Wow… It has been quite some time since I have blogged. Yikes! I have been baking and cooking although unfortunately just not blogging about it. I guess it had to take something near and dear to my heart to make me start blogging again.
Can you guess what the near and dear is?
The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.
For this Challenge there were 3 Components
1. Pate a choux (Puff Pastries)
2. Creme Patissiere (Cream Filling)
3. Glaze
To be honest I am not a huge fan of creme puffs. The puff pastry just does not do anything for me. I guess as the saying goes though…. it is what is on the inside that counts! Although for this challenge the outside or puff pastry was the part that would be seen not the inside. Luckily, the recipe that we had to use for the puff pastries seemed pretty easy and they turned out beautiful! The hardest part for me was the stirring of the eggs into the batter because it seemed to take Fooooorever. Well it did not really take forever but my arm definitely got a workout since I was feeling the burn 🙂 The consistency of the inside of the puff pastries required some tweeking. The first attempt was too custardy for me. The second attempt was a perfect balance! Finally, was the assembly and decorating of the croquembouche. I was a little nervous about how it would turn out but I was sooo thrilled with the results! Would you like to see some (more…)
For about a month now I have been looking forward to my 1st year of participating in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce program through Calvert Farm . I signed up for the Summer program that includes 20 weeks of fresh farm produce from their farm. The farm is located almost 2 hours away from me in Rising Sun, Maryland so luckily they have various produce pick up locations that are much closer to me. My location pick up is at Montgomery General Hospital located in Olney, MD which works out great since it is about 20 minutes from my work.
Basically, the CSA produce program works by asking for a particular fee prior to the beginning of the 20 weeks. That money goes towards investing in your food share for the summer. Then each week you go and pick up a box of “surprise” fresh produce from your particular location. It seems as though individuals that live closer to the farm can pick which items they would to have for the week. Since I am so far away from the farm that was not an option for me. I do not mind since I like the “surprise” and challenge of figuring out recipes to make with the items that were hand picked for me. Each week we should receive about 6-7 vegetable and/or fruit items that would cost around $20. Here is what I received for my first week! (more…)
I was extremely excited when I saw this month’s Have the Cake Challenge! So excited that it seems I have made the recipe three times with different variations! I love strawberries and decided to change the recipe to strawberries and lime. The first buttermilk cake I made was simple and delicious on its own. The next two times I decided to dress it up some! I thought that the recipe reminded me of a moist strawberry shortcake. So when I made the cake as a birthday cake for someone at work I decided it needed some whipped cream with it! Then the last take on the recipe was to make strawberry shortcupcakes 🙂 Both variations tasted amazing! The best part is that the recipe is very easy to follow and you can make your own buttermilk!
I was very excited this month when the new daring cook challenge was revealed and it was enchiladas! Two things that would be new for me was making our green chile sauce from scratch and the option to make tortillas. I ended up making a yummy tasting and suprising not spicy green chile sauce and the tortillas needed work. Luckily, my parents decided to come into town and help with my challenge. It seemed to have taken forever…perhaps because I had my heart set on making two sauces, a green chile and chocolate mole, as well as a mexican flan. The chocolate mole sauce was too spicy for me but we used it as a dipping sauce. I am not going to post the recipe but I linked it above. Since the tortillas turned out okay I decided not to post that recipe either and will have to find a better recipe. All in all it got done and the taste was worth all the hard work that went into it.
Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.
DC Food Bloggers Bake Sale Table
I cannot believe that I am finally getting around to posting these amazing recipes that I made for the DC Bloggers Bake Sale. Yikes…I guess these other baking challenges have taken over my time and I am spending more time in the kitchen than in front of my computer! Without wasting any more time I will get right to the recipes 🙂
When I recently web surfed into the http://www.havethecake.blogspot.com/ I became really excited! I liked the idea of trying a new dessert recipe each month and having the freedom of deciding which variation to make. Not to mention that I did not need to buy a book in order to be part of the baking group!
