Creme Brûlée

Adapted from Barefoot in Paris

Ingredients:

1 extra large egg

4 extra large egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 tbl for each serving

3 cups heavy cream 

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3/4 tbl orange juice (pulp free)

A little less than 1/4 tsp orange extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle, mix egg, egg yolks, and 1/2 cup sugar together on low speed until just combined. Meanwhile, scald the cream in small saucepan. With mixer on low speed, slowly add the cream to the eggs. Add the vanilla, orange juice and orange extract to mixture. Pour into 6 to 8 ounce ramekins until almost full. (You can also use a larger ramekin to just make one large serving). 

Place ramekins in a baking pan and carefully pour boiling water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 35-40 mins until the custards are set when gently shaken. (Large one takes about 1 hour and 20 mins). Remove the ramekins from the water bath, cool to room temperature and refrigerate until firm. 

To serve, spread 1 tbls sugar evenly on the top of each ramekin and hear with a kitchen blowtorch until the sugar carmelizes evenly. Allow to sit at room temp for a min until the carmelized sugar hardens. 

Potato and corn chowder

So, I realized that I need to do more crockpot meals because by the end of the day I'm burnt out. I randomly found this recipe on Pinterest and decided to try it out. I did make a few changes according to what I had on hand and it was still delicious! (http://www.mamalovesfood.com/2011/10/corn-and-potato-chowder-recipe-for.html?m=1, this is where I got the recipe from, sorry it's an ugly link. I'm on my phone because if I don't post it someone will get after me...Bobbie...)

4 large russet potatoes, scrubbed, skins left on cut into 1/4-1/2 inch cubes.
1 yellow onion diced (mine happened to be a very large one)
5 cloves garlic smashed and minced
2-3 cups frozen corn (or whatever looks good to you)
4 cups water
4 bouillon cubes
1 can chicken broth
1/2-3/4 pound of bacon cooked and diced
Salt, pepper, seasoning salt
2 cups milk (I used non fat with no problem)

Put potatoes, onion, garlic, and corn and bacon in crockpot. Add water, bouillon, and chicken broth. I threw in a few shakes of seasoning salt and quite a bit of pepper. Cook on high for 6-8ish hours.
When potatoes are nice and soft and tender you can either use an immersion blender, take some soup and put it in a blender, or I just used my potato masher and mashed up one side to help thicken it. Pour in milk and stir well. Let cook on high for another 15-20 minutes or until heated through. That's it! Super easy and super delicious especially on cold snowy days like today.

Cinnamon Rolls

These are delicious cinnamon rolls. I actually found the recipe in a family circle magazine.

1 cup milk
1 envelope (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (100-110 deg F)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted melted butter
4 1/2 to 5 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Filling:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
3 teaspoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Heat milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it just begins to boil. remove from heat and let stand until cooled to room temperature.
2. Meanwhile, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a large bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of the sugar and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, eggs and butter. Beat in cooled milk.
3. Gradually add 4 cups of the flour and the salt, scraping down side of bowl, until a soft dough forms. Turn dough onto a floured work surface. Knead into the dough as much of the remaining flour as necessary, adding more if too sticky. Knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. The dough will be soft.
4. Grease a large bowl. Place the dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
5. Line one 11 x 14 baking sheet with parchment paper (the filling becomes very sticky so I found using parchment paper eliminated much of the mess and the cinnamon rolls came up easy!) Coat paper with cooking spray. Prepare filling: mix butter, both kinds of sugar and cinnamon together in a medium size bowl.
6. Punch down dough. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to an 18 x 12 inch rectangle. Spread the butter-sugar mixture over the dough. Starting on one long side roll up jelly roll fashion and pinch seam to close.
7. Cut crosswise into 12 (I think I only got about 10, we like big cinnamon rolls) equal size pieces. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm spot until double in size about 30-45 minutes (I actually let them rise for almost 2 hours because we had to run errands and they were SO SO fluffy! sure its a lot longer but it was so worth it!) Or you can cover them tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the following morning.
8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Uncover pans and bake rolls until the are golden brown and bubbly, 30 to 40 minutes (mine were done at about 27 minutes). Let cool 10 minutes before serving.
9. Cream Cheese Frosting: Mix all of the frosting ingredients together- blend well. Spoon over the cinnamon rolls.

DELICIOUS!

