I am Still Alive!

I have not blogged in almost exactly one full year... I have been busy!

Busy telling people that I don't know how to make friends, yet having to schedule things months out in advance because I have so many things going on with various groups of friends. Busy hiking a new trail from our Oregon Hikers guide book at least once a month if not more. Busy working a dull full time job, where I love the people but regularly question the management and why in the hell I am still there. Busy enjoying the fact that we now live "close-in" as the locals call it... busy really starting to fee like a local myself. Busy soaking up every single shop and coffee house and restaurant within walking distance of our lovely new apartment. Busy telling myself I shouldn't be eating out so much and should be working out much more... but too busy to actually get around to working out. Busy baking... of course, and cooking, and cleaning and realizing just how many dishes two people who like to cook and eat can make when there is no dishwasher is said lovely new apartment. And most of all busy creating!

Back in February I jumped on the create something every day bandwagon. And it has been fantabulous! I have long been in need of a daily outlet. I daily time to stop and breathe and let it out on paper, or canvass, or through words, or however it manifests itself that day. And I find myself breathing again. It may not actually be happening EVERY SINGLE day, but it is happening.. and slowly and steadily it lead me to realizing this goal: My very own Etsy shop! Open since May and taking up quite a bit of what very little free time I have. Since going to school for art, wanting to be an artist since I was... 7? getting a license to teach art to your little ones, then reaching a complete halt to any form of creativity when we moved out here it was high time I get back to what I really want to do with my life. The cookie adventure was fun, but more than anything it made me realize that I miss art. The best part was the graphic design I got to do for my labeling and packaging. I have even gotten to do a little more of that here and there for friends as needed, which is awesome (keep it comin') but not quite it either. On top of the realization that I miss art I also I decided that if I EVER try to sell anything ever again it will NOT have an expiration date. No one in my family ever wants any more about to expire cookies as Christmas gifts. And what doesn't have an expiration date? Art work. It never goes bad. If anything it appreciates with time right? So 30 years after I die I will be a millionaire?! Right? Well at least maybe my kids kids will be? We can only hope.

So, yes! I am still very much alive and working daily towards my goals. Maybe a little slower than I should be with my crazy social calendar (and now add to that house hunting too!)... but I am getting there, and loving life as I do. So if you don't hear from me much more on here... if ever. Just check my Etsy... it may not be as tasty as the things I used to post here but they are what I am cookin up these days.

Jaxciedoodles! (and everything is better when it's coated with chocolate)

The most Christmassy cookie that we sold (to me at least) was the JaxcieDoodle. Okay, so they are basically Snickerdoodles... but so much better, and named for my Deary Jaxcie herself. She managed to get this recipe from the clutches of one of those recipe hoarders I don't really understand. So now that I got it... here it is for everyone and anyone who wants it! 

Yummy Fluffy Puffy Cookies that really can be used as the base for all kinds of fun experiments! 

1 cup Sugar
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 cup Shortening
1 ½ tsp Vanilla
1 Egg
4 1/3 cup Cake Flour
¾ tsp Baking Soda
¾ tsp Baking Powder
¼ tsp Salt

½ cup Sugar
1 ½ tsp Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 375˚ 
Using a mixer cream Shortening and Sugar. 
Mix for an additional 3 minutes on medium speed. All the extra mixing is important for the awesome puffy texture in the end. 
Slowly add Egg and Vanilla while mixing. 
In separate bowl combine Flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Salt. 
Gradually add dry ingredients mixing on slow speed until incorporated and smooth. 
In wax paper roll dough into 1 ½ inch round logs, and refrigerate until firm. If you are impatient, like me, you can use the freezer instead. 
While dough is cooling mix Sugar and Cinnamon. 
When firm, slice dough into roughly ½ inch thick coins. (Take the wax paper off first, silly)
Dredge coins in Cinnamon Sugar and place onto baking sheet, leaving room for slight expansion. The sugar makes these cookies very prone to sticking to cookie sheets. These cookies are the ones to have gotten me hooked to using parchment paper. It works wonders.
Bake 8-10 mins. 
Cookies are done when slight cracks appear, browning indicates over baking. This is for real! They may look just right when they are a little brown, but they get really crumbly and not nearly as good as if you take them out before they begin to brown. 

