For those of you who are boycotting my blog until I post the brownie recipe, (just kidding,) here it is. I've tweaked it a bit, but it's from a recipe in Rebecca Rather's "Pastry Queen" cookbook(with Alison Oresman, Ten Speed Press)--a delicious collection of desserts and cafe treats that won't disappoint. (www.rathersweet.com) And, if you're every in Fredericksberg, Texas, you should really stop in and have lunch at her cafe. It's delightful. On your way, you can make at stop at Willie Nelson's "famous" hangout spot, Luchenbach, Texas which is just up the road a piece.
Caramel-Filled Brownies
1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped and toasted
1 cup(2 sticks) unsalted butter
12 ounces Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 ounces caramel candies, unwrapped
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving several inches of overhang on the short sides. Grease the foil really well, (especially the sides of the pan, or the caramel filling will stick!)
Combine butter and bittersweet chocolate in a medium saucepan set over low heat, stirring occasionally until melted and smooth. (you can also do this step in the microwave, using a microwave-safe bowl instead of the saucepan, stopping every 20-30 seconds to stir and check that the chocolate is not burning. microwave until butter is melted, then just stir and stir and stir until the hot butter melts the chocolate pieces.)
Transfer chocolate mixture to a large bowl. Add the sugar, eggs, and vanilla mixing with a wire whisk until thick and glossy. (about 2 minutes.)
Whisk in the flour and salt.
Transfer half the batter to the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20 minutes. let the brownies cool for 20 minutes.
Stir the caramels and cream in a heavy medium saucepan over low heat until melted and smooth (i wouldn't try this one in the microwave.)
Remove from heat and stir in half the pecans. Immediately spread the caramel mixture over the brownies, otherwise it will get too hard to spread.
Pour remaining brownie batter over caramel mixture and spread gently to cover. (do not pour in a clump or it will be too difficult to spread and mix the layers up.)
Sprinkle semisweet chocolate chips and remaining pecans on top of the brownie layer. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool the brownies completely in the freezer before cutting. Grab the foil edges to lift the brownies out and cut into squares.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Once-a-Week Roasted Chicken
At the Nugget where I do my grocery shopping(which by the way is the sweetest grocery store I've experienced--honestly, I like it better than Trader Joe's,) a whole, free-range chicken is less expensive than two pre-packaged chicken breasts. Which is part of the reason why I have been making this roasted chicken recipe. Who wouldn't want a couple wings, legs and thighs thrown in too?
Anyway, I try to prepare it once a week (actually, last week I made it twice for some friends who just had babies,) and I use the leftover chicken for making chicken salad for lunch and then I use the carcass to make about 6 cups of chicken broth. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, this is well worth the effort, I think.
I made it tonight for supper, and I timed myself : from start to finish the prep for this recipe took me approximately 12 minutes, which includes stopping to wash my hands three times of chicken yuck in between picking up Charli's spatula for her that she dropped.
Add a loaf of 5 minutes-a-day Artisan Bread (see previous post) and some leafy greens tossed with:
1 part balsamic vinegar to 2 parts extra-virgin olive oil
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
--and you've got a fairly quick, simple, yet healthy and delicious meal.
Roasted Chicken
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Line a 13x9 inch pan with foil, leaving a large overhand on the short ends.
Rinse with cold water one boiler/fryer chicken, 5-6 pounder, after removing gibblet bag and neck bone.
Rub the outside surface of chicken with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
Rub the inside of chicken with kosher salt.
Stuff the chicken with the following: (I mix them all up in a bowl and then stuff'em in)
6 whole garlic cloves
6 lemon wedges
half of a small onion cut into 6 wedges
3 tablespoons salted butter cut into small pieces.
Bake uncovered for 1 -1 1/2 hours or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. The skin should be a nice, golden brown color. After one hour, if the chick still needs to roast longer, lightly place a sheet of foil over the bird to keep the skin from getting too crisp for the remainder of the cooking time.
(Good luck carving the gunner, I still haven't figured that part out yet...)
How to make Chicken broth from Roasted Chicken
After removing all of the chicken meat from the carcass, put the bone remains, along with the "stuffing" (i.e. garlic and onions...remove the lemons) in a large stock pot.
