Meal Plan Monday #234

Out AC has been fritzing out some, which is bad. It's August in Mississippi! We need the AC. Hopefully, it will get repaired tomorrow and we can keep our meal plan this week. We had to forego Thursdays meal in favor of dinner out to try to keep the house as cool as possible. I froze the chicken and will recycle that one this week.

This will be the first full week of classes. I hope this week is smoother than last - it was after 5:00 when I left work every day. Tutorials start this week, so Wednesdays will be either very quick suppers or takeout. Here's to another school year!

Sunday:  Darren's Fried Rice and Fruit Salad

Monday:  Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Chips, and Salad

Tuesday:  Panko Crusted Chicken Tenders, Roasted Cabbage, and Butter Beans

Wednesday:  Tutorial Night Takeout!

Thursday:  Oven Broiled Sandwiches, Chips, and Fruit Salad

Friday:  Science Department Beginning-of-School Pot Luck! (I'm taking Cheesy Black Bean & Corn Dip with Chips and an Emeril-Based Cookie Cake)

Saturday:  Date Night! Darren's Pick!

Meal Plan Monday #161

It's winter here, so we're eating some hearty meals this week. We were just getting back into the routine, and then the three day Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend! Back to the grind on Tuesday, and no more holidays for a while.

Sunday:  Thai Curry with Chicken and Vegetables

Monday:  Black Beans and Rice with Cornbread and Banana Pudding

Tuesday:  Pepperoni, Sausage, Bell Pepper, and Mushroom Pizza with Salad

Wednesday:  Tutorial Night Takeout!

Thursday:  Breakfast for Supper! Sausage, Eggs, Hashbrowns, and Biscuits

Friday:  Date Night! Darren's Pick!

Meal Plan Monday #117

Darren's birthday is Monday, so I made a special dessert! The semester is winding down at school, and we are working on our holiday plans. I have initiation for the club I sponsor on Tuesday night, so we are moving takeout to Tuesday this week.

Sunday:  Ba-chan's Noodle-Rice Casserole and Salad

Monday:  Buttermilk Fried Pork Chops with Baked Sweet Potatoes and Lemony Lemon Brownies

Tuesday:  Tutorial Night Take-Out

Wednesday:  Potato Soup Topped Bacon and Cheese with Pretzel Rolls

Thursday:  Pan Seared Chicken with Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower

Friday:  Date Night! Darren's Pick!

Small-Batch Baking: Vanilla Layer Cake

For Labor Day, I made another small-batch dessert. I finally got to use my tiny layer cake pans! If you don't have any small cake pans, ramekins or a single 6" cake pan will do. If you only cook a single 6" layer, you will have lots of leftover icing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

There is no need to get out a mixer. I used one small to medium mixing bowl, two small custard dishes or ramekins (one for melting butter and one for separating the egg), a whisk, and a wooden spoon or silicone spatula are all the necessary tools. Plus measuring cups and spoons, of course. I washed the tools by hand while the cakes were baking and used the same ones for making the icing.

I made this vanilla cake with vanilla bean sour cream icing. It sort of reminds me of a Lord Baltimore cake, probably due to the fairly intense yellow color and relatively dense, moist texture. 

It was pretty fast to make, super cute, and so delicious! Here it is next to the box of baking soda for size comparison.

YUM! We cut it into four pieces and shared with a couple of friends, but if you really want a special treat, just share it with a loved one!

Small-Batch Baking: Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I finally baked something in our new house! We are still trying to get the last things done, a few more boxes to unpack and our new washer and dryer were delivered yesterday. Slowly, we are getting settled.

I wanted to bake oatmeal cookies last weekend, but I didn't have enough time. I was determined to bake something this weekend, so I took some butter out of the refrigerator and left it on the counter to soften all afternoon. Then I mixed up these cookies using a medium mixing bowl and a wooden spoon while Darren was cooking our salmon. I baked them using a single cookie sheet, and they were ready in about half an hour. The yield was 10 large-ish cookies.

Bread Pudding

I went to a pre-Thanksgiving potluck supper way back in November, and I was assigned bread and butter. I wasn't sure how many people would be attending, so I carried in two types of bread - regular French bread and brown oat bread, kind of like they have at the Cheesecake Factory. Even after sharing bread with people taking plates home, I had a lot of extra bread. Darren and I ate some of it, but there was no way we would finish it all before it got stale or molded. Bread pudding to the rescue!

