Seafood Chowder

With cooler weather upon us (in Pennsylvania at least), soups are now more appropriate! I admit it was a little ridiculous for me to be cooking and blogging about soup in the middle of summer, but when you're on a budget and already have most of the ingredients, soup is pretty convenient.

Fish keeps our chicken company in the freezer; our supermarket usually has good deals on frozen fish, so we stock up for recipes such as this!

Seafood Chowder
from Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of 30 Minute Meals
Ingredients
12 ounces fresh or frozen fish fillets (such as salmon, orange roughy, or cod)
3 cups loose-pack frozen diced hash brown potatoes with onion and peppers (aka Potatoes O'Brien)
1 cup water
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 10 3/4-ounce can condensed cream of shrimp or cream of potato soup
1/3 cup cooked bacon pieces
2 teaspoons snipped fresh dillweed or 3/4 teaspoons dried dillweed
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 2-ounce jar diced pimiento, drained

Instructions
1. Thaw fish, if frozen. Rinse fish; pat dry with paper towels. Cut fish into 1-inch pieces. Set aside.

Oops! Fish down! Kat wasn't sure what to do....

2. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan combine hash brown potatoes and the water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 5 minutes or until tender.

We cooked up some turkey bacon and coarsely chopped it for the required bacon pieces.

3. Stir in evaporated milk, soup, bacon, dillweed, and pepper. Return to boiling. Add fish and pimiento; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork.

The evaporated milk and cream of chicken soup makes this chowder delightfully creamy and savory. It's perfect for a quick, warm meal this fall!

Cornmeal Cookies

I know what your thinking...I hadn't heard of cornmeal cookies either -- that is until I felt the urge to bake cookies last week and found the curious recipe in The Joy of Cooking. To everyone who tried these cookies, I described them as corn bread as it's should have been. It's not that I don't like corn bread -- I just can't bake it myself! And I call myself a Southerner...for shame! Now I can just bake these cookies instead to accompany Thanksgiving and down-home meals, and I'm pretty sure no one will complain!

The name of these cookies is actually "Cornmeal Citrus Cookies," but I cheated on the required lemon zest and used the same amount of lemon juice instead. We couldn't pick up much lemon flavor at all, but the cookies were so nommy anyway that we didn't mind. I'm sure using the correct ingredients would bring out the correct flavors though....

Cornmeal Cookies
Prep Time: Approximately 1 hour & 20 minutes
Baking Time: 6 - 8 minutes
Yield: About 7 dozen 2.5-inch cookies

Ingredients
(all at room temperature)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, at room temperature
1 cup sugar, processed in a food processor for 30 seconds, or superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 large egg yolk
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup cornmeal
1.5 cups all purpose flour

Instructions
1. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, salt, and lemon juice on medium speed until very fluffy and well blended. Add egg yolk and beat until well blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and beat in flour and cornmeal until just combined.

2. Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or it can be doubled-wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month.)

We ran out of plastic wrap, so I refrigerated them in plastic zip lock bags!

3. To bake, position a rack in the upper third and another in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Remove one half of dough from the refrigerator and divide in half. Return the unused portion to the refrigerator.

4. Lightly flour the work surface. Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle the surface lightly with flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into desired shapes. Place the dough shapes on greased cookie sheets, spacing about 1/2 inch apart. Get as many dough shapes as you can out of each sheet, because the dough should be rolled only 2 times. Form the leftover dough into balls and flatten them to about 1/8 inch thick.

5. Bake, 2 sheets at a time, until the cookies are evenly golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes; rotate the sheets halfway through baking for even browning. Using a spatula, immediately transfer the cookies to racks to cool. Repeat steps 4 & 5 to use up desired amount of dough. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container.

I have to admit that our dough was super sticky, so we had to add a lot of flour while rolling. I enjoy rolling cookie dough and cutting out each cookie, so I chose that process over drop cookies, but you could do that instead if you like. You still would get your hands pretty messy by rolling the cookies into balls, so I think you'd need additional flour as well. Perhaps the lemon juice substitution resulted in the unusual stickiness, or maybe the humidity of our apartment did it. I hope your cookies give you less trouble but are just as nommy!

Did you know you can freeze eggs once they've been cracked? Now I don't have to rush to make mayo or other noms with my leftover egg whites or yolks; I can just freeze them until I need them! They can stay frozen for a year and must be thawed a day prior to use. Who knew?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

I had seen this "milkshake" recipe floating around Pinterest for a long while before I convinced myself to purchase the required bananas. History reveals that I'm not the biggest plain banana fan so I never used to buy them just to eat for breakfast or as a snack. The few times that I had bought them were for banana bread (a recipe that I can't replicate to the perfection of Grandmama's...yet.) As a result of this "milkshake" recipe, I now keep bananas stocked in our kitchen because I discovered you can freeze them! Pinterest leads you to several nommy recipes that require frozen bananas for different drinks and even "ice cream"!

Now I don't have to worry about consuming them before they go bad; I just slice them up, remove the peel, and pop them in the freezer for whenever I feel like a cold treat. If you leave the peel on when you freeze the bananas, it will turn brown, but the banana is still good!