Okay, so that is how you make the Jexciedoodles.... but like I said that dough is full of potential! 


For example: one of my cousins recently had a brand new cutie patootie little one and I just had to send them something yummy to celebrate. I made this dough, but dredged them in plain sugar omiting the cinnamon. Then once they were cool, melted some of the lovely wonderful Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate chips that I had and carefully spooned a layer of chocolate onto each cookie. I was planning on sandwiching them to make a kind of home-made Milano, but I liked the higher chocolate to cookie ratio of just coating one side and leaving them like that. If you plan on doing this, I suggest you cover the bottoms with the chocolate, and leave the pretty clean tops, it makes for a much nicer looking finished product. I don't have a picture of these so just take my word for it, they were pretty. 


Apparently the dozen and a half cookies I sent them made it about a day and a half into their being home from the hospital. So, they must have been good. 


So I have been thinking of all kinds of other uses for this dough now too...  rolling in sugar mixed with cocoa powder?... Divide the dough in half, mixing half of it with cocoa powder, then making a kind of pinwheel cookie out of the two toned dough?... mmmmm coat one side with chocolate and sprinkle some coffee grounds over the chocolate before its set?....Or there is always the fact that this dough is really like a loose playdough and they only puff up a little... you can shape them into anything you want... add some food coloring to the dough and make all kinds of fun things! These are all just ideas... if you try them and they turn out awful, please let the rest of us know! Or if you have any other ideas let 'em rip! 

Leek Soup... Breaking the norm here, no baking involved

My new edible obsession: Leeks!

yummm

Okay, so if you have never had leeks before (like me prior to the Olympic experimental cooking posted last week) they are awesome! They kind of have the taste of subtle green onions but give the feel of a much more substantial vegetable presence... think cabbage or brussel sprouts (another newly aquired taste of mine). On a random aside, have you ever seen how those grow? Brussel sprouts, I mean. They are flippin' awesome! Check it out! I want to grow them just cause they look so cool, and they taste pretty darn good too.

Anyways, if you haven't had LEEKS don't be afraid of them, they are my new friend, they are nice, they are easy to get along with. Play with them in your kitchen. 

So after the galette I wanted to experiment further. Soup sounded perfect in rainy chilly mid April... yes, that is how far behind I am with the blogging.... 

Ingredients:

4 tbs Unsalted Butter

1 lbs Mushrooms of your choice (i like crimini or baby bellas) chopped roughly

2-3 Large Leeks; white and pale green parts only, cut into 1/4 inch rings 

3 tbs AP Flour (look! see? still using a left over Kurio ingredients)

3 cups Chicken Stock or Canned Low Sodium Broth

Salt and Pepper to taste

1-2 cups Milk (optional)

See? souper simple... hehe

First, to prep the leeks. Cut them into good bite sized rings discarding root ends and darker green leafy ends. Place in a large bowl of cold water to rinse. They are very gritty/dirty/sandy/what have you and need this bath. And it is also a good time to break apart the fun little layers of rings so they cook more evenly later. 

In a large stock pot over medium high heat melt 2 tbs butter until hot but not smoking. Saute mushrooms, stirring occasionally until lightly browned. Transfer to a large bowl and save for later. If you have more mushrooms than space on the bottom of your pan you can do this in batches. Just remember to add more butter with second half of mushrooms. As Julia says "don't crowd your mushrooms." 

In same stock pot heat remaining butter. Stir in leeks, cover and cook, stirring often, until soft. 

Add mushrooms back into the pot. Sprinkle vegetables with flour and stir to evenly coat. Stir in chicken stock/broth. I also added a cup or two of milk to mine for a creamier rather than just brothy soup. 

Bring to a boil stirring often. Add salt and pepper to your liking, reduce heat to low "set lid ajar" and simmer for roughly 15 minutes. If you have the patience. I didn't. I was hungry and it smelled so good and I kind of liked the little bit of crispness the leeks still had to them. I honestly don't know if they would go completely mushy if you cooked them for too long but it seemed like a possibility... and I'm impatient sometimes. 

Soup can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated, covered. If you can wait.... 

and it's so pretty! 

mmmmm Fondue!

So for the Oscars Jaxcie decided to host a fun and glamourous Fondue and Syrah tasting evening. The wines are another blog, but the cheese and chocolate was awesome! Everyone was assigned to bring things to dip and of course for me that meant BAKE! 

