Taco Pizza

So last night I was really in the mood for taco pizza from east of Chicago.  Sadly, they didn't deliver where we were. R talked me into going shopping and making our own and I think we nailed it!

Shopping:
Pizza crust
Mild salsa
Morning star crumbles (want to try with ground beef)
A packet of taco seasoning
Onion
Iceberg lettuce
Colby jack shredded cheese (finely shredded)
sour cream

Prep:
Cook about half lb meat but use full packet of seasoning
Finely dice the onion
Shred the lettuce

Assemble:
On crust spoon out salsa and spread out like you would pizza sauce. Then add the meat and top with about 3/4 of the cheese and 1/2 of onion

Bake according to crust package directions

Top with sour cream (we put ours in a baggie, snipped off a corner and drizzled it on) lettuce, remaining onion and cheese.

Wait about 5-10 minutes for pizza to cool enough to eat and let rest of cheese melt.

East of Chicago also adds diced tomatoes and sliced olives but we omitted those due to taste preferences. 

I'll add pictures next time we make it!

Kitchen Experimenting

Once again I'm getting creative in the kitchen.

Ok not too terribly creative....and for once my exploits have yielded something decently healthy for frequent consumption.

I'm a huge fan of the Amy's Tofu Scramble breakfast burrito. I'm not so huge a fan of the price. So I decided I was going to figure out how to make one myself

I grabbed a few containers of a great tofu, by Cleveland Tofu, and looked up a few dozen recipes online, and took a little of what I liked from each. 

I came up with a vegan breakfast scramble, that I can make into a burrito, and I actually like it better than the Amy's version. 

Tofu Scramble

4 servings

1 lb extra firm, non silken tofu

1 medium onion

½ green bell pepper

½ tsp granulated garlic

½ tsp kosher salt

½ tsp tumeric

½ cup water

1 TBS olive oil

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Drain tofu over night, or press for 1 hour

2. Crumble tofu into large skillet on medium heat

3. Combine garlic, salt, and tumeric until evenly mixed, and no clumps

4. Sprinkle spices over tofu, and stir, slowly adding water until a uniform color

5. Dice onion and green pepper, add to skillet and drizzle with olive oil

6. Cook over medium high heat, stirring frequently until onions are translucent and peppers are tender

7. Add pepper to taste and enjoy

Goes very well wrapped in a tortilla for a to go breakfast snack.

Can make and freeze wraps ahead of time:

Make wrap, be sure to warm tortilla first so it rolls nicely and doesn't crack apart.

put about ½ cup scramble in the middle of an 8 inch wrap, and roll up

Place on cookie sheet so not touching and let cool completely

Once cool place in freeze. Once frozen, wrap individually and store in airtight container in freezer.

The hardest part about this is not eating it all!

I plugged this into a few food calculators online, and as far as nutrition goes:
Per serving:
~135 Calories
~8 g carbs
~9 g fat
~9 g protein

Minion Birthday

So, my friend K's little girl turned two yesterday. Cutest little kiddo ever. She's using her manners, with a little prompting, she enjoys helping in the garden and around the house (I can't tell you how many times I've turned around to find her 'sweeping' the kitchen floor, or 'dusting' something), and will talk up a storm for you.

This adorable little blue eyed, blond curls of a little American Girl doll also LOVES minions. Like OMG every other word it seems is Minion. So for the birthday girl, her Momma and I decided I would make Minion cupcakes. I was super stoked, plus it gave me an excuse to buy a mini cupcake tin (everyone needs one those right?)

I looked up a few ideas online, and found pictures of people using Twinkies, and marshmallows, all sorts of different frostings, or fondant, and some painted on eyes, or used Smarties, or something else. I finally settled on how I wanted to put everything together, and took inventory for what I already had, and K and I headed off to the store.

I used a basic butter cream frosting, and about a half batch of the batter I used for K's birthday cupcakes last December. Plus, marshmallows, chocolate, candy eyes, black painting icing and sprinkles.

I started off by melting the chocolate, but of course I couldn't use my double boiler, because I used it with all sorts of fragrances and other things making lotions and candles last year, and yea well, didn't wanna risk it. No worries, we'll make this work the way my Momma taught me. A pan, and a bowl.

