abi & andy » recipes

in the kitchen….

abi — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:32:37 +0000

This week has been a very boring week in our kitchen.

Mostly because husband has been working late and I haven’t felt like cooking much for just me. In fact this is what I had by myself for dinner last night.

Salad, chips and salsa from Chili’s To Go, and wine.

And the one good meal I did make on Tues. night, I forgot to take photos. So for the theme of “in the kitchen” for this week’s you capture photo challenge, I had to get a little creative.

I thought I’d show you how to make my family’s famous sweet tea. After all it was one of the reasons that Andy decided he could marry me. I was a Yankee, but knew how to make good tea.

{step 1} Boil water.
{step 2} Add 5-6 Lipton Tea Bags.
(we were a Lipton only family growing up)

{step 3} Pour brewed tea into a gallon pitcher & fill to the top with cold water.
(I’ve never made tea in a pitcher smaller than a gallon. Ever.)

{step 4} Add sugar.

{step 5} Add more sugar.
(about 1 1/3- 1 1/2 c. to taste)

{step 6} Stir immediately so the sugar dissolves.

{step 7} Enjoy!

good food, good times…

abi — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:21:57 +0000

For lunch today (and actually dinner last night too, since I was just “cooking” for me), I had a BLT with sourdough bread and turkey bacon. So good. We don’t usually do sandwiches or keep much bread around the house and I forgot how much I like these. BLTs remind me of summertime since my mom made them (or had me make them) when she didn’t want to cook on really hot evenings for our family growing up.

Andy made it through the day on not a lot of sleep since he had a big thing going on at work last night and had to cover it. I decided he would need a good dinner to come home to, so I came up with a new recipe I thought he’d like. It was based off a recipe I found on cookinglight.com for Cobb Style Penne Pasta. I changed it up a little since I knew Andy wouldn’t be crazy about some of the ingredients, but it did sound like a good recipe for anyone who does like a traditional Cobb salad. I cooked some pasta and while that was boiling away, I sliced some cherry tomatoes and put them in the oven with some olive oil to roast for a few minutes. I put a few cloves of chopped, fresh garlic in a skillet with a little olive oil and cooked it for a few minutes and then added some previously grilled chicken. I pulled the tomatoes out of the oven and stirred them in with the chicken, along with the now-cooked pasta. I thought it might be a little dry, so I put in a little bit of the favorite homemade tomato sauce that I had leftover in the fridge from something last week (pizza, I think?) and also some turkey bacon. I put in some seasonings – mainly dried basil, and had some parmesan cheese and blue cheese to put on top. Husband loved it and even went back for seconds. I really liked it too! I took a picture, but didn’t have good lighting or like how it turned out….so no photo….but trust me, it was really good!

Last Friday night after dinner, husband and I took Maggie on a longer walk than we usually do in the evening. We took her up to Dairy Queen for dessert…yum…..I liked these pics of Andy and Maggie.

our favorite homemade pizza…

abi — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:38:16 +0000

Husband recently posted on facebook that he

has finally taken a liking to Abi’s pizza recipe to the point that I actually prefer it over going out…

which is HUGE for him. When we first got married and I started making pizza for us, he wasn’t too keen on it and would try talk me into ordering Pizza Hut or Papa John’s on Friday nights instead. But I kept on making pizza some weeks and it started growing on him, I think. I also found a better pizza crust recipe than the one I started out using – which wasn’t a lot different, but we both like the new one tons better for some reason. We are both pretty boring in our pizza tastes and usually just do a plain cheese pizza. So I’ve been perfecting the dough and even recently starting using homemade sauce (which is the same one that is now our fave pasta sauce recipe – I previously posted about it here) to make it the best. And last Saturday, husband said it was the best ever. He said this as he quickly ate 4 slices…and 2 more for breakfast the next day.

abi & andy’s favorite pizza

Pioneer Woman’s Pizza Crust

Ingredients:

*Makes 2 crusts
1 t. active dry yeast
4 c. all-pupost flour
1 t. salt
1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form half of the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl and let rise for a few hours until ready to bake pizza. I put the other half of the dough in plastic wrap (with a little olive oil to coat like you did with the dough in the bowl) and put it in the freezer for the next time we want pizza. I pull it out and put it in a bowl to defrost and rise all day while I’m at work. Works out great!

