Leftovers and Brownies

I never thought I'd put the words leftovers and brownies together in one sentence but I did. After Halloween I had a ton of leftover candy. I needed to do something with it because I couldn't just have a big bowl of candy sitting around staring at me. So I thought and thought about what I could do with the candy and then it came to me: brownies! Brownies are the perfect dessert for mix ins. They just scream, "add stuff to me!" And so I did. The next question was which candies to mix in. I had Snickers, Twix, and Cookies n Creme to chose from. I went with the last one and what a great choice. The brownies came out delicious and they were so incredibly sinful. These brownies knocked everyone's socks off. The white chocolate in the Cookies n Creme is a nice balance to the richness and depth of the chocolate in the brownie and gave these brownies an interesting taste. Alex thought I added liquor to them, but it was really the combination of the differing sweetness of the white and semi-sweet chocolates.
For the brownies I used this recipe. It is the perfect recipe if you like a nice crunchy top and a gooey, chewy center.

A Real Winner: Banana Muffins

I don't remember the last time I made something that had as good of a reception as these muffins. Everyone loved them and everyone wanted seconds (and thirds and fourths). These babies tasted like a banana bread in muffin form but better. The main problem I have with banana bread is that it has to be eaten quickly before it gets sticky. Does that happen to anyone else? The top of my bread gets sticky if we haven't eaten the bread within a day. That didn't happen here. The sugar topping sealed the muffin and made this muffin all the more sweet and it added a bit of crunch. I added walnuts because I love the combination of walnuts and bananas and this added another flavor and texture dimension to these amazing muffin. This will definitely be my go to banana muffin recipe.

Banana Crumb Muffins
Source: Allrecipes (here)
I got about 16 muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Things to Do: Art Shows

I love going to art shows. I love seeing how much talent there is out in the world. There is something so fun about browsing the various tents and imagining how a piece would go perfectly in your home. What I love the most about art shows is that they are free minus parking for some locations. I believe the only art show that charges an admission fee is the Coconut Grove Art Festival but there are so many great free ones in the Miami area. We got a preview of the upcoming art show season this past weekend when we went to In the Park with Art in Palmetto Bay. The weather was perfect for browsing the tents of the over 100 artists present. I was blown away with what I saw. The photography was stunning, the pastel work amazing, the jewelry gorgeous. I will admit that I have become obsessed with artist Annie Maxwell. I first saw her work displayed in one of the galleries during the Gables Gallery Night and I saw her work again this weekend. I love how vibrant and alive her pieces feel. I also love how her work incorporates the feel of the Caribbean, specifically Cuba.

Image from Fine Art America

I'm looking forward to the South Miami Art Festival this weekend and possibly going to check out Sleepless Night on Saturday Night.

TWD: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

Laurie has been kind enough to allow us TWD bakers to post the recipes out of sequence this month. Thank you!! All the recipes selected for this month are perfect autumn treats and would look great in that Thanksgiving spread. I felt lazy this weekend and in the mood to make cookies, so I am starting off the month with the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies chosen by Pamela of Cookies with Boys. The cookies were fun to make and have I told you how much I love the smell of spices like ginger, cinnamon, and allspice? Well, I do. The best part of these cookies is how warm and delicious they smell. I don't think I added enough pepper to my cookies because my cookies didn't have much of a spice kick and they tasted a lot like chewy gingerbread cookies. This was probably a good thing because it could have made these cookies go from success to fail.
Thanks to Pamela for a great November selection! Remember to stop by the TWD site to see what everyone else chose to do this week.
PS I have a few extra cookies and want to use them as a crust, any suggestions?

German Pancakes & Apple

I was in the mood to make something different for breakfast this weekend. I especially wanted to make something different because Alex had a particularly tough weekend at the hospital and I thought a special breakfast would make up for things. Sure, I could have made pancakes and he would have been perfectly happy but what's the fun in that? Plus, what I made was a lot of fun. Think of it as a cross between pancakes, french toast, and an apple strudel. Doesn't that sound delicious? We gobbled it up and I promised to repeat this breakfast gem.

German Pancakes & Apple
Source: Love and Olive Oil (here)
Serves 2

Pancake
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
3 eggs
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter

Apple Topping
1 apple, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Combine milk, flour, eggs, and salt in medium bowl and mix until just combined.

Combine thinly sliced apples in bowl and toss with sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and lemon juice. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar and remaining cinnamon and set aside.

Move oven rack down to bottom 1/3 of oven. Place butter in a 13×9 inch pan sprayed with cooking spray, put in oven, and preheat to 450 degrees. When butter is hot and sizzling, remove from oven and spread a thin layer (about 3/4 of apples) of apple slices in bottom of pan. Pour in batter, and arrange remaining apples sparingly on top. Sprinkle with brown sugar mixture.

Return pan to oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and fluffy.

Slice and serve hot with maple syrup and powdered sugar. Enjoy!

Delicious really doesn't begin to describe this breakfast.

Happy Halloween!

I can't believe it's Halloween already. The month of October is over! There are only 2 more months left of 2009. How crazy is that? To celebrate our first Halloween in the new house I decided to make some candy corn cupcakes. I had seen a lot of candy corn cupcakes floating around and I loved the idea. Your taking your basic cupcake recipe and jazzing it up with some food coloring. I used this cupcake and frosting recipe. It was a winner for me in the past and I figured I should stick with it. The cupcakes are delicious and they look adorable.