*DISCLAIMER* I don't really consider these candies as chocolates, but I can never get white chocolate to melt properly so I went with these.

Anywhoo....once it was all melted down, I added a splash of oil, and a pinch of vanilla, and started prepping the marshmallows. I found that if you just stick a toothpick in them, they pull off and get stuck in the chocolate, so I dipped the toothpick into the chocolate a little, then shoved it into my marshmallow, let it cool, and THEN dipped the marshmallow. Also...don't cover the whole marshmallow, because you'll have nothing to hold later without melting chocolate, and it makes it tricky getting the tooth pic out. Unless you want an excuse to eat half of your minions...then go ahead.

I used a styrofoam circle to hold the minions while they were cooling and drying, popping them in the fridge to hurry the process along since I'm not all THAT patient of a person.

How minions are born

Once I had all my Minions dipped, eyed, and haired, I started making cupcakes, and icing. I used Wilton Royal blue coloring to get the batter and icing as close to the shade of blue as their overalls and I could. 

Yay! First batch in mini cupcake tray!!!

After everything had cooled, and I took a break for dinner, I sat down and tried to draw the goggles and mouths on with a food writer pen. Thanks to the waxy nature of the chocolate, the pen tip just gummed up and didn't work for more than a tiny little mark that was REALLY faint any way. 

I tried to Google home made edible ink...and kept finding all these really cool ideas for making ink out of beets, and dryer lint, and walnuts, and all sorts of things, but not really what I was I going for. So I thought, well I have the black Wilton gel coloring, but it's too thick to paint on, so I'll try to water it down. Well that didn't work well, because the waxy-ness of the chocolate just had the water beading up and not drying. In the words of the minions "well, poop". 

I'm not sure what made me think of it, but I tried mixing some powdered sugar into the black water until it was about the consistency of an acrylic paint. Found my detail paint brush that I bought because I wanted to paint stemware, but never got around to it. I proceeded to paint, every minion's goggles, and mouths by hand, and assemble the cupcakes, while watching an outrageous comedy about a haunted house. 

MINIONS!!!!

WOW did they turn out pretty well! Some of them were a little wonky, some looked a little messed up, but overall, I had my own army of minions sitting on my coffee table.

The birthday girl, was so excited when she saw the minions that it didn't take her more than 5 minutes to snag one (after being told to wait) when no one was looking. K and I were in her kitchen getting dishes ready to set out and heard her say "I ate it". K and I looked at each other wondering what she was eating, and go into the other room to see this:

One very happy, Minion demolishing, birthday girl. Guess which one she snagged? The one I made with little piped stars on it so we could put her star candles in it for her to blow out....So we had to put the candles in a different one, but thankfully I had more cupcakes than minions.

Now that I've seen Despicable Me 2, I'm going to have to figure out how to do the new minions. Thinking, of cotton candy for the hair, and coconut for the teeth. If I ever actually make them, that is. I think I'm slightly minion-ed out for the time being. But we had one happy little birthday girl!

Cheesecake! Oh and Red Velvet Cake...Together

So, we had company for dinner last Saturday night. We have also been looking for an 'excuse' to try to make some French style food. One of the people that came for dinner LOVES cheesecake. I love to bake cheesecake (ok I love to eat it too, but really trying to watch what I eat). Match made in heaven!

So I started looking for some good ideas for a cheesecake to try. I wanted to do something different, something I had never done before. While browsing around on Pinterest, I saw this picture of a Red Velvet Cheesecake. I knew I had to try it!!

Picture from 1-800-Baskets.com

Now, I've made all the components before, but never thought of combining them. Luscious creamy cheesecake, with decadent moist red velvet, plus tangy sweet and smooth cream cheese frosting. YUMMY!

