Thanksgiving Cookies

Sorry I don't have a post ready for these. I will have these to you next week. I'm afraid I have a boatload of crafts to do today, so food blogging will just have to wait. *pout* Below is a preview of the cookies I made last night, will post them sometime next week!

If you haven't already, stop by my craft blog! I'm always making something :) If you like what you see, become a follower or subscribe to see what I'm up to! There's also a link to my Facebook fan page there, and there's one here for Amanda's Cookin' fan page (look on the right side bar).

(If you are reading this in email or a reader, click here to go to Amanda's Cookin' , then look on the right.)

Also, wish us luck! Tomorrow is the Super Bowl game for my son's football team! They won the division championship last weekend and we are rooting for them to win the overall championship tomorrow!


GO BULLDOGS!

Stir Fried Spicy Beef

I love stir fry. This particular dish is one of our absolute favorites. You can add other vegetables to it if you like, but the simplicity of it is what I like best. The beef takes center stage in this dish. Remember when you stir fry it's a super fast process. To stir fry successfully you must have all of your ingredients measured out ahead of time and at the ready. There is literally no time in between steps to chop, slice, or measure.

This recipe comes from a You Tube video series called Cooking with Kai. There are no written instructions with his series, you just have to take notes, though he does give you measurements. I've written it out for you. :)

I use bottom sirloin for this and all stir fries. Sliced thin against the grain it works perfectly. You can also use flank steak and even top round steak, just make sure you slice it thin. Another tip is to slice the meat when it's partially frozen as it's much easier to slice through and gives you nice straight cuts.


Stir Fried Spicy Beef

1 pound beef, sliced thin (sirloin or flank work well)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons canola oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 dried chilies, broken in half
6 green onions, sliced diagonally, 2" long
4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

Marinade:
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons rice cooking wine
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Combine marinade ingredients and stir into beef. Set aside to marinate for 15 minutes.

Place wok over high heat, add canola oil. When oil is hot, add the beef and stir fry quickly for 1-2 minutes, browning beef on both sides. Remove beef from wok to a warmed platter.

Add 2 teaspoons of oil to wok. Add garlic, stir fry for ten seconds until fragrant. Add the chilies and stir fry 5 seconds, then add green onion, stir fry for 30 seconds.

Add the beef back into the wok. Add in the hoisin and soy sauce (and sugar if you like) and stir fry to coat beef and vegetables in sauce. Serve over hot steamed rice.

For a text only (no recipe photos or commentary) printer friendly version of this recipe, click here

Football Jersey Cookies, Royal Icing & Division Champs

I've mentioned recently that two of my boys play football. One of them (Dominic, 10 years) is done for the season, so the coaches hosted an end of season party for the team. I decided to make football jersey shaped cookies, and to go a bit further, thought I would finally try my hand at decorating with Royal Icing.

My other football son (T.J., 12 years) is still playing. In fact, as I type this (which won't be when this posts by the way) he is at practice. See T.J.'s team won their playoff game over the weekend, giving them the title of Division Champs! Go Bulldogs! WOOT! The "Super Bowl" game will be played this weekend and we can't wait! Totally psyched!

Since I was making cookies for Dominic's team, I doubled up the batch and made them for T.J.'s team too. It worked out great, I handed them out right after they won the Division Champ title, so they were very pumped and these were a nice treat to go home with.

I decorated Dominic's with a few different colors, while T.J. wanted his to be white to match their actual jerseys. I also made some footballs and helmets for the coaches and flags for the team moms.

I found the cookie dough recipe on Leslie's uber awesome Hungry Housewife blog. Very simple dough, refrigerate for a while and cut with cookie cutters.

Bake 'em up, mine were done in 9 1/2 minutes. They were a bit puffy, but I think that was because I used parchment paper, even though Leslie said not to... I somehow missed that. :-p

All was well though, the cooled off and "relaxed" a bit, taking away that puffiness.

I mixed up Leslie's icing too and followed her instructions, though I didn't have the right tip (#3), it still worked out really well. I tinted the icing with paste food coloring. Then they had to dry for a few hours.

Then it was time to pipe on the numbers etc. This was my first time, so I was pretty happy with the results, even if they weren't perfect.

I can see a LOT of cookies in my future. This is a dangerous mix of cooking (this blog) and crafting (my craft blog), so I am certain these will not be the last decorated cookie to cross these pages. :) I'm already totally excited about making some Thanksgiving cookies!