My advice is to be liberal with the food coloring. Make sure the batter is bright because the color tones down after baking. I thought the batter was too yellow and a perfect orange but after baking, the yellow was perfect and the orange was too light. I bought a ton of candy so I'm hoping a lot of little ones stop by the house. I'm dying to see little kids in costumes. This is something I missed when I lived in Boston. I also can't believe that this time next year I'll have a little one of my own to dress up :)

Cracked Pepper Cheddar Muffins

I gave this recipe a try and it's not exactly a loser, but it's also not exactly a winner. I thought it would be a good recipe because you really can't go wrong when cheese is involved but I think that may have been part of the problem. The cheese just didn't stand out enough. Despite the amount of cheese, I found these muffins to be bland and dry. They kind of tasted like days old corn bread instead of a cheddar muffin. I'm sure that adding more cheese or even substituting the cheddar for a stronger, more pungent cheese would make this recipe a real keeper.

Cracked Pepper Cheddar Muffins
Source: Taste of Home
Makes 12 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
1 egg
1-1/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and pepper. In another bowl, whisk the egg, milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in cheese.

Fill muffins cups coated with cooking spray two-thirds full. Bake at 375° for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm.

A Parenting(?) Question

At 6 months pregnant and with the due date fast approaching I find myself thinking a lot about what type of parent I will be and what kind of knowledge I want to impart on my daughter-to-be. My mind runs in all directions when I try to answer these questions. I know I will be the strict parent and I also know that I am going to love this child in immeasurable amounts. She's not even here yet and I find myself fiercely protective of her and everything having to do with her.

There are so many things I want to teach her. So many things I want her to know about the world. I've decided that the main thing I want to teach her (or give her?) is a strong and confident sense of self. I think it’s so important for you to feel comfortable in who you are because there are going to be so many situations in life that will test what you think of yourself. From shattered relationships to the media to interactions with random strangers, there are all kinds of situations that will make you look at yourself and how you are perceived by others. I am completely confident and happy in the person I have become. I know I may be perceived in many different ways but I am ok with that because I know who I am and I am ok with that person. I hope this is something that shows when the little one starts developing her sense of self and that this is something that will provide her with the tools necessary when she starts to question who she is and who she wants to be.

So now my question is...What's one thing you think is important to teach the little ones?

Seafood Lunch

A few weeks back Alex decided to treat me to a special lunch. I don't mean special in that it was expensive, I mean special in that it was so out of the norm for him. One of my biggest frustrations with Alex's eating habits is that he doesn't eat seafood. He doesn't like seafood because it tastes like the ocean. Ummm ok. He's had an occasional shrimp but that is the extent of his seafood eating. I don't make any seafood at home because (a) I just don't know how to prepare it and (b) I don't want to have to prepare a whole new meal for Alex just because I want seafood. As a result, I only eat seafood when I eat outside of the house. So when he mentioned going to Garcia's for lunch I nearly jumped out of myself. I have been wanting to go to Garcia's since before we even moved to Boston. I would have turned down the offer as I usually do (I get so guilt ridden thinking of him not having enough eating options at seafood restaurants), but I couldn't pass this one up. So we went, sat on the water, and ate seafood. Yes, we both ate seafood. Alex really did make this a special lunch :)

Never having been to Garcia's I didn't know what to expect of the restaurant. They have a reputation for having the freshest seafood around so I half expected it to be a fancy restaurant. Wrong. This is the type of restaurant that was made for locals and for people who enjoy hassle-free meals. There is nothing extravagant on the menu. There are no pretenses. It really is all about the food.

Look at that silly grin.

As soon as you sit down-we chose to sit by the water-they bring you water and a little cup full of some kind of fish dip. I was all over the dip. I ate my dip and Alex's dip. You would have thought I hadn't eaten anything in a week with how quickly I ate the dip. It was a perfect mash up of fish, lemon, and I'm guessing a mayo-cream cheese combination.
We both ordered the dolphin sandwiches and wow. The fish sandwiches were incredible and they had such a clean, unfiltered taste. They didn't taste fishy or like the ocean. All you tasted was the crispness of the white fish and the kick of the spices. The fish tasted like it was the child of a blackened and cajun union.
The sandwich came with a side of fries. The fries were your good ol' standard seasoned fries.
Garcia's is located at 398 NW North River Drive in Miami. They are open every day from 11am to 9pm and are definitely worth checking out.

The partial view of Downtown Miami is beautiful.

Daring Bakers: Macaroons

2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

The title of the post that contained this month's Daring Bakers challenge said "Practice Your French Kissing." I don't think any amount of practicing my French kissing would have helped me conquer the difficulty that is making macaroons. I went into making the dessert confident and came out feeling defeated. I expected defeat. This is after all a dessert that I had been terrified of making because of it's reputation. It's a deliciously fickle cookie. Everything has to be absolutely perfect, from the temperature of the eggs to the temperature of the oven. My cookies came out flat and chewy. I filled the cookies with a chocolate ganache and they honestly tasted more like chocolate chip cookies than anything else.
Make sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll. Not everyone had as much trouble as I did and, in fact, some bakers created the most gorgeous macaroons.

Ingredients

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.