While, I think I could have done better with the Red Velvet part, I LOVE the recipes I use for cheesecake and cream cheese frosting. I'm going to have to experiment and make some more red velvet cake to see what I like the best. I think the best red velvet that I liked was from a local bakery. It was a really heavy, dense cake, almost like cutting through a piece of fudge, than cake, and the flavor was AMAZING! Plus it was so moist, it didn't crumb up much. Sadly that won't work for this cheesecake.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I didn't really remember to take pics, so if you're looking for a step by step tutorial, please let me know. I know a few people who would be MORE than happy for me to make another cheesecake :)

So to break it down, we have a few basic parts that need to be made

1. The cheesecake
2. The red velvet cake
3. The red velvet cake crumbs
4. The cream cheese frosting

I've had much success with my cheesecakes before. Everyone who's tried them has loved them (talk about an ego boost). What I love about them is they are nice and dense, without a lot of cheesy flavor, and not too sweet, while not being a heavy cake, like when they are made with flour.

The Cheesecake

So for the cheesecake... I was a little nervous because I've never made a crust-less cheesecake before. I actually normally make a double thick crust and pre-bake it before filling it with the batter and baking again. So I held my breath, made the batter, poured it into my spring form pan, and waited impatiently for it to finish baking, and cooling, and chilling. 

The Red Velvet Cake

For the red velvet cake layer I used the Joy of Cooking cake recipe since it is, at least in my mind, one of the tried-and-true, stand the test of time recipes. It's good, just not what I was looking for. I really wouldn't suggest a box mix for this part, since they tend to turn out light and fluffy, and probably wouldn't support the weight of the cheesecake. You also want to make sure your flavor of cake is going to contrast the flavor of the cheesecake, while at the same time complimenting it. So if you make a Vanilla cheesecake, you're probably going to want a stronger flavor cake, like Red Velvet, or Black Forest. Also consider the type of cheesecake you're making. If it's a really moist cheesecake, then you'll probably want to go for a dryer cake, and vice-verse if the cheesecake is a drier, flour type cake. 

I decided on the thickness I wanted for the red velvet layers, and carefully cut my cakes to size. A good trick for this, is once you decide where you need to cut, find something you can use to measure that height repeatedly, and poke toothpicks into the cake at the height all around the cake, about two inches apart. This way, when you go to cut the cake, you have a guide to follow to help you get a nice even layer. I think it's better than buying one of those flimsy cake leveler things anyway. I go all the way around the cake, keeping the knife if the same spot and turning the cake so that I score a line all the way around, this way I know it's going to match up BEFORE I start slicing my cake apart. I also use a LONG bread knife, so that way it goes most of the way through. Less work. 

The Crumb Coating

In order to make the crumb coating, I needed enough cake to have the inside layers, and enough left to crumble up. I ended up using two cakes, the same diameter as my spring form cheesecake. Since I made the red velvet cakes first, and they were cool by time the cheesecake was in the oven, I was able to sit and crumble the left over cake by hand. I found that I had to cut off the top edge of the cake, because it was a bit too dry to crumble nicely, and shave off the top layer across the dome of the cake because it somehow was too moist. 

Let the crumbling commence! I just sat and crumbled by hand, while listening to some fun music since I wanted my crumbs to be a little less than uniform. If you have little ones, I'm sure they'd love to help. If you want a REALLY fine crumb, then get a mesh strainer, like what you would strain stock through to help catch all the little bits of herbs and stuff so you have clear broth. Rub the cake over this and it will break up into a really fine, uniform crumb. Set the crumbs aside, yes you will probably have a lot, that's a good thing!

The Cream Cheese Frosting

I used the Joy of Cooking cream cheese frosting because it's simple, and I know I like it. Well, I know it's a good base. I normally add some buttermilk to help make it not so overpoweringly sweet. I though about adding coconut flakes, but decided against it since they would add one more layer of texture to an already varied cake. I made a double batch, since I knew I would have plenty of cake crumbs left over.

Assemble the Cake!

This ended up not being as scary as it sounds. The trick I found, was to make sure the cheesecake, and red velvet were nice and cold before handling them. If you have time, leave them in the fridge for a few hours. If not, then pop them in the freezer for about 30 minutes (Assuming both are already cooled to room temp!) or until they are cold enough to handle. 