Italian Sausage and pepper sandwiches on homemade hoagies

So this morning while trying to decide what to eat I went through the freezer. We had already had chicken like 3 days in a row so that was out and I wasn't really like eating beef that only left italian sausage. Well, I tried searching for a new recipe that uses italian sausage. Nothing sounded great. So I decided to just go to my standby recipe for italian sausage, sandwiches. Only problem was that I did not have hoagie rolls. My kids were on one today so there was no way I was venturing to the store by myself with them so back to the computer to find a recipe, and I did. I altered it a bit to what I thought would be good and they turned out great! I was pleasantly surprised! And honestly, they probably took me less time to make then had I gone to the store (thats excluding rise time, but they are still a super easy bread to make). Okay, heres the recipe:

Hoagie Rolls (makes about 6-8):
1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp bulk yeast)
1 1/2 cups of water divided
1 tablespoon sugar, divided
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tbl salt
4-4 1/4 cups flour

1 egg white
1 tablespoon water

In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Add in 1/2 tablespoon sugar. Let stand for about 5 minutes.
Add remaining water and sugar. Beat in oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour until smooth. I then switched the attachment on my kitchen aid to the dough hook and Stirred in enough flour to form a soft dough. Let mix on medium for a couple of minutes (this helps cut down on the time you need to knead it).
Turn onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (you should be able to pull it a bit before it breaks)
Place in a greased bowl turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise until double, about 45 minutes.
Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured board and divide into 6-8 pieces.
Shape into an oval. You can kind of flatten them down a little bit so you get the nice oval shape. They will puff up nicely I promise!
Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes.
Mix eggwhite and water well. Brush onto the rolls and then bake immediately at 400 degrees for 13-18 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool (the egg whites give the hoagie that crustier crust).

Italian Sausage and Pepper Sandwiches
4 italian sausages
1 onion halved and then sliced
1 green bell pepper sliced
1 tsp oil

Cook italian sausages until done (I put mine in a pan with a bit of water and let them cook that way). Remove from the pan. I usually do this all in the same pan, but usually wash it before the next step.
Heat oil in pan until hot. Add in bell pepper and onion. Cook until almost soft and carmelized. While that is cooking, slice the italian sausages length wise. Add to the onions and italian sausages so that the sausage can get slightly crispy. Serve on rolls and we like it with mustard.

Chicken Stir fry

So, I made chicken stir fry last night. Delicious! Here's what I do.

1 chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp ginger
red pepper flakes (if desired, i usually just sprinkle a couple in)
stir fry vegetables
1 package top ramen noodles cooked (without the seasoning, I used to buy the actual chow mein noodles, but they are like $3 for a small package. So one day when I didn't have any on hand I used top ramen noodles and they worked great, plus I like the price of them much better)

Mix together soy sauce, honey, ginger and red pepper flakes. Take half of the sauce and pour it into a bowl with the chicken breast. Let it marinate for 30 minutes or longer. Reserve the other half of the sauce.
In a hot pan, put 1 tsp oil. Cook the chicken until its done. Add in your stirfry vegetables (I use the frozen bag from costco and just throw in how ever much I think we'll eat, usually adding in some extra broccoli). Cover and let those cook until hot. Add in the cooked and drained top ramen noodles as well as the reserved sauce. Let the noodles and sauce heat up and its ready to serve. We eat it over white rice. Tasty!

Lion House Rolls- made them on Sunday

I made these on Sunday and they were tasty. I made them as written except instead of the dry instant milk and water, I used 2 cups of warm milk (110-115 deg). They turned out pretty good. I thought that they needed a touch more flavor (maybe a little more sugar and salt) but the texture was perfect! They were slightly dense but still so fluffy and airy. So tasty with the potato soup we had!

Found this recipe here. Can't wait to try it. I LOVE their rolls

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees)
• 2/3 cup nonfat dry milk (instant)
• 2 Tb. dry yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup shortening (butter or margarine)
• 1 egg
• 5-5 1/2 cups flour, all purpose (bread flour can be used if you have it on hand)

Method:

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the water and the milk powder and stir so the milk dissolves. Add the yeast to tthis mixture then the sugar, salt, shortening, egg and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low speed of mixer until ingredients are wet, then turn to medium speed and mix for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and add 2 more cups of flour then mix on low speed until the ingredients are wet, then turn mixer on medium speed and mix for 2 minutes. The dough will be getting stiff and you may need to remove the bowl from the mixer and mix in the remaining flour by hand. Add approximately 1/2 cup of flour and mix again. (This can be done by hand or mixer). The dough should be soft, not overly sticky, and not stiff. (It is not necessary to use the entire amount of flour). Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and pour approximately on tablespoon of vegetable oil all around the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough over in the bowl so it is covered with the oil. (This helps prevent the dough from drying out.) Cover with plastic and allow to rise in a warm place until double in size. Sprinkle a cutting board or counter with flour and put the dough on the flour. It is now ready to roll out and cut into desired shape and size of rolls. Place on greased (or parchment lined) baking pans. Let rise in a warm place until the rolls are double in size (approx. 1-1 1/2 hours). Bake in a 375-degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until they are browned to your satisfaction. Brush with melted butter while hout. Yields 2 to 2 1/2 dozen rolls.

Can't wait to make this

I saw this

and can't wait to try them! I want to try using wheat though. We love chicken pita sandwiches. I had NO idea you could make your own pitas (I mean I figured you could, but who does that? Hopefully me soon).