Get Leslie's cookie and icing recipe here

To end this post, I want to celebrate my two youngest boys. Dominic and T. J., I'm so proud of you boys. You are dedicated sport nuts and great team mates. Good sports and all around rockin' kids. I love you both. :)

TJ on the sidelines while defense is on the field.

TJ After winning the division championship.

What a rockin' number!

TJ talking to his big brother, Tony (Tony is my oldest, he's 17, no pics of my daughter in here, she's 15)

Coach holds up the trophy!

TJ on the field.

Big brother. Tough to get a picture of him.

Love their shirts "If you want to run with the big dogs, you can't play like a puppy". he he

Dominic at the end of season party

Dominic at his last practice of the season

At the end of season party, playing catch with team mates

Dominic was awarded Best Defensive Player

And last but not least, our adorable mascot Spike. Here he's dancing at half time to "Who Let The Dogs Out"

Spike hanging with the cheerleaders!

Thanks for listening :)

GO BULLDOGS!!

TWD: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

Tuesdays with Dorie is a little all over the place for November. :) You see, for this month, due to the craziness of the holidays, our gracious blog event host is allowing us to pick from all four of this month's picks and make them on any Tuesday of the month. Last week I made the amazing All In One Holiday Bundt which I will definitely be making again for Thanksgiving. :)

This week I made the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies which was chosen by Pamela of Cookies with Boys. You can find the recipe on her blog or on pages 76 and 77 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours.

I had been meaning to make these for several days. It's been a bit crazy here this past week. My 10 year old son had the flu, though thankfully that is over with. Our 12 year old son was in the playoffs for football, and my ten year old had his end of season football party, so I was busy making football jersey cookies (posting this week!), and we went to 12 yo's football game which they won and are now the division champs! Woohoo! He goes to the "Super Bowl" next weekend. Phew! Then today it was shampoo the carpet day, so luckily this was a REALLY easy recipe to put together and I was able to sneak them out without any issues.

I did what the book said, which was to bake 12 cookies on a baking sheet, however I used a standard baking sheet and these cookies really spread. Therefore, my first batch ended up square because they had nowhere else to go but into each other. :-/ The flavor however, made me forget all about that, man these are good!

So I pulled out the big flat baking sheets and just to be safe, I only baked 6 at a time...

and the results were perfectly round, crack topped beauties! I did have a couple of them stick to the spatula as I was removing them, so if you make these make sure you clean off your spatula between batches.

Big hit. Very big hit. Wowsers!

These are super good, and they are awesome when still warm. My youngest son can be seen here enjoying one after school. Mmmmm. :)

These are a wonderful cookie for the holidays, do not hesitate to try them!!

Chocolate Brownie Bars

I'm not sure why, but this recipe is named Chocolate Bar Cookies. I've renamed it Chocolate Brownie Bars because this is a brownie in every sense of the word, and a rich and delicious one at that! Everyone gobbled these up, it's good I got my camera out before the kids came home from school!

You could probably just make one 13x9 pan of these, but the instructions said to use 2 8x8 square pans. I wanted to make sure I did the recipe right, so I followed as closely as I could. I only own one 8x8 pan, so I used a 9" cake pan for the other.

I did not add the nuts, instead I stirred in extra chopped chocolate, probably why they were so rich! You could probably substitute the shortening with unsalted butter, but I made them with the shortening. These are dense and chocolatey, and the best part is they cut CLEAN, no jagged pulled edges like when you try to cut regular brownies when still warm.

This is a definite keeper, so try it today, you'll thank me. :) Really.

I found this recipe on Annie's Recipes. They run a giveaway each month for anyone who makes one of their recipes and uploads a photo. Check that out here.


Chocolate Bar Cookies

1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325 F. Butter and flour 2 8x8 square pans.

Cream shortening in mixer for about 3 minutes. Add sugar and eggs, alternating and beat well.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, or in a glass dish over simmering water. Blend melted chocolate into sugar mixture, stir in salt and vanilla.

Whisk together flour and baking powder then stir into chocolate mixture. Stir in nuts.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Let cool in pan before cutting into squares or rectangle bars.Comments

Notes: You can substitute chocolate chips for the nuts.

For a text only (no recipe photos or commentary) printer friendly version of this recipe, click here

Amanda's Espresso Chocolate Pie

This is a very fun post for me. :) I have a ton of recipe print outs, bookmarks, cookbooks and magazines. The other day I picked a few different pies and cakes and asked my daughter to pick which one I should make. She chose a recipe from an old Taste of Home magazine called Cappuccino Chocolate Pie. Well, that particular recipe used chocolate chips, corn syrup, a packaged graham cracker crust, Cool Whip and two boxes in vanilla pudding. While I'm sure it would have been tasty, I opted to revamp this recipe and make it my own by using more ingredients from scratch.