Add 6 cups water and one bay leaf. You can throw in some chopped carrots if you have 'em.
Simmer, covered, for 2 1/2 hours.
Remove carcass and strain broth.
Transfer broth to freezer bags and allow to cool before freezing for future use in soups.
(My Own) Chicken Salad
Combine in a large bowl:
Left over roasted chicken meat (1 1/2-2 cups), chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 granny smith apple, chopped
2 Tablespoons onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup pecans or almonds, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup canned pineapple, drained and chopped
Equal parts of real mayonnaise and Miracle Whip (depending on how firm you like your chicken salad...I start with a 1/4 cup of each and go from there.)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Serve on croissants or with crusty bread.
Anyway, I try to prepare it once a week (actually, last week I made it twice for some friends who just had babies,) and I use the leftover chicken for making chicken salad for lunch and then I use the carcass to make about 6 cups of chicken broth. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, this is well worth the effort, I think.
I made it tonight for supper, and I timed myself : from start to finish the prep for this recipe took me approximately 12 minutes, which includes stopping to wash my hands three times of chicken yuck in between picking up Charli's spatula for her that she dropped.
Add a loaf of 5 minutes-a-day Artisan Bread (see previous post) and some leafy greens tossed with:
1 part balsamic vinegar to 2 parts extra-virgin olive oil
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
--and you've got a fairly quick, simple, yet healthy and delicious meal.
Roasted Chicken
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Line a 13x9 inch pan with foil, leaving a large overhand on the short ends.
Rinse with cold water one boiler/fryer chicken, 5-6 pounder, after removing gibblet bag and neck bone.
Rub the outside surface of chicken with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
Rub the inside of chicken with kosher salt.
Stuff the chicken with the following: (I mix them all up in a bowl and then stuff'em in)
6 whole garlic cloves
6 lemon wedges
half of a small onion cut into 6 wedges
3 tablespoons salted butter cut into small pieces.
Bake uncovered for 1 -1 1/2 hours or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. The skin should be a nice, golden brown color. After one hour, if the chick still needs to roast longer, lightly place a sheet of foil over the bird to keep the skin from getting too crisp for the remainder of the cooking time.
(Good luck carving the gunner, I still haven't figured that part out yet...)
How to make Chicken broth from Roasted Chicken
After removing all of the chicken meat from the carcass, put the bone remains, along with the "stuffing" (i.e. garlic and onions...remove the lemons) in a large stock pot.
Add 6 cups water and one bay leaf. You can throw in some chopped carrots if you have 'em.
Simmer, covered, for 2 1/2 hours.
Remove carcass and strain broth.
Transfer broth to freezer bags and allow to cool before freezing for future use in soups.
(My Own) Chicken Salad
Combine in a large bowl:
Left over roasted chicken meat (1 1/2-2 cups), chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 granny smith apple, chopped
2 Tablespoons onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup pecans or almonds, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup canned pineapple, drained and chopped
Equal parts of real mayonnaise and Miracle Whip (depending on how firm you like your chicken salad...I start with a 1/4 cup of each and go from there.)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Serve on croissants or with crusty bread.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Ants Go Marching....
It's raining today. Again. For the second week in a row.
But I'm not complaining. We need the rain, and I don't necessarily mind getting wet, unless of course I just washed and dried my hair and straightened it with the flat iron--but, wait, I'm writing about ants...
Apparently ants don't like to be wet. I should know this, I mean, my mom used to sing me the song every night at bedtime,
'The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah!
the ants go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah!
the ants go marching one by one,
the little one stops to suck his thumb
and they all go marching down,
into the ground,
to get out of the rain, boom, boom, boom.
She'd sing a verse all the way to "10 by 10, hurra! hurrah!", but by that time, I was already asleep.
So ants don't like rain, but apparently, ants do like bananas.
I had some laundry sitting by the front door waiting to get taken out to the garage where the washer and dryer are located. In that bunch of laundry were some of Charli's bibs with leftover banana puree on them.