Un-mold the cheesecake from the spring form pan, and use a long frosting spatula to separate the cake from the bottom of the pan. On your serving plate, or cardboard cake round, place the piece you decided to use as the bottom cake layer, cut side up. With the cheesecake loosened, but still on the bottom of the spring form, position the cheesecake near the cake layer, Flip the cake layer over so the cut side is on the top of the cheesecake, then place the serving plate over the cake layer. 

Carefully, holding all three pieces, flip everything right side up together so the cheesecake is on top of the cake layer, with the bottom of the spring form pan on the top. Now you should be able to carefully pull the pan off the cheesecake. If it sticks, get your long spatula hot with tap water, and carefully slide it between the cheesecake and the pan. If the cheesecake is cold enough the pan bottom should slip right off. If it's too cold (like if you forgot about it in the freezer because one or more of life's little distractions got involved) then just wait a while for it to warm up, or carefully put HOT clean wash cloths on the pan bottom to help it unstick. 

Now simply lay the last cake layer on top, and trim and edges that stick out. I had to trim the cheesecake very slightly all the way around. 

Frosting and Crumb Coating

I made sure the frosting was at room temp before starting.

Put a crumb coat on the cake, and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to set up. If you don't know how to crumb coat, then check out this information from Wilton for a little more info. 

Since I wanted part of the top to be clean and crumb free when all done, I cut a circle of parchment paper, positioned it on the top of the cake, and pressed it in gently. This kept the crumbs off the top of the cake so I could pipe icing on later. I left about a 1/2 inch ring exposed so the crumbs would cover the top just a smidge. Once the parchment was in place, I put a final layer of icing around the cake, making it as even as possible, but I didn't pay much attention to how smooth it was. 

This part is MESSY!!!

Get some more parchment paper, or some newspaper to cover the table, scoop up a handful of your crumbs and press them into the side of the cake. Let whatever doesn't stick drop down, then press in another handful. Scoop up the stuff that fell, and keep going, adding in more crumbs as you go. Make sure to get the top of the cake if you're crumbing that too. 

When you're all done, set aside the remaining crumbs. They make great cake pops later. 

Once you have all the stray crumbs brushed off the parchment on top, carefully and slowly peel the parchment off, and pip on frosting as desired. 

If piping cream cheese frosting, remember it warms up and goes all floppy much much faster than butter cream, so keep your frosting in the fridge, and only put a little bit in your pastry bag at a time. 

So, what do you think? I think I did pretty well for my first time trying this without anything to follow other than a picture. I think next time, I might make a chocolate cake, so it turns out more like an Oreo.

Like I said earlier, let me know if you want a more detailed step-by-step tutorial. 

Reflections, A new year, and new experiments

Sitting here listening to the rain pitter-patter on the sun room roof, wrapped up in a blanket, with a kitten snuggled on my feet, with a wonderful cup of hot tea, felt like the perfect time to sit and reflect on the past year, all the ups, downs, successes and failures. I won't bore you with the bad, but some of the goods from last year were getting closer to some of my friends and family through planning my wedding, I was able to leave my job where I was overly stressed (and also on a contrasting schedule with hubby) so that I could spend more time with him, and with my mom who needed three surgeries. Had THE MOST PERFECT WEDDING I could have ever wished for. Sadly for our bank account, I always wanted the fairy tale, over the top, royal type of wedding, but we did it. Got to meet many of my new family on my husband's side at the wedding. Traveled for the first time out of the country, to the UK. Went to the ocean for the first time IN SCOTLAND, went dolphin watching, again in Scotland, slept in a castle, played ping pong in a throne room, washed laundry in the castle, and hung it to dry in front of a fireplace (I know, I'm different), flew in a propeller plane, and spent hours driving through Scottish and Irish countryside. The final day of our trip, we spent hours at Guinness brew house, fell in love with the drink, and the people of both countries all over again. My mom made it through surgeries on both her shoulders, now we are working on getting things lined up for her back, and my mother-in-law was able to move closer to us and the rest of the family. Made some new friends, and reconnected with long lost friends. Learned how to make several things that we use on a regular basis, and have been able to spend more time with my husband, and our family.

My bouquet from the wedding.