I'm branching out more and more now, making recipes my own, and like with my Chocolate Dappled Pumpkin Cake, I changed the original recipe so much that this pie is a whole new recipe of its own now.

My first challenge was to find something that could replace the boxed pudding. I found several different vanilla pudding mix recipes, but none of them were "instant". So I had to change the list of ingredients to compensate for that. The remaining substitutions were fairly easy... semi sweet chocolate instead of chocolate chips, butter in place of corn syrup, whipping cream instead of Cool Whip, and a homemade crust instead of a ready made one.

NOTE: In this recipe I refer to "homemade pudding mix", which I list below. I have also done the math so that you don't have to make an entire batch of pudding mix like I did, you can use the measurements for one serving. I have not tried this pie using the smaller measurements, but I can't imagine there would be any problem with it.

This pie is good (if I do say so myself). It passed the "daughter test" with flying colors. She loved it, a big thumbs up. :) I highly recommend keeping this pie refrigerated, but bringing it out about an hour before serving to make it easier to slice as the chocolate layer gets rather firm in the fridge.

NOTE 2: I noticed that my crust crumbled a little, but that was when I tried to cut the pie when it was still cold. So be sure to wait until the pie has been sitting at room temp for a while before trying to slice.

And my last comment: I used more coffee than the original recipe did, so I felt a more appropriate name would include the word "espresso" rather than "cappuccino". ;)


Amanda's Espresso Chocolate Pie
recipe by me! ;)

CRUST
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (24 squares)
3 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

CHOCOLATE GANACHE LAYER
6 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/3 cup whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

WHIPPED CREAM LAYER

2 cups cold whipping cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 teaspoon clear vanilla (regular will work!)

ESPRESSO LAYER
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups milk
3 tablespoons brewed coffee
1 cup homemade vanilla pudding mix (see recipe below)*
2 tablespoons of ground instant coffee (see note)**
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg, whipped until thick and pale

chocolate curls for garnish (optional)


Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9" springform pan.

Make the crust. Stir together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and salt. Add the graham cracker mixture to the melted butter, using your fingers to combine until evenly moistened. Pat crumb mixture into bottom of springform pan and halfway up the sides. Place pan on a cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Set crust aside to cool while you make the pie filling.

Make the ganache. Place chopped chocolate and butter in a double boiler, or in a glass or metal bowl over simmering water, and stir occasionally as it begins to melt. Once chocolate is almost melted, slowly add the cream and vanilla. Stir over heat until smooth and completely melted. Poor ganache into the crust and spread evenly. Set aside.

Make the whipped cream. Stir the clear vanilla into the whipping cream. Sift the powdered sugar over the whipping cream mixture and, using the whisk attachment, beat on medium high until stiff peaks form. Reserve 1 1/2 cups for the filling and refrigerate the rest until needed.

Make the filling. Beat cream cheese in mixer with paddle attachment until smooth. Gradually add the milk and brewed coffee, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Turn off mixer and use whisk to combine smaller pieces of cream cheese with the milk. Combine the pudding mix and ground instant coffee then whisk into the milk mixture. Whisk in 1 1/2 cups of the whipped cream into the milk mixture. Pour filling mixture into a medium saucepan. Turn flame on medium low and slowly add the whipped egg, whisking in as you cook. Mixture will thicken quickly, so whisk continuously until you have a very thick custard. Do not allow mixture to stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat. Whisk the pudding in the pan, then run it through strainer into a bowl. Place a layer of plastic wrap directly onto the pudding so that a skin does not form. Refrigerate the pudding for about 30-40 minutes to cool. When cool, whisk again to make pudding smooth and pour into pie shell on top of ganache. Top with whipped cream.

Refrigerate pie for at least 4 hours (overnight is best) to allow filling to set. To serve, remove pie from the refrigerator about an hour before serving to make it easier to slice.

* to replace the 1 cup of pudding mix in the pie recipe, combine 6 tablespoons of dry milk powder, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 6 tablespoons of cornstarch. Run through a food processor.


** instant coffee comes in crystals. Place the crystals in a sandwich bag, squeeze the air out and seal it, and roll the jar over the bag grinding them up. You can also grind it with a mortar and pestle. One tablespoon of crystals will yield about half of a tablespoon of ground instant coffee.



Homemade Vanilla Pudding Mix
makes 8 cups of mix

3 cups instant nonfat dry milk
4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups cornstarch

Combine milk, sugar, salt and cornstarch in a food processor and process until uniform. You may need to do this in 2-3 batches. Store mix in airtight canister or a closely covered jar.