So rather than waiting less than a week to join the group. I decided to jump right in and start baking for the April challenge. This month’s host was Jen from pieces of me and she chose to do Flan. I was familiar with flan because I remember my mom making Flan for us. It was a great challenge because I definitely had wanted to try making it myself. One of the hardest parts of making flan is the carmelizing of the sugar and making sure that you do not burn your sugar. Additionally, you have to keep your fingers crossed until the flan is done baking and hope that when you turn it out onto a plate it comes out in one piece.
My parents were coming into town and I decided to have a mexican themed dinner. Therefore, I chose to make a Mexican Flan recipe AKA Best ever Flan: Flan al Tequila that I found here http://aromasysabores-heidileon.blogspot.com/2009/09/best-ever-flan-recipe-la-mejor-receta.html. Luckily, since my mom was coming into town I asked her to bring her flan pan that she has used before and it worked out great. It also helped that I just so happened to have tequila on hand! Overall, this flan was easy to make and tasted good although I could not taste the tequila. Surprisingly, my husband enjoyed it enough to go back for seconds and said it reminded him of waffles! This is a pretty big deal because usually he does not like trying new foods. Speaking for the rest of us I think we are holding out on this flan getting the Best Ever Flan title 🙂
Mexican Flan with Tequila
Ingredients
Flan Mixture
4 – Eggs
1 tsp – Vanilla Extract
1 – Can (14 oz.) Condensed Milk
1- Can (14oz.) Evaporated Milk
2-4 Big Dashes – Tequila
Carmelized Sugar Topping
1 Cup – Granulated Sugar
1/4 Cup – Water
1) Pre-heat the oven to 350°C .
2) In a saucepan over medium high heat stir the water and sugar together until the sugar dissolves. Let the sugar mixture heat and resist the urge to constantly stir it. The color should turn from clear to light brown. Every now and then swirl the mixture so that the color is distributed evenly.
3) When the sugar has carmelized to a light brown color remove from heat and quickly pour into desired baking pan. Rotate the pan in a circle to ensure that the carmelized sugar is evenly distributed throughout the pan. Set aside to cool.
4) In a large bowl mix together the condensed and evaporated milks, vanilla extract, eggs, and big dashes of tequila. Then pour this mixture into the prepared baking pan with the carmelized sugar.
5) Next, place your baking pan that has the flan into a baking dish (I used a 9 X 13 pyrex dish) and make a water bath with hot water about 1-2 inches high. Place baking dish with the flan into the preheated oven and bake for about 30-35 minutes. Check the flan with a knife to see if it is finished. When the knife comes out clean the flan is done.
6) Remove the flan from the oven and let cool. Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
7) Invert the flan onto a plate and admire your baking!
The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet. Additionally, Esther wanted us to make our puddings using the process of steaming.
Well to be honset this was not what I thought my first daring bakers challenge with the http://thedaringkitchen.com would be about. Although it did not take me long to realize that this would indeed be quite a challenge for me. Actually there were many challenges that I stumbled into along the way. Overall, I am so glad that Esther chose this for my first Daring Baker Challenge because I probably would have never made a Traditional British Pudding on my own in addition to using suet for baking.
1st challenge ( as many will surely agree)
What is suet and where can I buy it?
Definition of suet: is raw beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys (according to wikipedia)
Hmmm… okay so it is fat.
I learned that in the United States suet can be purchased at a butcher or a grocery store behind the meat counter. The first time I purchased the suet I was quite relieved when they knew what I was talking about because I had no idea how I was going to try and explain it! I had visited Whole Foods and it turns out that I was lucky they had it on hand and were able to give me some right then. I learned by visiting two other times and aksing if they had any suet that it was something that I needed to call ahead about to make sure they put some aside. Which definately made sense to me because who else would be wanting to buy suet….lesson learned. The other place that I went to check for suet was our local Pennsylvania Dutch Market. I went up to the butcher counter and asked if they had suet. The lady said yes and when she asked how much I was so excited that I just said 3-5 lbs! I know that it may sound like alot and when I was carrying my 5 lb bag of suet to the car it sure felt like alot. You see the tricky thing about purchasing suet is that when you render it down to make tallow it does not yield the same amount you started with.
2nd Challenge
How to render the suet and make tallow?