I have had bread pudding made with all sorts of bread, and my mom raves to this day about the bread pudding her grandmother used to make with whatever baked goods were leftover at the end of the week (rolls, biscuits, cake with frosting...). I used to eat at this little place in Sarasota, Florida, on Siesta Key, called the Wildflower that would make bread pudding out of their day-old muffins. It was amazing. I even made a small bread pudding out of the leftover brown sugar pound cake cupcakes from a few weeks ago, and I once made a bread pudding from a mixture of bread and pound cake. Anyway, the thing about bread pudding is that you can make it with whatever kind of bread or bread-like stuff you have laying around.

It is a fairly simple undertaking, and could often be thrown together with ingredients that are probably all ready in the pantry and refrigerator. In this bread pudding, I used cream, but I have also used milk when that was all I had on hand. I would shy away from skim milk, but just about any other milk should work. Bread puddings can be sweet or savory, and can be plain or have lots of mix-ins.

I think the key to a good bread pudding is mixing up the wet ingredients and then letting the bread soak up the eggy-creamy goodness before baking. This bread pudding has nuts, raisins, and dried cranberries. I also served it with a whiskey sauce, but I wasn't particularly fond of the sauce, so I'm not including it here. Anyway, you can see in this picture (that I didn't remember to take until we had started eating it), the edges are firm and golden, and the center still has a bit of jiggle to it.

Small-Batch Baking: Rocky Road Brownies

This recipe is based on the recipe "Light Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Rocky Road Icing" by Alice Nunnery, Dot Austin, and Anna Manzo, the SMRMC IV team. It was published in a hospital cookbook probably 30 years ago. I have fond memories of these brownies from childhood. I tried making them a few years ago. They didn't turn out how I remembered. For one thing, the original recipe calls for only 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder in a whole batch of brownies four times the size of the small-batch I made. I love milk chocolate. I love the flavor, and more than that, I adore the melt of milk chocolate when I eat it. It is so creamy and satisfying to my tastes. As I remember the brownies, they were the brownie equivalent of milk chocolate, but they weren't chocolate-y at all when I made them last time, so I significantly bumped up the cocoa, but as you'll see in the pictures, they are still very light chocolate. The original recipe also calls for oleo - blast from the past, anyone!? I used unsalted butter.

The brownies can be made as one bowl brownies. I melted the butter and mixed in the cocoa.

Then I added the egg, sugar, and vanilla, and mixed all that up until well blended.

Then I folded in the flour until no traces of white were visible.

I used a mixture of chopped pecans and almonds. The original recipe calls for walnuts or pecans. Original rocky road ice cream was made with walnuts, but is generally made with almonds now. I like almonds, but I am a pecan girl, so I used a mixture.

Then I spread the batter in my baking pan and cooked them for 20 minutes.

I topped them with mini marshmallows and put them back in the oven for 5 minutes.

When I took the out of the oven, I put the pan on a wire rack to cool for a while.

I prepared the frosting and spread it over the partially cooled brownies.

Then I let them finish cooling and served them with a nice cold glass of milk!

Lemon Meringue Pielettes

I was recently introduced to small-batch baking. I wanted to make a special dessert for Darren, but I didn't want a whole cake or 3 dozen cookies, so I started searching the internet for recipes that make just enough for a few servings.

I found a few different places that had recipes or references to the book Small-Batch Baking: When Just Enough for 1 or 2 ... Is Just Enough! by Debby Maugans Nakos. I decided to order the book, and a few small baking utensils: layer cake pans, pie pans, and angel food pans. If you get the same goods I got, you'll also qualify for free super saver shipping, but I digress.

I made the chocolate chip cookies from the book last week. They were good cookies, and the eight cookies lasted us three days, I think. They are a good basic chocolate chip cookie, and I didn't need any special equipment. I also just mixed them with a wooden spoon, and didn't bother to get out the mixer. One bowl, one cookie sheet, and about half an hour of time, and we had fresh, homemade cookies!

This week, I wanted a citrus dessert that would be refreshing. I looked up recipes for lemon meringue pie in the book and on the internet, and I used some of a few different recipes to come up with my recipe. Darren loves lemon desserts. One layer of our wedding cake was lemon, and our awesome baker, Aurora at Lovely Little Cake Shop made us a 6" lemon anniversary cake a few months ago. She even decorated it like our wedding cake!