I refer to these "milkshakes" as smoothies since they're banana-based instead of ice cream-based. They turn out so thick and creamy that "milkshake" is definitely an applicable description though!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothies
Ingredients
2 frozen bananas, pre-sliced before freezing
1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup milk
1 Tbsp maple syrup, sugar/sweetener, or honey
1 heaping Tbsp peanut butter

Instructions
Blend all ingredients in a high-power blender until smooth. Turn off blender and scrape sides with a spoon or spatula then blend again to mix.

The first time I made these, I froze the bananas whole and with the peel. I learned quickly that it's much easier to peel and slice them before freezing! As you can see from this photo, it is quite possible to slice them after the entire banana is frozen though! Just watch your fingers!

We enjoy this chocolate-y treat in our designated "chocolate milk glasses." We registered for these glasses for our wedding because they remind me of glasses my grandparents always had for the grandchildrens' chocolate milk. Special drinks deserve special glasses, in my opinion!

One serving of this smoothie makes about twelve ounces of smoothie which contains about 496 calories. You can probably cut down on the calorie count with sweetener, and I can attest to the recipe's nommy-ness when made with honey instead of the syrup. Honestly the maple syrup is a little too sweet for my tastes. Hubby and I split one serving when we make them, and I can't imagine drinking a whole batch by myself. One banana is really filling -- let alone two!

Chocolate Cupcakes

This blog post is inspired by the dentist. I found it ironic that I could watch a woman bake cupcakes on TV while having cavities drilled, and I left the dentist office not wanting to brush or floss more but wanting to bake cupcakes! So I went home and scoured my collection of cookbooks for the perfect new recipe to try.

My friend Miranda, knowing and sharing my love of cooking, gave me "The Complete Book of Chocolate And 200 Chocolate Recipes" a while back. From that gift, I have baked real chocolate banana pudding, peanut butter marble cake, and now the most important creation for any serious baker...cupcakes!

Of course I can't make any recipe the way I'm supposed to, so I used unsweetened cocoa powder instead of chocolate for the cupcakes because, at the time, I didn't have any chocolate bars. I happen to have six in the fridge right now, but that wasn't helping me very much when I baked these over a month ago!

Chocolate Fairy Cakes
(AKA chocolate cupcakes)
Ingredients
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp + 2 tsp canola or vegetable oil
4 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp water
2.5 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1.5 cups caster sugar (Sugar ground in a food processor for a couple of minutes)
3/4 cup butter or margarine, at room temperature
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease 24 cupcake tins and line with paper liners.

2. Cook the cocoa powder, oil, 4 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar, and water in a small saucepan, stirring frequently until heated through. Remove from the heat. With a sifter or whisk, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and caster sugar into a large bowl. Add the chocolate mixture, butter or margarine, milk, and vanilla.

3. With a hand-held electric mixer on medium speed, beat the mixture until smooth. Increase the speed to high and beat for 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat for 1 minute after each addition.

4. Divide the mixture evenly among the prepared tins.

I only had enough liners for half my cakes, but I think they turned out fine!

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean. Cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely on a wire rack.

I used my go-to cream cheese icing recipe from The Joy of Cooking. You can find it on my carrot cake post and make it while you wait for your cupcakes to cool! I left out the cinnamon this time though; as much as I love cinnamon, it's more appropriate for carrot cake, I think.

Graham Cracker Crisp

My grandmother's 91st birthday was last month, and unfortunately I couldn't celebrate with her and the rest of the family since we live over 1000 miles away from her. However what I COULD do was experience a little bit of her and send her a little of myself by making a recipe of hers then mailing her the resulting goodies. For as long as I can remember my grandmother has made these graham cracker crisps for almost every get-together or just to have around the house.

I had never made this simple recipe before, and, as is my usual habit, I changed the recipe a little bit. Of course there is nothing wrong with the original recipe, but I substituted a couple of ingredients for items I had on hand. I also cut the recipe down by half because I only had one sleeve of graham crackers and no butter. To make matters even more complicated, I only had about 1/4 cup margarine...aaand peanuts instead of pecans. So I guess you could say I botched the recipe. Fortunately it's hard to make graham crackers, margarine, sugar, and peanuts taste bad, and I was pleased when Grandmama wrote back saying my "version" of the recipe tasted great!

Graham Cracker Crisp
Ingredients
graham crackers
pecans, cut up
1 stick butter
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup white sugar

Instructions
1. Line up graham crackers on a cookie sheet touching each other. Sprinkle each with pecans.

2. Cook butter, margarine, and sugar mixture in a small saucepan until bubbly. Cook 3 minutes and pour over crackers and pecans.

3. Bake in oven for 15 minutes at 300°. Transfer grahams to wax paper or wire rack to cool.

If I remember correctly, when you use the right ingredients and proportions for this recipe, the outside turns hard and more candy-like than cracker-like as mine did. As I mentioned before, it's hard to truly mess up these ingredients, so if you change the recipe like I did, they'll probably still turn out to be a nommy treat!