Two loafs of homemade bread for the cheese course.

These were okay. They were dry and a little... I donno.. gritty? They were weird and I don't recommend them, at all. But I said I would post successes and failures... so here ya go! 

Egg Bread

4 3/4 to 5 1/4 cup AP flour

1 package active dry yeast

1 1/3 cups milk

3 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

In a large mixing bowl stir together 2 cups of the flour and the yeast; set aside. 
In a medium saucepan heat and stir water, sugar, margarine, and salt just until warm (120 to 130 degrees) and margarine almost melts. Add water mixture to dry mixture along with the eggs. 
Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Okay so here i must interject that I used my stand mixer and maybe beat the crap out of my dough... maybe this lead to the gritty or mealy texture... I donno. 
Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Or maybe its that I am still wokring out my kneading vs. wedging issues.
Shape the dough into a ball.
Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of the dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (about 1 hour). Also would like to say this took forever and a day! not just 1 hour... so maybe my yeast is dead or something...
Punch dough down; turn dough on to a lightly floured surface and divide dough in half.
Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
Lightly grease baking sheet. S
hape each portion of dough into a loaf by patting and shaping with floured hands. 
Cover and let rise n a warm place until nearly doubled in size. (About 30 minutes). 
For the sesame seed loaf, I just beat an egg, brushed over loaf and sprinkled with the untoasted seeds.
Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and loaf sounds hollow when you tap the top. (Don't burn yourself).
Remove bread from sheet and cool on wire racks. 

It was weird... I don't know what happened. It was pretty... but not so tasty. Good thing it was chopped up and dipped in such yummy cheesey goodness! (Jaxcie, we may need to share that recipe on here too... its not baking, but it is relevant.)

And a Pound Cake for the chocolate course!

I have never made pound cake before.. this was my very first one and with the awesome assistance of Mr. Alton Brown, it was fantastic!!! This one I recommend completely and totally! TRY IT! Uber-easy and just as tasty! If you have never baked from an Alton recipe, he has this thing about measuring ingredients by weight, to be extra precise... I am not that anal... that may have something to do with my consistency issues with my cookies, but oh well! This is why I am no longer trying to sell them! Anyways, I will include his weights and my measures.


Pound Cake
8 oz. butter - 1 stick cubed and softened
8 oz. cake flour - 2 cups
8 oz sugar - 1 1/4 cup
4 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup whole buttermilk, room temperature

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 375 degrees F.

Coat a  loaf pan with butter and dust with flour.

Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream for 6 minutes on medium speed, using the paddle attachment. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. With the mixer running at lowest speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. Again stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and salt and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds.

With the mixer on the lowest speed add the flour in 3 installments, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour, making sure each portion is fully incorporated before adding the next. After the final addition, beat the batter for 30 seconds on medium speed until almost smooth.

Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes. The crust will be golden brown and spring back when pressed, but the crack around the center will appear moist. I like this visual explanation of how to tell when it is done rather than the time allotment, very nice for those of us with unreliable ovens. 

Remove the cake from the oven to a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool on the rack. Store the cake on the rack covered with a tea towel for up to 3 days. 

So moist and yummy it won't dry out... if it lasts that long. Don't put it in an airtight container or plastic wrap etc. it will get gummy and funky. 

Make it! It's easy and super good! 

The spread! yuuummmmmmmm

Now that I think about I also brought Jaxciedoodles along that night for dipping in the liquid chocolate goodness... but I will save those for a later post because the dipping lead to inspiration for a kind of homemade milano cookie that I sent off to NY as a baby welcoming gift. I will post those later! Promise!

Remember the Olympics? Those were a while ago, but here's some French food (and drink) anyways!

Thought I would reach way back this time for this one. Have to catch up! Will catch up!

So way back when... when Vancouver, BC was hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics my friend was hosting an opening ceremonies party. For food we all chose a different country to represent and made recipes traditional to that land. We also chose countries to bring representational drinks for too. Being 'Oui Oui Potporri' I couldn’t not choose France! For both my food and drink. While there are plenty of yummy and tempting French deserts (which I do still want to try to make one day, I’ll keep you posted) I chose to break free of the “Katrina always brings desert” mode and made something savory instead… but it still required baking, of course. And as a personal challenge I didn’t want to fall on the tried and true quiche, I wanted to try to make something I haven’t ever made before… or even heard of really… or if I am being 100% honest, am still not entirely sure how you pronounce it… ‘galette’…. Hmmm I am sure my Francophile Crepeist can help me with that one, Ellen?