Once the dough is risen to about double, I spread it out on our well-used pizza stone and I use some of the homemade tomato sauce to cover the dough. (I usually make it for pasta earlier in the week and save part of it for the pizza). This week, I put on some freshly torn pieces of basil and sprinkle on a bunch of mozzarella cheese. I usually throw on a little oregano right before I put it in the preheated oven. Cook for about 10 min. at 425 degrees if you like your pizza just barely cooked like we do – a few minutes longer if not.

And that’s it – not hard – but delicious!

sea salt carmel brownies

abi — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:51:03 +0000

I saw JennyMac’s recipe for sea salt carmel brownies a few weeks ago and couldn’t stop thinking about trying them. I finally decided to try them last night….and they are really good. Husband was speechless as he quickly polished one off and said it was awesome when he was finished.

And since my mom asked for it, here is the recipe.

JennyMac’s Sea Salt Carmel Brownies

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray/grease 9×9 pan.

Brownie Ingredients and Directions:
2 eggs
1/2 c. canola oil (I didn’t have canola, so I used vegetable oil and it still turned out fine)
2 t. vanilla
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. cocoa powder
3/4 c. flour
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. baking powder

Mix eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients (or if you’re lazy like me and don’t like to get extra bowls dirty, you can mix it all together and it usually works fine too). Then mix everything together until blended. Pour batter into prepared 9×9 pan. Bake for 25 min.

Sea Salt Caramel Ingredients and Directions:
1/2 c. sugar
3 T. butter
1/4 c. cream
1/4 to 1/2 t. sea salt (to taste)

Get all ingredients out before starting….as JennyMac said, carmel is easy but you have to keep stirring the whole time. Pour sugar in a small pan on stove. Cook over medium heat until sugar begins to melt. As it begins melting and turning brown in color begin to whisk and whisk continuously until ALL sugar is melted. You can easily swirl the sugar in the pan as well to keep it moving and melting. Once it is completely melted, add butter and whisk until butter is completely melted. Take off the heat and after about 20 seconds, slowly add the cream. The mixture will bubble and erupt. Keep whisking until the mixture is completely smooth. If it begins seizing up, put it back on the hot burner to let the caramel melt a bit and keep whisking. Once it is smooth, pull it off the stove and let it cool. Start with 1/4 t. of sea salt and add more to your own taste. Once the caramel is cooled, spread it over your brownie mixture.

Chocolate Genache Ingredients and Directions:

Chocolate genache can be prepared in several ways. The trick is, the thicker you want it, use more chocolate than cream. For this, I used about 1/4 cup cream to 6 oz of finely chopped chocolate (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips – not chopped up, just poured straight out of the bag). The standard ratio is 1 c cream to 12 ounces of chocolate. Experiment. You can ALWAYS add more chocolate. Place the cream in a small pan and heat to almost the boil. Pour over your chopped chocolate and stir stir stir stir it smooth. 1 teaspoon of vanilla is optional. Spread over caramel layer and put in the fridge for about 30 minutes to set.

Enjoy!

very yummy carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting….

abi — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:27:54 +0000

I can’t believe it’s already April! The weather certainly felt like spring is here though….it was in the high 80s and maybe even got up to 90 degrees outside….so nice!

Here is a yummy spring recipe for carrot cake that I recently tried when my sister and brother-in-law came to visit -they both love carrot cake. It was a really good carrot cake recipe that I definitely make again..it has stayed good and moist all week. The maple cream cheese frosting was a little different but very very good. So good that Emily and I dipped some strawberries in the leftover icing. And I may or may not have eaten some of this cake for breakfast.

Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes 24 cupcakes (or one two-layer cake, instructions at end)

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil (I used vegetable oil)
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350&176;F.

Line 24 cupcake molds with papers, or butter and flour them.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots, walnuts and raisins, if using them. Divide batter among cupcake molds, filling 3/4 of each.

Bake cupcakes 14 to 18 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing them.

To make a carrot layer cake: Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans instead of cupcake molds. Line bottom of pans with waxed paper. Butter and flour paper; tap out excess flour. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, and bake the layers for about 40 minutes each, or until a tester inserted into center comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Turn out onto racks. Peel off waxed paper; cool cakes completely.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Two (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup (I lite pancake syrup because I didn’t have any real maple…still tasted great!)

In a stand mixer beat all the ingredients on medium until fluffy. Chill the frosting for 10 to 20 minutes, until it has set up enough to spread smoothly.