Just like so many people, I've decided to set some resolutions. Not specifically new year's resolutions, just goals I want to accomplish this year in my ongoing quest to live a healthier, happier life.

1. Experiment more in the kitchen with healthy foods
2. Reduce use of chemicals in our lives by making more cleaning products (this should also help reduce plastic we use since we won't be buying the stuff in the plastic)
3. Allow myself to be happier by accepting that I can't do everything, and what I do, doesn't have to be perfect. Accept that I'm allowed to make mistakes. Yes I'm a perfectionist. 
4. Grow and can more of our own vegetables
5. Get my craft projects organized, cataloged, and down to a more manageable number

So, in an effort to to complete the craft project resolution, I'm finishing up pairs of socks that I had previously started. I got a pair of dark green socks, and 1 out of a pair of light green socks, both for my hubby, and working on the second of a pair of socks for myself. I know I've covered this in a previous post, but it's nice to get everything down in one spot.

My first self designed sock!

Light green sock for hubby

Start of the toe of the second sock.

As for experimenting more in the kitchen, the other night I tried making foil packet lime pepper chicken, with mashed rutabaga, and steamed broccoli. Turned out pretty well, even with the calamity of the rutabaga eating the knife. 

I started to peel the rutabaga, which was tricky because of the waxy coating, but muscled through it. Sliced a little off the bottom so it wouldn't roll when I'm cutting it, and started to cut it in half. This is about as far as I got the knife through and I couldn't get it to go any more. When I went to pull the knife out it just didn't budge! This is our sharpest knife, and since hubby was a chef for many years, he keeps them pretty sharp. I tried everything I could think of to get the knife out, but no luck. I even (shame on me) grabbed a hold of the knife with both hands and shook it to try to dislodge it. About half way through I realized what a sight I must be. Shaking this knife with a giant rutabaga on it, my hair coming undone, yelling (more growling I think) in frustration. This is the point I started laughing uncontrollably  and ended up kneeling on the kitchen floor, knife still in hand, laughing so hard I was holding my stomach and crying! An adventure indeed! By time I collected myself I simply had to share this moment with a few of my friends and proceeded to text/email them. The modern age of sharing EVERYTHING! 

I ended up leaving the monster on the cutting board and went to preparing the chicken.

Lime Pepper Chicken:

2 Cleaned, and skinless chicken breast

Pinch of Kosher Salt

2 tsp Lime Pepper herb mix

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dill

sliced onion (these are like half onion, half chives we found at the farmer's market), they are sweet onions

Olive oil

2 Radishes, sliced

lime juice

2 TBSP chicken broth

2 Pats of butter

2 Squares foil to wrap chicken in

Take 2 tsp lime pepper, 1 tsp onion powder, and dill and mix them all together, breaking up any clumps. 

Sprinkle a little salt on the chicken, then coat both sides with the herb mix.

Drizzle some olive oil over the chicken, then turn it to get the oil on the foil, then turn it again so the oiled side is back up. 

Drizzle a little lime juice over the chicken
Sprinkle sliced onions over chicken
Lay a few slices of radish on top, then top with a pat of butter
Put 1 TBSP broth on top of each chicken, then fold foil in half over chicken, fold and crimp the three open sides shut so nothing leaks out.

Put in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Check to make sure chicken is fully cooked before eating please!

Hubby came home, and managed to get the rutabaga chopped and we got that boiled and mashed just like it was potato. Steamed up some broccoli, which was then tossed with butter and a little garlic powder.

So yummy! I didn't realize it, but the lime pepper mix I bought had chili peppers in it, so it was a bit spicy for me, but moist and tender, and full of flavor! The rutabaga tastes kind of like a potato, but is slightly sweeter, with a very light carrot type of flavor. I ended up using the left overs to make something like potato pancakes in the morning with chives and garlic. That was amazing! I think we'll be buying rutabagas more often.

Not too shabby for my first time with a new vegetable!!

Well that's it for now, off to do some laundry so I can use up the store bought stuff, and plan dinner for tonight, baked ginger and lemongrass salmon and asparagus with a creamy dill sauce I think. Maybe work on my fair isle double knit hot pad some more since it's almost finished.