Anyways here is what I made! Had to make two different ones so that maybe by some rare and unexpected occurrence my pickypants husband would at least try one of them!

First the crusts, the two recipies came with different crust recipes but I used the simpler of the two for both of them. If you’d like a little more flavor they had added dried sage leaves to the crust for the Butternut Squash version. By the way Epicurious is awesome! You can search recipes by country! 

Crust:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

4 tablespoons (or more) ice water

The temp. of the butter and water is important here, it makes the crust flakier and just better in general.

Pulse flour, butter and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Drizzle ice water evenly over mixture and pulse until it just forms a ball. Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough.

Gently press dough into a 5-inch disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.

Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let stand at room temperature 15 minutes before rolling out.

Butternut Squash Galette

For filling:

1 (2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2- by 1/4-inch slices (4 cups)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced crosswise

6 ounces soft mild goat cheese, crumbled (I believe I used some other cheese in place here…feta maybe, cutting back on all other added salt, or maybe cream cheese and added a little more salt… too long ago now I can’t remember… but options for you!)

-Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

-Toss squash with sea salt and 1 Tbsp oil and arrange in 1 layer in a 17-by 12-inch shallow baking pan.

-Roast, stirring once halfway through roasting, until golden brown on edges and undersides. The recipe says this should take 20 to 25 minutes, my psycho oven did it in 15, and it is okay for the squash to be a little firm, it will bake further later.

-Remove squash from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Meanwhile, wash leeks, then cook in remaining 2 tablespoons oil with a pinch of sea salt in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium heat, loosely covered, stirring occasionally, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

-Transfer to a large bowl to cool slightly.

-Add squash, cheese of choice, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and toss gently.

-Roll out dough into a 13-inch round on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin.

-Transfer to a baking sheet.

-Arrange filling in an even layer in center of dough, leaving a 2- to 3-inch border.

-Fold dough in on itself to cover outer rim of filling, pleating dough as necessary.

-Brush pastry with beaten egg and bake galette until crust is cooked through and golden on edges, 35 to 45 minutes. Again, these are loose ‘in a perfect world’ recipe time estimations, so keep an eye on it.

-Cool on baking sheet on a rack 10 minutes before serving. **

Zucchini, Lemon and Ricotta Galette

Don’t let the name of this one throw you off too much. The lemon is there, but not as strongly as you would expect given that name… I would call it a Zucchini Onion Galette instead. Yummy whatever you call it.

Filling:

5 2/3 cups coarsely grated zucchini (about 1 1/3 pounds) Large hole cheese greater works great and leaving the peel on adds color and vitamins! + +

1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

4 tablespoons butter, divided

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 small garlic clove, minced

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 1/4 cups ricotta cheese I actually think I really did use ricotta for this one

1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Real, fresh parm here people that weird powdered kraft stuff does not cut it.

1 large egg

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Fleur de sel

For crust:

Same as above! Super simple and yumalicious!

For filling:

-Place zucchini in colander set over large bowl. Sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt and toss to coat. Let drain 30 minutes.

-Working in batches, squeeze zucchini in kitchen towel to remove as much liquid as possible. Seriously squueezeeeeee it! I couldn’t believe how much water is in zucchinis, the more water you get out the less sloppy your finished product will be.

-Melt 2 tablespoons butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat.

-Add onion and sauté until soft and translucent.

-Add garlic and sauté until fragrant.

-Add zucchini and lemon juice; reduce heat to medium-low and cook until zucchini is tender, stirring occasionally. Depending on the grate size of your zucchini this could happen pretty quickly, keep an eye on it, you don’t want mush.

-Cool to room temperature.

-Whisk ricotta cheese, 1/3 cup Parmesan, egg, lemon peel, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl.

-Stir in cooled zucchini mixture.

-Preheat oven to 425°F.

-Line large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil

-Roll out dough disk to 1/8-inch thickness.

-Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

-Spoon filling into center of  dough round, leaving 1 1/4- to 1 1/2-inch border.

-Carefully fold up border, pleating dough edges to create round pastry with exposed filling in center.

-Brush crusts with melted butter. This is fine and dandy and tastes just as good, but the egg wash over the crust that was called for in the first recipe makes for a much prettier finished product. I will do that instead when I make these again.

-Drizzle any remaining melted butter over filling in center.

-Sprinkle galette with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

-Sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. I am pretty sure I used plain ol’ sea salt here for lack of fleur de sel.

-Bake galette for roughly 20 minutes.

-Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Bake until crust is golden and filling is set and begins to brown, about 25 minutes longer.

-Run spatula under galette to loosen. These are large and difficult to move. Imagine a pie not in a pie pan… and trying to move it from a baking sheet to a pretty serving pate… my flat airbake cookie sheet was perfect because it doesn’t have edges to cause problems like I had with the first one…

-Let rest 5 minutes. Can be made 4 hours ahead.

-Let stand at room temperature.

-Serve galette hot or at room temperature.**

** I covered these with foil in a sad attempt to keep them warm. However as I am sure many of you know Olympic Opening Ceremonies are hours and hours long. No worries though, they were just as good at room temperature as they were reheated the next day! Awesome!

One last side note on the zucchini galette: if I make it again I think I will try larger chunks of zucchini rather than the fine grate. This preparation was originally intended for individual sized mini galettes and for that scale the grate would be good I am sure. But on this large scale it kind of left me wanting more of a variation in texture, something to mix it up. Larger chunks of zuch, or bigger onions pieces not cooked quite so thoroughly. Things to think about for next time…

And yes the picky pants did try both of them! He preferred the zucchini which surprised me due to the presence of onions. I however have a major weak spot for anything butternut, and have a new found LOVE for leeks (enough to inspire some experimental leek soup which I may include on here one of these day too) so that one was my fav. by far.

And now finally on to my libation contribution for the evening!

French Cosmos

I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't really French at all… but it fit, and I am a girly girl when it comes to my drinks and I enjoy the cosmos!

Here we go:

1 oz Ciroc vodka
1/2 oz Grand Marnier® orange liqueur
1/2 oz sweet and sour mix
1/2 oz cranberry juice
1/4 oz lime juice
1 drop grenadine syrup

Mix all save the grenadine. Pour into your favorite girly martini glass (or mason jar as the case may be) and add the drop of grenadine last. It will settle to the bottom and make a pretty pink fade effect. Enjoy! And repeat!

OH! And by the way I was attempting to make this an authentic French drink when I was looking for recipes. Ciroc Vodka is apparently French vodka…. I didn’t know what I was getting into until I got to the liquor store and it was not only on the top shelf but also had no price tag… at all… scary! So I just grabbed the trusty standby (you know the one in the giant plastic jug with the handle… one on the bottom shelf). And it was lovely!

We were too busy cheering on our countries, critiquing the ridiculous outfits/costumes of each country and stuffing our faces with lovely food from all around the world to take pics of the drinks but they looked pretty much like this:

Oui Oui!!! 

Soooooo It's Been Awhile...

Yesterday was a coworkers birthday in my office. She is always talking about these cream cheese brownies, how much she loves them, how someone should make some and bring them in…. She has been making these not so subtle hints in my general direction ever since she heard that I like to bake… So I finally made them this week and brought them in for her yesterday. I only gave in because it was her birthday! 


Today I was making a grocery list and realized that my list includes; butter, vanilla, and chocolate chips.  All things that 6 months ago I would have said I would never ever have to buy again! And alas I do. This lead me to realize I have quite a back up of pictures of the many things I have baked since then that I have not yet shared on here!

Sorry it has been so long!  I have decided that I will blog at least once a week until I am caught up (save the week that my Momma is visiting! I need to soak in all the Mommy and Me time I can, you all will just have to wait… more). It is summer and so the baking has slowed way down so I should be able to catch up with what I have done so far. I say that but then realize it is almost August and my last posting was way back in April… wow.


So they will be all over the place, all out of order, scattered, random, but you will get them all! Promise.


Today I figured I better start with the brownies that reminded me of this! The brownies that took the very last of a 25 lb box of Ghirardelli mini chocolate chips intended for the ToffeeLeenes.