Enter trail of an ant colony. Gross. What do you do with damp, ant-infested, banana laundry?? Well, I took them outside, gave'em a good rinse down with the spigot in the yard, and just threw those banana ants into the washing machine. I'm guessing they didn't like being washed any more than they liked being in the rain.
Usually, I am a fairly compassionate person, but when it comes to bugs inside the house, there's no mercy. If the poor things would have just stayed in the rain....
But I'm not complaining. We need the rain, and I don't necessarily mind getting wet, unless of course I just washed and dried my hair and straightened it with the flat iron--but, wait, I'm writing about ants...
Apparently ants don't like to be wet. I should know this, I mean, my mom used to sing me the song every night at bedtime,
'The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah!
the ants go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah!
the ants go marching one by one,
the little one stops to suck his thumb
and they all go marching down,
into the ground,
to get out of the rain, boom, boom, boom.
She'd sing a verse all the way to "10 by 10, hurra! hurrah!", but by that time, I was already asleep.
So ants don't like rain, but apparently, ants do like bananas.
I had some laundry sitting by the front door waiting to get taken out to the garage where the washer and dryer are located. In that bunch of laundry were some of Charli's bibs with leftover banana puree on them.
Enter trail of an ant colony. Gross. What do you do with damp, ant-infested, banana laundry?? Well, I took them outside, gave'em a good rinse down with the spigot in the yard, and just threw those banana ants into the washing machine. I'm guessing they didn't like being washed any more than they liked being in the rain.
Usually, I am a fairly compassionate person, but when it comes to bugs inside the house, there's no mercy. If the poor things would have just stayed in the rain....
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A few Pics from Christmas in Kansas
Charli loves spatulas!
Grandma helping Charli open her Christmas stocking.
Our attempt at an informal family "portrait."Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Don't Waste Your Life
Every Sunday evening, around 6:30 p.m. friends scrunch together in our living room for our church's version of small group Bible study--we call them "Community groups." Anyway, Nathan and I started this particular group about 2 years ago, and in that short time it's seen a lot of people come and go. Right now we have around 15-20 people that come, some consistently, some very sporadically.
Justin comes early and usually finds something on the table or in the refrigerator to eat for "dinner." Tyler shows up after him to chat and make the lemonade.
Then there's Rick and Beth, who are getting ready to have a baby girl; Kelli, who cuts my hair and is super-amazing at it, her sister Chelsea and sometimes she brings her 1 1/2 year old son; and there's Kevin and Angeline who help co-lead with us. Kevin is the resident expert on where to get a good meal...anywhere. One time, Nathan and I were in downtown Sacramento around 10 p.m. We called Kevin and said, "Kevin, we're on Q street. Where can we get some take-out pizza?" He promptly directed us down a block to Uncle Vito's. You name the city in California and he's gotcha covered. I can't leave out Brett and Ashlee, Mike and Brandee, and Mike and Alex, Justin and Ivona and there two boys, who were our first ever California friends, and who always absent-mindedly leave behind something at our house,( but we don't give them a hard time anymore because we have a baby now and we understand)...and I'm sure I've left someone out, but I won't think of it until after I publish this, of course.
We've come from all over and I feel like we're living out a Charles Dickens novel where all the characters get introduced in the beginning and you just can't see how they could possible relate to one another, and then by the end of the story their lives are intimately intertwined in one grand story of redemption.
We have just started a 10-week study of John Piper's book, "Don't Waste Your Life." It's timely that we are reading this book now. It has been really healthy for Nathan and I to sit and ask each other questions about what we thought we'd be doing at this stage in life, where we felt God calling us when we got married, and how that lines up (or doesn't line up) with where we're at now. Years ago, a dear woman who mentored me challenged me to write out a "Life Purpose Statement." I review it every year, and it's been good to look at it through the context of what we are reading.
There is a song that has been my anthem for the past few months, and it is truly what we want our lives, our marriage, our family to be about.
It's by Charli Hall, and it's called, "Center." The refrain says:
Oh, Christ, be the Center of our lives.
Be the place we fix our eyes.
Be the center of our lives.
You hold everything together.
You hold everything together.
Praise Jesus, he holds it all together, because I'm learning for the 2,596th time that I sure can't.
