garnish
*Non-alcoholic sparkling wine, sparkling cider, or ginger ale can be substituted

Put orange juice, zest, half-and-half, and sugar into a blender and process until the sugar has dissolved, about 30 seconds. Pour this mixture into a shallow pan and freeze until hard, 4 hours or overnight.

Remove the frozen orange mixture from the freezer and let it sit to soften slightly, about 10 minutes. With a scoop or tablespoon, scrape out a small scoop and put it into a Champagne glass. Slowly fill the glass with Champagne and serve garnished with strawberries.

I heart my pressure cooker, and Nigella!

I already used my pressure cooker again. I don't think I've ever completed a batch of homemade mashed potatoes in such a short amount of time. It is just so fast, I love it and looking forward to using my pressure cooker more often now. I don't know wha took me so long to use it in the first place!

Nigella provided tonights main course. Chicken is one of those things you can never have too many different ways of preparing. I really do love my "Nigella Express" cookbook. This was an entirely unhealthy way to roast a whole chicken, but surely quite a yummy way to roast a chicken! I used maple-flavored bacon and I cannot tell you how yummy my kitchen smelled while it was cooking. I wish I could watch Nigella on TV but she grates on my nerves for some reason, oh well, at least her cookbook is great! :-)

Brandied-Bacony Chicken

(from "Nigella Express)

1 (2 1/2 to 3-pound) chicken

2 strips bacon (I used maple flavored)

1/4 cup brandy

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small frying pan, cook the bacon over medium heat until it's crisp and the pan full of gorgeous bacony fat, about 4 minutes. Take the pan off the heat, the bacon out of the pan and straight into the cavity of the chicken, sitting the chicken breast side up in a roasting pan as you do so.

Pour the brandy into the still hot frying pan with bacon grease and let bubble for a minute. Pour the brandy mixture over the chicken. Place the roasting pan into the hot oven and roast for 45 minutes, making sure juices run clear between leg and body. Let rest 10 minutes before carving. Serve with bacon pieces from cavity of chicken.

Quick Garlic Mashed Potatoes

(adapted from "Pressure Cooking for Everyone")

3 pounds medium red-skinned potatoes peeled & cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 medium sized yellow onion, quartered

4 cups water

8 large garlic cloves crushed under a knife & peeled

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1/2 cup half-and-half

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup shredded cheese (I used mozzarella)

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

In a 5 to 7 quart pressure cooker, combine the potatoes, onion, water, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Lock the lid in place. Bring to high pressure over high heat. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and quick release pressure. Open the lid, tilting away from you to block any escaping steam. Open the lid, tilting it away from you to block any escaping steam. Drain well.

Return the potatoes, onion, and garlic to the warm cooker. Using an electric mixer or potato masher (I used a masher to disguise the onion into the mix), mash the potatoes with half-and-half, butter, and cheese. Season with additional salt and pepper. Serve hot.

It's Master Baker time again!

Finally, a blog entry this week with an actual recipe :-)

With so much going on the last couple of weeks and Easter approaching quickly (and we are hosting brunch), I wondered if I'd really get around to participating in this month's Master Baker challenge. The featured ingredient for the month is Easter candy.

I was having a craptastic day yesterday and I realized that nothing would get me out of my funk more than going home and whipping something up in the kitchen. I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to complete the Master Baker challenge for the month.

So off I was searching for ideas, when the thought came to me *cue lightbulb over head* to make my own Easter candy rather than incorporating an Easter candy into a recipe. So I Googled for a recipe that could re-create Cadbury Cream Eggs and voila! I found one in an instant on Recipezaar.com that seemed simple enough.

Cadbury Cream Eggs, without a doubt, are my favorite Easter candy and the recipe below is a pretty close match to the real thing. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips in my recipe because I thought this would make them even better - I love dark chocolate. Also, while I am including the steps and the related ingredients, you can see by the picture below that I did not make the orange "yolk" filling. Making these eggs was a pretty time consuming process since you do a lot of waiting for the filling and chocolate to chill (as it is, I made a note where I cut down some of the times a bit). I wanted to finish everything all in the same night, so I skipped this part. I figure that as long as it tastes good I can give up on the aesthetics of a fake yolk ;-)

Cadbury Cream Eggs

(from Recipezaar.com)

1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 drops yellow food coloring
2 drops red food coloring
1(12ounce) bag milk chocolate chips
2 teaspoons vegetable shortening

Combine the corn syrup, butter, vanilla and salt in a large bowl. Beat well with an electric mixer until smooth. After fully combined, add powdered sugar, a little bit at at time and mix by hand after each addition. Mix until creamy.

Remove about 1/3 of the sugar mixture and place in a small bowl. Add the food coloring and mix well. Cover both mixtures and chill for at least 2 hours or until firm. (I chilled for about 90 minutes)

When mixtures are still firm roll a small, marble size from the orange filling then, wrap a small amount of the white filling around the orange.

Form into the shape of eggs and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. (I used wax paper instead). Repeat until done and chill for at least 4 hours. (I chilled for 2 hours in refrigerator and then 15 minutes in the freezer).

Combine the chocolate chips and shortening in a double boiler or ceramic bowl. Melt down and mix well.

Working quickly, take each egg filling and dip into the melted chocolate mixture and return to baking sheet.

Repeat and chill again for 2 hours. After these 2 hours are up, repeat the dipping process, chill again.

It's coming....

Recipe Remix is coming.......

My wonderful friend Danielle (from Make No Little Meals) and I have a lot in common. We actually met on a local wedding planning chatboard back in 2004. We got engaged a week apart and were both planning to get married the same year. Over time, we realized that we grew up one town over from the other, and we both went to the same high school. We even discovered our mothers went to high school together! By this point I hope it's evident that our online friendship quickly grew into a wonderful in-real-life friendship.

I should tell you we have another thing we have in common - we are self-proclaimed "food dorks." We love to cook, bake, blog, buy cookbooks, and as of late, participate in blog challenges and events. We are always informing each other of events or challenges in which we think the other would be interested. I think we have both discovered that food blog events and challenges are a fun way for us to amp up our kitchen creativity and try new recipes we may not have thought to try before.

Recently an idea for a blog event came to mind and I decided to run it by Danielle. After a lot of brainstorming we came up with our little brain child of "Recipe Remix," for which we are very excited!

More details will be coming soon. We are shooting to kickoff the challenge the week after next, so stay tuned for further details!!

Williams Sonoma Gift Card Giveaway

Wow, Kate of The Clean Plate Club, is giving away a $50 Williams Sonoma gift card. Ahhh the things I could buy there. Tops on my list would be a salt and pepper mill, preferably, these. Sadly I don't even have a salt and pepper mill....it's a serious gaping hole in my culinary supplies.