Also the brownie base recipe I use for the Beckyloo Brownies. I cannot give away the secret of the fudge layer in the Beckyloo's… that is a Houser family secret I am told. But the brownies….

4 oz. (8 tbs.) Unsalted Butter

4 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate

1/4 tsp. Salt

2 tsp. Vanilla

2 Large Room Temp. Eggs

4 ½ oz. (1 cup) Flour

2 tbs. Cocoa Powder

The recipe I got this from notes here that it is important to not over bake or they will dry out… I have found that you can underbake… a lot actually and people will still love them. But that is a story I will note at the end.

Pre heat oven to 350. Butter and flour 8 inch square pan.

Carefully melt butter and chocolate in small sauce pan. Double boiler if you have one. I don’t so I just watch carefully and stir constantly. When completely melted, remove from heat and cool slightly.

Mix in sugar, salt and vanilla.

Mix in eggs one at a time, blending well after each.

Add flour and cocoa, beat until incorporated and smooth.

Pour into prepared pan and and bake until top is uniformly colored and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out almost clean with a few gooey crumblys sticking to it.

This will supposedly take 35-45 minutes… but my oven is psycho so I don’t really know.

But that is if you just want to make plan ol brownies… which are great, I love me some simple brownies… but I love making them extra special even more…

This time it was a cream cheese topping.

1 Package Cream Cheese softened

5 tbs. Butter

1/3 cup Sugar

2 tbs. Flour

2 Eggs

¾ tsp. Vanilla

Combine cheese, butter and sugar.  Mix in remaining ingredients.

Now I was told this would crate a thick mixture you then glob on top of the brownie batter, then run a knife around in it to make a fun marbly swirly look…. The cheese mixture was actually pretty runny and there was enough of it to cover the entire top of the brownies, making a whole cheesey layer rather than spots. Which is fine and turned out really good… just wanted to give you a picture of what to really expect… that I did not have.

So, I poured that over the top of the brownie batter and baked… and baked and baked and I couldn’t get a toothpick to come out looking dry in the least and the edges were getting a little too dark for my liking… not to mention that I had to leave to go watch the hub play softball…. I think this has something to do with the fact that I made a double batch and used a 9 x 13 pan… and didn’t change the temp. You will have to play with this if you do it. Anyways, I pulled them out. That night I went to cut them and had bars of raw brownie batter… so I put them back together… back into the pan and back into the oven… twice baked brownies! You can do it with potatoes right? Why not?

I covered the top with foil so the cream cheese layer that was already done baking wouldn’t burn and threw them back in. For almost 20 more minutes! They were still very gooey… but not like straight batter at least. Just very very rich. And I learned that baking brownies twice gives them a very definite crustlike layer… I thought this was weird, others seemed to love it. So there you go. Another point for experimental baking! 

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pecan Bread

So I have pumpkin, pecans and oatmeal a-plenty... the makings of a great experimental bread me thinks! 

I have come across a few different pumpkin bread recipes and after looking at them all... they are all pretty much the same. So I decided to just use the recipe from my trusty Better Homes and Gardens $5 Bargain cookbook altered a little to make way for the oats and a little extra yumminess for the topping. 

Here we go:

1 cup AP Flour (I have officially opened my second bag of back up flour now!)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 tbspn baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup flour

1 cup oats

1/2 chopped Pecans

1. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, and dust with flour. Set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl combine 1 cup of the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda. Add pumpkin, milk, eggs and shortening. Beat with hand mixer on low speed until blended. Then beat on medium to high for two minutes. Add the additional flour and oats and beat until blended. Fold in the nuts.

3. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan.  

Topping:

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbspn oil

3 tbspn oats

4. Mix topping ingredients together. And sprinkle over the batter in the loaf pan (I just made this part up all on my own, so there most likely will be some left over).

5. Bake at 350 for 60-65 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (NOTE: in my crazy electric oven this only took 25 minutes..... so keep an eye on it...!?) Cool in a pan on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and cool completely on wire rack. If you are not planning on eating this all at once right away, wrap it tightly in aluminum foil and it will stay nice and moist for up to a week.... if it sticks around that long.... 

In my house it did not. Justin has never like nuts... and still he even really liked it and requested I make it again. So this one = a success. And it looks good too!