Justin comes early and usually finds something on the table or in the refrigerator to eat for "dinner." Tyler shows up after him to chat and make the lemonade.
Then there's Rick and Beth, who are getting ready to have a baby girl; Kelli, who cuts my hair and is super-amazing at it, her sister Chelsea and sometimes she brings her 1 1/2 year old son; and there's Kevin and Angeline who help co-lead with us. Kevin is the resident expert on where to get a good meal...anywhere. One time, Nathan and I were in downtown Sacramento around 10 p.m. We called Kevin and said, "Kevin, we're on Q street. Where can we get some take-out pizza?" He promptly directed us down a block to Uncle Vito's. You name the city in California and he's gotcha covered. I can't leave out Brett and Ashlee, Mike and Brandee, and Mike and Alex, Justin and Ivona and there two boys, who were our first ever California friends, and who always absent-mindedly leave behind something at our house,( but we don't give them a hard time anymore because we have a baby now and we understand)...and I'm sure I've left someone out, but I won't think of it until after I publish this, of course.
We've come from all over and I feel like we're living out a Charles Dickens novel where all the characters get introduced in the beginning and you just can't see how they could possible relate to one another, and then by the end of the story their lives are intimately intertwined in one grand story of redemption.
We have just started a 10-week study of John Piper's book, "Don't Waste Your Life." It's timely that we are reading this book now. It has been really healthy for Nathan and I to sit and ask each other questions about what we thought we'd be doing at this stage in life, where we felt God calling us when we got married, and how that lines up (or doesn't line up) with where we're at now. Years ago, a dear woman who mentored me challenged me to write out a "Life Purpose Statement." I review it every year, and it's been good to look at it through the context of what we are reading.
There is a song that has been my anthem for the past few months, and it is truly what we want our lives, our marriage, our family to be about.
It's by Charli Hall, and it's called, "Center." The refrain says:
Oh, Christ, be the Center of our lives.
Be the place we fix our eyes.
Be the center of our lives.
You hold everything together.
You hold everything together.
Praise Jesus, he holds it all together, because I'm learning for the 2,596th time that I sure can't.
Caramel-Filled Brownies
O.k., o.k. I have an addendum to my New Year's Resolution Revolution. Just to clarify, I will continue to bake with some processed sugar. I'm just not willing to give up all my joys of baking sweets and fresh-baked goodies "the way mom makes" for the sake of a honey or agave nectar substitution. And honesty, I feel like I'd somehow be forsaking my mother's teaching. After all, she's the one who taught me how to bake and enjoy tasting it along the way.
Charli and I just made Caramel-Filled Brownies for Nathan's ARE presentation tomorrow. (Well, mostly, Charli just chewed on her apron, but it kept her busy.) These are by far my absolute favorite brownies. I remember I made them for Nathan once before we started "dating." I was sure they would win him over!
Seriously, one of the most delightful, simple pleasures of baking is licking the spatula when the batter is done. (Sorry, Charli, this is a task for mommy.) I mean, is there anything more delectable than chocolate and butter? My mother would say not. I would agree.
Charli and I just made Caramel-Filled Brownies for Nathan's ARE presentation tomorrow. (Well, mostly, Charli just chewed on her apron, but it kept her busy.) These are by far my absolute favorite brownies. I remember I made them for Nathan once before we started "dating." I was sure they would win him over!
Seriously, one of the most delightful, simple pleasures of baking is licking the spatula when the batter is done. (Sorry, Charli, this is a task for mommy.) I mean, is there anything more delectable than chocolate and butter? My mother would say not. I would agree.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
This cookbook by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois is amazing! Actually, it's the Master Recipe for making all kinds of bread that is so amazing. The dough for this bread can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. When you want some fresh bread, you reach in, cut a piece of the dough off, let it rest, and then bake it. In twenty minutes you have a beautifully rustic bread loaf warm from the oven. Need I mention, delicious? But not only can you use this dough to make simple rustic loaves, I have used it to make pizza, focaccia, bierocks, and even cinnamon rolls! And get this--the best part is, you don't even touch the dough. You just mix the ingredients together and put it in your fridge to rise. For a new mommy who wants to feed her family healthfully, this book has been so helpful.
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