To assemble a carrot layer cake, frost the top of one cake, place the other cake on top. Frost the sides and top, swirling decoratively. Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes to set up frosting.

(recipe found on smitten kitchen)

happy st. patrick's day!

abi — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:54:03 +0000

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I wore green. Andy did not. I saw some pretty crazy green outfits on customers today at work. Oh well…we celebrated by eating some beer infused foods – my version of Irish – ha! But my brother Patrick – the beer snob – would probably approve. We had Guinness Stout Sausage and onions, potatoes, salad and Trader’s Joe’s Beer bread. No green beer, but it was a good dinner.

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Jana (my mom said she got tired of green cakes on her birthday growing up)!

And Happy (almost) Birthday to my brother Patrick!
(I sorta remember when my mom was trying to pick a name after he was born I think? or maybe on St. Patrick’s day before he was born? I was only 5…).

homemade tomato sauce….

abi — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:39:24 +0000

I saw this really good looking tomato sauce (that also looked super easy) on smitten kitchen last week and decided to try making it for dinner last night.

It was delicious! (well Andy said that it was a little bland and could use some spices…I really liked it as it was though)

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions
Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking

Serves 4 as a main course; makes enough sauce to lightly coat most of a pound of spaghetti

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)*
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste (you might find, as I did, that your tomatoes came salted and that you didn’t need to add more) and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with spaghetti, with or without grated parmesan cheese to pass.

saturday night at home….

abi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:06:17 +0000

We have been loving the warm weather and we have been cooking on the grill several nights a week….Andy loves grilling and trying new marinade recipes….and I love letting him cook me dinner so much these days. This past Saturday night, we had a great dinner! Andy did some marinated steaks on the grill and I tried a new recipe (this is my version since I changed it and since I can’t find the original link to the recipe I modified – the original recipe used mushrooms, which we don’t like, shallots, which I didn’t have, and lemon juice and zest, which is too acidic for Andy – he has some sort of allergy/intolerance to a lot of lemony things):

Grilled Potato Salad

I sliced up 3 potatoes, half of an onion, and some fresh broccoli and put it in a grilling pan. I brushed on some olive oil, but then needed more, I also sprayed PAM on the bottom of the pan. I put that on the grill for about 20 min. While that was cooking, I mixed up the dressing. I mixed 1/3 c. of red wine vinegarette, 1/3 c. of olive oil, and 2 T. of mustard with rosemary and garlic powder to taste (I didn’t have any fresh garlic, but that would’ve been great!). When the potatoes and broccoli were done, I mixed it in the dressing.

Both the steak and the grilled potato salad turned out great! But the corn bit the dust. Andy soaked it well, but it still caught on fire too much to be edible….so we let the squirrels have it. Andy mixed up some drinks and we had a good night watching a classic movie – Top Gun. I am proud of Andy for actually watching movies with me lately – usually he watches about 20 min. and then his ADD kicks in and he goes in the other room to surf the web and channel surf. But we watched all of Top Gun this week and all of “New in Town” (with Renee Zellweger – it was really good) last Friday night together.

Last weekend we had a good time visiting with Andy’s Dad for Father’s day. We spent a lot of time up at the lake with Darrell and Rae and enjoyed spending time with them. Unfortunately, I was still feeling pretty sick and wasn’t the greatest company and took a bunch of naps. But we were still glad we got to go and let Andy hang out with his Dad. I called my dad and talked to the rest of my family some on the way home.

Andy wrote a post a few months ago about finding out that he was on the back-up list to be deployed overseas with the American Red Cross to a military base for about 4 months. So far he hasn’t been called. This week is most likely the last week that he would be called and told that he has to go because someone who is currently going cannot. Please pray that we don’t get that call, as we are not really mentally prepared for him to go and because it would be so short notice at this point. But pray that we’ll be able to quickly get ready and be at peace if he does. Thanks!