This is the part that I was really nervous about. I think it had to do with the fact that I would be working with hot oil and could burn myself. Although I was also unsure of what everything was supposed to look like during the process and how exactly the rendering was done. Luckily, this link http://cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2008/04/how-to-cook-with-beef-tallow/ was posted in our Daring Bakers forum and boy was it a blessing! I really liked that it had a step by step process with pictures showing how to render the suet into tallow. After I had my suet and I also ended up purchasing a rice press, I was ready to begin rendering.
3rd Challenge
Oh I have made puddings before….but not this kind?!
I have made two types of puddings in my life. One being Jello pudding from the box mix. The other is one of my favorites a chocolate malt pudding from scratch. After both of those kinds are heated they get put into the refrigerator before you eat them. So this type of Traditional British Pudding was a new thing to me altogether. It did not require heating on the stove, never needed refrigeration, and depending on the kind you made was either like a sponge cake or had a crust with soup like contents inside. Also, the pudding could either be sweet or savory. I decided to lean towards the sweet side!
4th Challenge
How should the pudding be covered and how long will it take?
I do own a steamer and I have bought the steamed vegetables in a microwaveable bag. Love them! Usually I steam vegetables with the steamer. I had never used the steamer or the process of steaming to cook something that typically goes into the oven to get baked. This pudding steaming process worried me quite a bit. I read that if I did not have my pudding covered properly then water could get in and my pudding could be ruined! I guess what I forgot to mention is that sometimes the steaming process can take up to 5 hours to cook. Now maybe you understand my fear a little better……
My two Traditional British Puddings that I made and the challenges I overcame when making them!
I was really glad that I was able to take part in the 1st DC Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share our Strength as part of the “Great American Bake Sale” campaign — where volunteers across the country host bake sales to raise funds for SOS’s efforts to end child hunger. Nearly 1 in 4 children in the US do not have enough food to eat — that’s nearly 17 million kids. So it was nice to raise money for such a worthy cause.
The DC bake sale was held this Saturday, April 17, from 9am-12noon at DC’s Historic Eastern Market.
Some of the local bloggers that participated were:
I enjoyed meeting everyone and baking for a good cause.
For the bake sale I made
I will post these recipes soon 🙂
I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen either cooking or baking. For me it is a form of stress relief as well as an expression of myself. Luckily, I stumbled upon the Daring Kitchen website http://thedaringkitchen.com/ and knew that I was destined to be a part of it! I was so excited and applied to be both a Daring Baker and Daring Cook. I could not wait until I was approved and was able to start working on my first challenges!
Here I present to you my 1st Daring Cook Challenge: Brunswick Stew
The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.
I chose to make the shorter 2nd recipe for brunswick stew and instead halved the recipe for about 6 servings.
Recipe 2: The Shorter Version
Brunswick Stew recipe from the Callaway, Va Ruritan Club, served yearly at the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival in Ferrum, Va.
Serves about 6
Ingredients:
2-(32oz.) containers of chicken broth 1 1/4 lb TOTAL of chicken thighs, turkey leg, and ham
2-medium diced red potatoes
1-(14.5oz.) can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes
1-medium diced onion
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
3/4 cup frozen lima beans
2-3 strips crumbled turkey bacon 2 Tablespoons of butter
1/2 Tablespoon of granulated sugar
1/2 Tablespoon of Poultry Seasoning
Dash of red pepper
1-diced carrot
1-(11.5oz) can of Tomato juice
Recipe 2:
1) Placed the chicken broth, poultry seasoning, and a total of 1 1/2 lbs. of raw turkey leg, chicken thighs, and ham into a large stock pot or Dutch Oven (8-10 quart).
2) Heat the stock and meats to boiling over medium-high heat and then turn down to simmer for about 1-2 hours or until the meat is cooked.
3) Meanwhile cook the turkey bacon until crisp either on the stovetop or microwave.
4) Once the meat is cooked take out of the stock and dice into small pieces and then place the meat back into the stock.
5) To the stock pot or dutch oven, add the rest of the ingredients and heat until bubbly and hot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook the stew until the vegetables are tender.
6) Enjoy hot and goes great with a slice of cornbread!
The end result of the Brunswick stew was amazing and I would definately make it again! Thank you Wolf for a great first Daring Cook challenge!
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