Looking at recipes for lemon curd and ingredient lists on jarred lemon curd, it seemed to me that the best stuff uses only the yolks, which is perfect for lemon meringue pie!

I started with butter and flour to make the crust.

After mixing with a fork, I added the sugar and mixed than in until the crust bits were fairly homogeneous.

I added the vinegar and one tablespoon of water.

I ended up adding a second tablespoon of water to get a ball or dough, then I split the dough ball in half, formed two disks, wrapped each in plastic wrap, and put them in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

While the dough was chilling, I made the lemon curd. I started with softened butter, and creamed it with sugar.

Then I added the egg yolks one at a time. I put the egg whites in a bowl and placed them in the refrigerator to save for later.

Then I zested one lemon and juiced two. I drizzled the lemon juice into the butter-sugar-egg mixture while beating, and then added the lemon zest. I couldn't take a picture of this because I can't mix and pour and photograph simultaneously with only two hands. I transferred the curd to a small sauce pan and cooked it for about 12 minutes until it was thick. In the future, I will likely mix the ingredients in the sauce pan to avoid dirtying another dish. After removing from the heat, I added a little vanilla bean paste.

Then I transferred the curd to a bowl and put plastic wrap over the top, touching the surface of the curd. I let it chill for a bit while I did some other things.

Once the dough was ready, I put each disk into a well buttered 4" pie plate and used my hands to press it up the sides. I pricked the bottom and then baked the shells for about 20 minutes until they were lightly golden.

When I was ready to assemble the pies, I put half of the curd into each pastry shell. Then I beat the egg whites until peaks began to form. I added some sugar and vanilla, and continued beating until stiff peaks formed. Then I spread the meringue on the pies and baked them until lightly browned. I topped one pie with a lot of meringue and one with only a little, because I really like meringue, and Darren doesn't care about it. 

The lemon curd is sweet and tart and delicious. The crust tastes almost like shortbread. These are a great dessert, and could serve 2-4 people. Based on this recipe, you could also make a single 6" or 7" tart or pie. Just remember that meringue absorbs water and gets soggy, so you'll want to serve this dessert the day you make it. The curd and crusts can be made a day or two in advance and the egg whites can be stored in a tightly sealed container for a day or two also. Feel free to use a graham or vanilla wafer crust, if you like those better.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake Cupcakes with Browned Butter Glaze

You may or may not know that I am a high school teacher. I teach chemistry and physics in Phoenix. School got out two weeks ago, and my seniors graduated. I will miss them dearly, and I wish them all the best in the future.

Then I spent a week writing evaluations, and now I am enjoying my summer. One of my plans is to blog more regularly. I have a plan for three posts a week. We'll see how it goes. 

I am so used to planning my school week on Sundays that I really didn't know what to do with myself this past weekend. One of my tall girls suggested I bake something, and I had seen this recipe a few days prior, so I took some butter out of the freezer and got started.

I creamed the butter and brown sugar according to the directions, and then added the eggs.

The one change that I did make the the recipe was that I added some vanilla bean paste to the batter. I didn't measure it, I just added a dollop of the stuff, but probably about two teaspoons. I first discovered vanilla bean paste last winter when I was making Christmas treats.

Then I alternated the sifted flour and buttermilk.

The batter is pretty thick. I used an ice cream scoop to fill the muffin cups, because I read that using the scoop makes perfect cupcakes, but I would suggest using less than a full scoop. Most of my cup cakes extended over the tops by a lot.

Once the first batch came out of the oven, I started browning the butter.

The recipe mentions removing the solid bits from the browned butter, and there were a lot of them.

I measured the sugar, added vanilla and vanilla bean paste, and mixed in the butter.

Then I added milk one splash at a time until the glaze was creamy and pourable.

Then I glazed the cupcakes. I put them on a rack over a parchment-lined baking sheet.

We let the glaze set for a while and then ate a delicious cuppy cake with a tall glass of cold milk.

The cake is fantastic. I think it would make an excellent bundt cake. The edges are amazing due to the brown sugar. I might try different glazes or frostings. I like the browned butter glaze, but it was a little weird at first.

Enjoy summer!