yummy soup

I made this Cheddar Broccoli Soup for dinner and wanted some bread bowls to go with so I made these. I forgot to take a picture of what they looked like when done, but they were great. It was definitely the favorite dinner of the week. Glad I have some soup in the freezer.

brownies and prezels

Last week I baked some dark chocolate brownies when Sarah and Caleb came over to watch the Wisconsin-Iowa game.  They turned out super rich and gooey.  I used Alton Brown's recipe, which is a fairly common theme in this house.

This week, we were headed to an Octoberfest Halloween Party, so Mike and I made some yummy soft pretzels (courtesy of Alton Brown again).  I made up the dough and then Mike formed the pretzels and baked them.  We seem to tag team a lot of things these days with the baby.

greatest dinner ever

I've gotten back into cooking now that I'm at home and planning meals.  A few weeks ago, the grocery store had green peppers on sale and also cream cheese.  That got me thinking about jalapeno poppers.  I decided to create something similar using the green peppers.  I didn't use a recipe at all, which is a big step for me. 

I sauteed some onions, corn, and jalapeno peppers in some butter.  Then I added some black beans from a can and corn.  Once that was all heated through, I melted a package of cream cheese.  I could have stopped right there and just ate the mix with chips, but I stuffed it into the blanched green peppers and then baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes.  I then sprinkled some cheese on top and baked them for 5 more minutes.  I figured corn bread would also taste good with the peppers so I tried out the Pioneer Woman's Skillet Cornbread. 

I seriously think this was the best dinner I have ever cooked.  Mike agreed.

cinnamon bread

This week I baked the Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Bread found here. The recipe was easy to follow. I didn't get a very good rise from the dough. Probably because I was baking on a cold, rainy day. It turned out very dense, but was great for french toast. It felt kind of like I was eating a cinnamon roll, only slighty healthier because it was bread (though I'm sure it's really not that healthy).

I think I may have fixed the poor rise problem. Today I mixed up some Ciabatta bread found here. I followed the Pioneer Woman's trick of running hot water in the bowl before I turned the bread into it. I covered it with plastic wrap and a towel and then put it in front of a space heater. The bread definitely rose this time. I haven't baked it yet, so hopefully it will turn out.

 This week's baking was a new biscuit recipe to go with biscuits and gravy.  It was from my new baking book.  It was the easiest biscuit recipe I've ever followed because it used cream instead of butter.  I had to add a little more cream because the dough was pretty dry. 

The biscuits turned out pretty good.  I under baked them and the bottoms still got a little too done.  The outside looked pretty dry, but the insides of the biscuits were still soft and moist.  Yum Yum.  They were perfect for the sausage gravy that Mike made.

new cookbok

dough

into the oven

look yummy

yep, yummy

muffins

I had some bananas to use up so I went with another old standby from Miranda. Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. They're my favorite muffins and always turn out yummy. They're great as mini muffins so I made a tray of regular size muffins and mini muffins. No pictures of the final product because they're almost all gone. They don't last long in our house.

cheating

It's been a long week in our house.  Hudson decided he didn't want to take naps or sleep at night for a few days, so I didn't get much done.  I did sit on the porch swing a few times to try and calm down Hudson.  I knew I needed to bake brownies for this weekend and was going to make them from scratch, but when I priced how much just buying the chocolate would be, I knew I could make them for much cheaper since these were on sale for a dollar.

cinnamon goodness

Last week, I made the Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls.  This was my first real baking with yeast and it went pretty well.  The recipe was easy.  I made the dough on Friday and then made the rolls on Saturday.  They were so yummy.  I wasn't sure I would like the frosting, since it had maple in it, but it was great.  I actually think the rolls were better the second day.   They managed to stay nice and moist.  I will be making these again.

mixing the dough

rolling up the dough

fresh out of the oven

frosting

yummy

fudge yumminess

This week I baked a yummy fudge cake from Alton Brown's cookbook I'm Just Here for More Food. Obviously, it was a little more difficult to make than a boxed mix, but way yummier. The batter was the best part of making the cake. It seemed really runny, like Alton said it would be, but baked up super moist. The frosting was difficult to make because you needed a hand mixer, which we don't own, but it turned out ok. You were supposed to put the saucepan in a bowl of ice water and then mix it, but I just mixed it and then stuck it in the fridge to cool off.

mini loaf pans

Today I baked 4 mini loaves of banana bread. This is also a stand by recipe in our house. It's from a cookbook we got on our honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia. We always had banana bread growing up. I love to slather it with cream cheese. I also had to hard-boil some eggs because we also always had hard-boiled eggs with our banana bread. Weird, I know. Hudson hung out in the kitchen while I was cooking and even

Sadie stopped by to see what we were doing and to see if she was going to get anything. My favorite part about baking banana bread my be using my mini loaf pans. I got these a few years ago and was so excited about them for months, that Mike still kids me about it.

baking august 9-15

I started out easy with my baking goal. Just chocolate chip cookies. The recipe comes from the back of the ghirardelli package, but I like to think that the recipe is from Miranda.

These cookies are one of the first things I learned how to make from scratch. I would actually rather eat the dough than the cookies, but I still baked some for Mike.