To prepare pudding: Stir the mix in the canister before measuring out 1/2 cup mix into a pan. Add 2 cups milk AND 1 teaspoon of vanilla and cook over low heat, stirring until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Continue stirring for 1 minute, remove from heat and pour into individual serving dishes. Pudding will thicken further as it cools.

For a text only (no recipe photos or commentary) printer friendly version of this recipe, click here

Garlic-Marinated Chicken Cutlets with Grilled Potatoes

I somehow ended up on Martha's site the other day looking for recipes on the grill. Yes, yes, I know it's fall people, but I love my grill and use it whenever I can, even in the snow! I printed off oodles and oodles of different recipes, but settled on this mouth watering marinated chicken as my first pick. I am so very glad that I did! Not only did I savour every morsel at dinner that night, I had it for lunch the next two days and used the rest to make a chicken salad. This marinade is so simple it's almost embarrassing. With only four ingredients this marinate gives the chicken an amazing flavor that you will absolutely love.

I will admit though, after cooking from Julia Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I've learned a few things. One of those lessons include drying off the meat before cooking it, and if marinated, to wipe off the excess marinade first. Other than that, Martha's instructions are pretty much dead on. Instead of oiling the grates of my grill, which has melted a few brushes in the past, I brush a little olive oil on the dried chicken so it won't stick. I also marinated my chicken in the refrigerator most of the day, and then an hour and a half before cooking it, I placed it on paper towels and brought it to room temperature.

As for the potatoes, I've also learned to dry those, so after patting them dry they went into the foil packet as described below. I was really surprised at how perfect they were!

Try this. You'll thank me. And when the snow flies, just keep a shovel near the door and scoop a path to your grill like I do ;)

Garlic-Marinated Chicken Cutlets with Grilled Potatoes
(I halved this recipe)

3 pounds baby red new potatoes, halved or quartered if large
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for grates
6 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup white-wine vinegar
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped, plus sprigs for garnish, if desired
Coarse salt and ground pepper
3 pounds chicken cutlets (about 12)
1 tablespoon butter
Grilled asparagus, cut on the diagonal into 1 1/2-inch pieces (3 cups)
2 tablespoons Vinaigrette

Heat grill to medium. Fold two 4-foot-long sheets of aluminum foil in half to make two separate double-layer sheets. Place half the potatoes on each double layer. Form two packets, folding foil over potatoes and crimping edges to seal. Place on grill and cook, turning over once, until potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat. Leave potatoes from one packet wrapped in foil to keep warm. Open second packet to let potatoes cool; reserve for Potato Salad. Raise grill to high; lightly oil grates.
Meanwhile, make marinade: In a large baking dish, whisk together oil, garlic, vinegar, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add chicken; turn several times to coat. Let marinate at room temperature 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes.

Lift chicken from marinade and grill until browned and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from grill. Cover half of chicken with foil to keep warm. Reserve other half for Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad.

Remove warm potatoes from foil; transfer to a medium bowl, toss with butter, and season with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl, toss asparagus with Vinaigrette. Serve the grilled chicken with potatoes and asparagus. Garnish with thyme sprigs, if desired.


For a text only (no recipe photos or commentary) printer friendly version of this recipe, click here

TWD: All in One Holiday Bundt Cake

This month the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is a bit more flexible than usual. Normally we all post the same thing as each other each week. However, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, the recipe schedule is a bit more flexible and we were allowed to choose from each of November's recipes this week. I chose the All in One Holiday Bundt Cake, which was chosen in the rotation by Britin of The Nitty Britty. You can find it on pages 186 and 187 of Baking From My Home to Yours or on Britin's blog .

First off, I WILL make this cake again. It's delicious and moist and absolutely perfect for the holidays. I will be traveling for Thanksgiving and think I will bake this the day before we leave and ice it when we get there. It's fabulous and I am so glad it was chosen! It's full of chopped pecans, fresh cranberries and flavored with spices and pumpkin. Absolutely yummy.

Second, this version, while it tasted scrumptious, is an ugly duckling. I had to piece it back together and hide it with maple glaze.

I think I underbaked it. The recipe says to bake it for 60-70 minutes, and I only baked for 60. It stuck to the inside of my bundt pan and I was heart broken. It's definitely "over" moist, which leads me to believe it could have benefited from a longer bake time. Or I could just say that I need a new bundt pan. That would be a great excuse to go get one eh??

