me make food

Serious eats mentioned these Wilton brownie cup pans and we so knew we had to get them. The all edge brownie pans are pricey and we have the cheap one they sell on TV, and it sucks really bad. These pans were cheap and seemed like they would work well. Theresa makes some insanely awesome brownies and we tested the pans out last night. She used a disher to measure and some got 2 scoops and the others got 3. They came out amazing. it is like an all edge brownie. The rim of the cup was almost like a cookie and was firm.

below is the recipe and procedure.

For a while now I can get Theresa to go up to Omaha easy as long as we visit cupcake island. It seems that might come to an end soon because she has started making some awesome cuppycakes. I lost a bet with Theresa’s parents over is Monk would find out who killed Trudy. (curses) So I had to make them dinner. We had from scratch fried ravioli with dipping sauce Theresa made, steak au poivre, Theresa’s killer risotto, NE sweet corn, some home made bread, and Boston creme and strawberry shortcake cuppycakes.

As usual with most things we make the cupcakes were from scratch. She used Alton Brown’s Chiffon Cupcake recipe for both. The boston creme ones had vanilla pastry cream piped inside the core, chocolate ganache coating, and some whipped cream on top. I picked up some strawberry preserves for the filling in the shortcake ones. Oh man were they good.

Saw this over on Serious Eats, cupcakes with a choc chip cookie inside. Sent the link to Theresa and she took it as a dare. Theresa did not need any bought mix, she has perfected her soft and chewy cookies and makes a mean cuppycake. She did a couple at a time to see what happens. First ones were a bit too much cookie, but by the end the ratio was good. She is going to try a bit of a drier cookie dough next time. The cookie part was very fluffy, and she is looking for firmer. Oh and next time she is going to make PB cookies in choc cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Nom

It is like waiting to open presents on xmas. Theresa just stares at the fresh bananas trying to jedi mind trick to make the nanners ripen.

can’t promise I won’t forget anything but here it goes
1 stick butter, sofened
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cups brown sugar
cream butter and sugars
2 eggs, add 1 at a time to creamed butter and sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
blend all in a separate bowl
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons salt
alternate adding flour mix and nana mix to the creamed sugar/eggs, beginning and ending with the flour mix
put in greased 9 inch loaf pan and bake at 350 for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 min or until toothpick comes out clean

Slash food has corrupted me on thinking I need macaroons. Man they look awesome. I was all like “I so need to make those fu#$rs cuz they look aweseome. Then I was like “oh wait, I am a cooker and Theresa is the baker”. So I used my secret powers to send her a link and say “make that”. And she was all like “MMmmmmm…., OK”.

So here we are. We looked at some websites and all seemed really complicated and Theresa looked in her trusty bakers book and found an easy recipe. She messed with it a bit and made some simple macaroons.
This was phase 1 of our first steps into macaroon thunderdome. Just wanted to see what they taste like.

They taste like almond heaven. I have no recipe and will not type it out. There is much better to come beeeeeeeetches

Post with recipe

Had a potluck over at a friends Friday night. There was corned beef with new potatoes, flank steak for burritos, and the kids made these awesome cupcakes. Lemon skittles make up the corn kernels and the butter is a melted lemon starburst. Too cute.

Then how do you feed 50 people at a cabin on the lake? 3 rocking charcoal grills. Those are bacon wrapped deer fillets. They were delicious. Tons of dogs and burgers left everybody stuffed.

The wind kept the smoke away most of the time, but every now and then we got smoked out big time.

Theresa was looking for a yummy treat and after a good adjustment on the braces it had to be soft. She picked up 12 more pyrex ramekins and used her good housekeeping baking book recipe. Cool thing is it is really easy to make and you can freeze them. Frozen batter from the freezer to bowl in 16 minutes. First ones were a bit underdone, but she has it down now. Really rich.

3 tablespoon(s) sugar
1/4 cup(s) sugar
6 tablespoon(s) margarine or butter
4 ounce(s) semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup(s) heavy or whipping cream
1/4 cup(s) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease eight 6-ounce ramekins or custard cups; sprinkle with 3 tablespoons sugar.
2. In 3-quart saucepan, heat margarine or butter with chocolate and cream over low heat until melted and smooth, stirring occasionally. Remove saucepan from heat; whisk in flour and vanilla until blended.
3. In medium bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat eggs, egg yolks, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar until very thick and pale yellow, about 10 minutes. With rubber spatula, gently fold egg mixture into chocolate mixture, one-third at a time, until blended.
4. Pour batter into ramekins, filling each about three-fourths full. Place ramekins in 15 1/2″ by 10 1/2″ jelly-roll pan for easier handling. Bake 9 to 10 minutes, until edge of cake is set but center is slightly jiggly.
5. Cool in pan on wire rack 5 minutes. Run small knife around sides of ramekins. Invert onto dessert plates and serve immediately.

We are creatures of habit. We like steaks on the weekends, an array of meals we like to make, and some good brownies. Baking season is coming up and pretty excited about that. Theresa tried a bunch of different brownie recipes and found the one on Nestle’s chocolatier bittersweet chocolate to be her fave.

* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1 2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ CHOCOLATIER™ 62% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Morsels
* 2 large eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup chopped nuts ( optional )

So watching the food porn network and they did an unwrapped which featured a company that made cheese straws. And they looked divine. BTW I love unwrapped even though Marc Summers hosts it. I love to see how stuff is made. So a cheese straw is pretty much a cheeze-it on steroids. I followed Paula Dean’s recipe.