Cinnabon Clone Recipe

abi — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:57:58 +0000

I love Cinnabon cinnamon rolls…so much so that I long ago decided to pretend like Cinnabon didn’t exist anywhere but in airports and I only allow myself to eat one of their delicious cinnamon rolls when I’m flying somewhere (but yes, I have definitely run across airports to find a Cinnabon and raced back to frantically catch my connecting flight – Cinnabon in hand). A week or so ago, I was really wanting one…so since they don’t exist except in airports and I’m not heading to an airport anytime soon….I decided to see if I could find a good clone recipe. I tried the one below and it was pretty good. Not perfect – I need to work on rolling the dough out thinner I think….but it was pretty close to the real thing and the frosting was amazing! I would double frosting amount next time though so that there is plenty of cream cheese frosting goodness. I also decided that I shouldn’t probably make these much, since Andy didn’t help me eat any. I’ll make them for my family sometime when we visit – my mom taught me to love Cinnabon – I have fond memories of my sister and I splitting one with her at the mall when we were kids.

Clone of a Cinnabon

1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C) (I used skim)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup butter, melted
4 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast (also known as fast rising, rapid rising, or instant yeast)

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat Neufchatel cheese)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

Using KitchenAid mixer: dissolve the yeast in the warmed milk, along with 1 tsp sugar from the 1/2 cup white sugar. Let stand, covered, about 10 minutes, until foamy.

In the bowl of your KitchenAid mixer, add the yeast/milk mixture, eggs, melted butter, 3 cups bread flour, salt, and remaining sugar; mix on medium speed with the flat beater until combined. Switch to the dough hook and start kneading the dough on speed 2. Add 1/2 cup of bread flour at a time, until the dough becomes soft and elastic and no longer sticks to the bowl (approximately 4-1/2 total cups bread flour according to the recipe). This will vary depending on the humidity of your kitchen, but you can definitely start to see when the dough stops sticking to the sides. It will start to follow the dough hook around as it spins and will start flopping around the bowl in a large ball. After you reach a total of 4-1/2 cups, start adding the flour a tablespoon at a time so you don’t risk adding too much flour. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp towel for approximately 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.

Roll dough into a 16×21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough (lengthwise so you end up with a 21″ roll) and cut with a bread knife into 12 rolls (approximately 1-3/4″ each, or three finger widths). Place rolls in a lightly greased 9×13 inch baking pan. (If you want to make these the night before, follow the instructions up to this step but then cover and refrigerate your rolls before the second rise. In the morning, take them out of the refrigerate and allow them to rise before baking.) Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. (I baked mine at 350F for 20-25 minutes.)

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

potato soup…

abi — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:13:02 +0000

My husband loves Panera Bread’s potato soup. Sometimes we even go there just on a certain night, because that’s the night they serve it. I love Panera Bread in general, so I don’t usually complain, but since I’ve been working hard at budgeting and eating out less (I think he’d eat out every night if we could afford it – in fact that’s pretty much what he did before we got married…), I’ve been trying to find a good potato soup tosatisfy him at home. So tonight, after several not-as-good attempts in the past, I think I finally found a winner. He said, and I quote “that would be better than Panera’s if the potatoes were cooked a little less, but it’s definitely a keeper recipe.” It would be nice if he just said it was better and left it at that, but oh well, I’ll take it (and just remember to not cook the potatoes so long next time so he’ll have no complaints!) The recipe is based on a recipe I found online: Marie Callenders Cream of Potato Cheddar Cheese Soup. This recipe sounded really good, but since I didn’t have half of the ingredients and knew my picky-eater husband wouldn’t like some of them in it anyways, I ended up changing it significantly. Here is the “new” recipe the way I made it tonight:

Potato Soup

Ingredients:

4 C. Finely Sliced and Diced Potatoes (peeled)

2 Tbsp. Butter

3 c. Hot Water

4 Chicken Bouillon Cubes

8 oz Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1 c. Milk (we only had skim and it turned out fine, but half-and-half was recommended in the original recipe)

2 T. Flour

1/2 tsp. Sugar

1/4 tsp. Black Pepper

1/4 tsp. Salt (or to taste)

1 tsp. Garlic Powder

1 tsp. Onion Powder

A few other Herb seasonings thrown in – whatever you like

Preparation:

Chop and peel potatoes, put in large pot. Mix chicken bouillon cubes in the hot water to dissolve, then pour water in pot. Place on medium low heat and cook until potatoes are very soft and tender.

When potatoes are done, mash the potatoes slightly but leaving most of them in chunks. Reduce heat and add milk, butter, seasonings, sugar and flour, stir mixture. Add shredded sharp cheddar cheese and stir until cheese is completely melted and dissolved into mixture. Let soup simmer very slowly for 5-10 minutes, making sure not to let it burn. Makes a very hearty, filling soup. Serves 4+