Aren't chopped cranberries pretty??? :)

Savory Beef Brisket - It's Brisket Revisited

Almost two weeks ago I posted my favorite brisket recipe. In that post I stated my fear of trying new brisket recipes. I mean really, if ain't broke, why fix it, right? That day, my food blogging friend and TWD baking bud, Megan of My Baking Adventures, posted a comment that struck my interest. She said "I have a go-to brisket recipe that I've made so many times I have it memorized. I know I should branch out and try something new.... but.... I can't! I stick with the same one because it always works and everyone loves it."


Me too! So it seemed that Megan and I had the same problem. We were chicken. So I wrote to her and asked if she'd be up for a challenge that would take both her and I out of our comfort zone. We decided to each try a different recipe for brisket and report our results on our blogs. So when you're done here, be sure to hop over to Megan's and see what she cooked up and how it worked for her!

I chose one of the recipes I've had in my binder for a long time. I had pulled the page out of a Better Homes & Garden magazine and stored it away for future use. I did alter a couple of minor things, but nothing that would affect the flavor really. I'm giving you my adaption of the recipe below, the original one can be found here. I also had to chop everything in half as I used a 3 pound piece of meat, that's plenty for us.

THE VERDICT: It was pretty good. Here's my thoughts. If I'm going to cook something all day, it needs to knock my socks off. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it wasn't great. The meat was nice and tender, the vegetables were perfect, but the flavor was kind of bland. Maybe I just had my expectations set too high, who knows. Everyone ate, everyone enjoyed it, including me, but it needed something. I'm glad I took this challenge with Megan, it's made me a bit braver to try something different. I do plan on trying the recipe Megan did, it sounds delicious!

I will probably take this particular recipe and make it my own, but I will have to try some other recipes first. ;) This makes a nice starter recipe that you can make your own with herbs and other flavors you enjoy. Perhaps not refrigerating this overnight had something to do with the bland taste, but I'm not into 2 day recipes.

The first step is to brown some onion and garlic in oil in your baking pan.

Do this, stirring occasionally for ten minutes. Mine got nice and brown.

Put the brisket in the pan, over the onion mixture, and poor the broth mixture over the top. Now it bakes for 2 hours, covered.

Remove it from the oven and add the potatoes and carrots, then bake uncovered for another hour.

Remove it from the oven and cover it with foil, let it rest for 30 minutes. Then you separate the meat and vegies from the juices and refrigerate for a bit. After that, reduce the pan juices by boiling gently on the stove top, return everything to the pan, add thyme sprigs and cover with reduced juices. Bake again. Then make a roux and a gravy from the juices.


Savory Beef Brisket
adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

1 3 lb. beef brisket
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp. ground ginger
Salt and ground black pepper
1 cups red wine, such a shiraz
7-oz. of beef broth (1/2 can or almost one cup)
1 lb. carrots, peeled
6 medium red potatoes
2 to 3 sprigs fresh thyme or 2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Trim excess fat from brisket; set brisket aside. In a roasting pan with cover over medium heat on the stovetop, cook chopped onions and garlic in hot oil until onions are tender, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add ginger; cook and stir 1 minute more. Remove from heat. Season brisket with salt and pepper; place brisket on onion mixture. Add wine and broth. Cover with foil or pan cover; roast for 2 hours.

Remove cover; add carrots and red potatoes. Roast, uncovered, 45 to 60 minutes more or until carrots are just tender.

Remove brisket from oven. Cover; let stand for 30 minutes. Transfer meat and vegetables to storage container. Cover and refrigerate meat and vegetables for 30-45 minutes. Place pan juices in a small saucepan. Place in refrigerator.

Before serving, preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Remove fat from pan juices; discard fat. Place saucepan of pan juices over medium heat and boil gently, uncovered, about 20 minutes until reduced by about 1/4 cup. While brisket is cold, slice off any excess fat. Slice meat against the grain; slice carrots diagonally in 2-inch pieces and cut potatoes in half. Return brisket and vegetables to roasting pan. Add herbs and reduced pan juices. Cover and reheat in oven for 45 minutes. Transfer brisket, potatoes, and carrots to platter. Discard herb sprigs.

For gravy, in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add flour and stir until smooth; stir in pan juices. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 1 minute more. Serve with brisket. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

For a text only (no recipe photos or commentary) printer friendly version of this recipe, click here

We're on Facebook - become a fan!

I'm trying my hardest to stay in this century, so I've gone ahead and taken the plunge and created a fan page on Facebook for this blog. Would you be my pal and become a fan? Pretty please?? ;0)

Click here for the Amanda's Cookin' Fan Page on Facebook