Take care, and happy creating!

Lotion Bonanza

Lotion is really expensive right? You know the best all natural beeswax and essential oil ones that are kinda thick and come in a jar? The ones that smell absolutely heavenly and leave your skin so soft you would think you've never done dishes/gardening/cleaning a day in your life? I thought I can make that at home! It's only got like 5 ingredients. YEAH RIGHT!

I've spent the past 3 hours getting failure after failure. Hubby even gave it a try and it didn't work. Every time I tried to do this, I would ended getting excited, and it looked good, no separated liquid, not chunky, OK good, pour it into a little tin and 5 minutes later I had a chunky lotion with a lot of water squishing out every time I touched it.

See the dark spots? That's the water that separated.

I started off with The Whip from Root Simple, but I must be doing something wrong. For her it works, for me it breaks. Every time. The first go round, I tried squeezing and kneading the lotion to work the water out, but I ended up pulling out almost all the water I put in, so that got tossed. My first batch was uncolored so it wasn't as pretty looking, but man did it smell great! We tried blending the first batch in a big beer stein I picked up for hubby about 5 years ago as a gag gift (it holds nearly 30oz of beer!) so at least we had a lot of fun with that.

The second batch same story. Looks great, smells great, managed to tint this one, and FLOP! Scraped that one into the trash too.

I pulled out my jar of beeswax lotion that I absolutely covet because it is the most amazing stuff EVER! Read the ingredients, and the only thing I wasn't adding was some sort of stabilizer  Hubby decided to try his hand at lotion making, and tried Epsom salts and a bit of borax. When he was all done blending, we had a measuring cup of foamy purple something, floating on top of gray brackish looking water. It didn't mix at all!!! Into the trash. But hey, at least my trash is going to smell like sweet honey lavender for a while.

OK, OK, I'm grumping to myself at this point. There has GOT to be something I"m missing. Handy old inter-webs told me that beeswax won't naturally emulsify with water like the oil does. The whole time I'm going about this thinking it'll work like making mayonnaise right? So start Googling beeswax lotion stabilizers. The two most common I found were glycerin, and borax. Well I didn't have any glycerin, but I have big old box of borax from making laundry detergent. A couple sites suggested mineral oil instead of olive oil, which for some reason I have that on hand too. It's a lot cheaper, and I've already used up about 3 cups of olive oil in the endeavor.

This was almost full when I started.

So finally I mashed together a few different recipes I've read, and at this point I have no idea which ones. So far it seems to have worked. 

My kitchen after my lotion making explosion. I still have to bake cookies!!

What I tried that finally seems to have worked (verdict is still out but no obvious signs of breakage yet *knock on wood*)

• 1/4 cup distilled water
• 1/8 tsp Borax
• .75 oz beeswax, plus a pinch more, I think I may have used closer to 1 oz
• 1/2 cup mineral oil
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• Lavender oil
• 2 drops blue soap dye, and 4 drops red soap dye (it looks really dark, but turns out well when mixed.)

1. Mix water and borax and heat until almost simmering and borax is dissolved. If your soap dye is water based, add it to the water after borax is dissolved
2. Heat the oils and beeswax in a double boiler until melted. 
3. Add Lavender oil a few drops at a time until the desired scent is reached, then add a few more drops because it will be diluted when the water is added. If your soap dye is oil based, add it now to the wax/oil mix.
4. Pour the oil/wax into a warm mason pint jar, using either a whisk, or a stick blender, add the hot water a few drops at a time, blending until the water is fully combined before adding more, again only a few drops at a time. 
5. Once all the water has been incorporated pour the lotion into the container you're going to use to store it. Let it cool uncovered. 

Now to clean up the kitchen and get some cookie dough started for tomorrow. Not to mention make about 5 more scents of lotion. Rose, tea tree, honeysuckle, lilac, and vanilla, and I REALLY hope I'm not forgetting a scent. I'll need to make a run to the store for more mineral oil, and beeswax.

Aww, my hubby is cleaning up my lotion making mess for me! I love him! Better go help, since after all, it is my mess. Happy Crafting!