It's been a long time since I wrote a new article for this blog, so I thought it would be a good time to start. I made an icebox cake, and old fashioned delicious dessert. 

    First, I made my chocolate wafers. They don't sell "famous chocolate wafers" around here, though I know they are available at some stores and online. I love to do copycat recipes, so I looked at many recipes on various cooking blogs for thin crisp chocolate cookies. 

    Most of the recipes were similar, and I think I picked the one that seemed the best. None of them have eggs in them, which I found interesting. Flour, butter, baking soda, vanilla extract, salt, unsweetened cocoa, and milk. I chose a recipe that didn't need a food processor, because I don't have one. Less of a hassle to just mix by hand anyway.

    The cookies dough gets shaped into a roll, then chilled a couple of hours or more. Slice thin, bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. 

    The cookies were tasty, but I don't think they were as good as the Nabisco wafers I was trying to copy. Not as crisp. But since I was going to use them to make an icebox cake it was a moot point. 

    Icebox cakes are easy to assemble. I was doing mine from memory, and my memory was unreliable. I had two long rows of cookies, and I should have had three short rows to have a true "zebra effect" when sliced. I used cool whip, for convenience and because it holds up well and doesn't separate the way real cream does. But real cream would certainly taste better!  

    Cover the rows of cookies with remaining cream, and chill overnight before chilling and serving. Use a loaf pan for ease of stacking.

Anyway, here are some pictures. It was fun to make something different for dessert!

MMM-Tasty!!

 

A few of my favorite food things

     I can't believe my last post was almost a year ago!! So I'm long overdue for a discussion of food! First, I thought I'd write a list of indispensable things that make cooking easier and more fun. Great culinary inventions, if you will.

     Non-stick cooking spray is something I wouldn't want to live without. For obvious reasons: it keeps the food, especially things like eggs and hash, from sticking to the pan. It lets the slices of hash stay round and nicely browned, and keeps the yolks from breaking when you turn over eggs.  If you're baking chicken, you can go without the oil if you want, and still get crispy results. I usually use oil anyway, but it's nice to know that in a pinch, I can go without it.

     I can't say enough good things about oven cooking bags. Of late I can only find Reynolds brand where I shop, but if you're able to find a generic or store brand at your local grocery store, they work just as well. 

      They show a turkey on the box, but I rarely roast a turkey in them. I find they are perfectly suited for barbeque style meats, such as ribs (beef or pork) or chicken pieces with barbeque sauce slathered all over it. It's so easy and foolproof to make melt in your mouth, fall off the bone meats by cooking at very low temps in the bag. And it doesn't take that long either. It must be the steam that does it.  

     My favorite ready made sauces are Sweet Baby Rays-all the varieties are good, but the sweet and spicy blend is especially good. I recently tried Trader Joe's Carolina style sauce, that is mustard based. Yummy!! There's an endless number of sauces on the market, or you can make your own. No matter what you put on the meat, a cooking bag pretty much guarantees a delicious outcome.

    My last kitchen helper for today is the Orgreenic pans. I was fortunate to get a set of them marked down 75% at the drugstore.  They really are nonstick and work great as long as you don't abuse the pan with Brillo pads. I see they now make Orgreenic cookie sheets too, so I'll have to pick up a couple when I get a chance.

    What are your favorite kitchen helpers? Feel free to share yours.

Have You Ever Heard of Sirloin Spoon Roast?

     I needed something for supper, so I checked the Whole Food weekly flyer online.  This week they were featuring a sirloin spoon roast, priced $5.99 per pound, which was 50% off.

   In all my years, I've never heard of this before. I decided I'd get one, but I normally wouldn't pay six dollars a pound for something unless it was really special. 

   Thank goodness for the Internet. I did a search on spoon roast recipes. The first method I looked at called for cooking the roast at 225 degrees for 6-8 hours. Since it was already late afternoon, I knew this method wouldn't for me. It also said that this method yielded little to no juices. So I scrolled down to the next search result.

   Here I found what I was looking for. A fool proof method for cooking this amazing piece of beef. You choose a roast that's 4-8 pounds. Set the oven to 500 degrees. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes per pound. I used a heavy glass baking pan, oval shaped.

    My roast was 4.30 pounds. There were only two roasts to choose from, and I chose the larger one. These roasts have no bone, it's all meat and not too much fat.  I coated the meat with salt, pepper, and flour. Normally, I would've put an onion in, but with this method I couldn't.  I did throw a couple chunks of butter under and on top.

    The meat cooked for just over 20 minutes. I could hear it sizzling away. Here's the fun part: Shut off the oven, and let the roast sit for two hours. Voila!! When the two hours are up, you have a medium rare, juicy chunk of meat!  It made it's own gravy too. All I had to do was heat it up in a saucepan. The meat was still warm, but I didn't want it to cook any further. So I used to gravy as a  dipping sauce, which heated the meat enough.

    The article called spoon roast "a poor man's prime rib, or better". I would have to agree, it looked just like prime rib when I went to carve it! You know that solid pink, super tender look that prime rib has. Mmmm.  And they call it a spoon roast because you're supposed to be able to cut it with a spoon. I didn't actually try this, but I will say it melts in your mouth!

   I wish I had taken picture of the roast, in all stages of the cooking process. I know I'll be going back to Whole Food for a few more of these while they're on sale, and I'll post pix the next time I cook one. 

  From the comments on the sites, Whole Food seems to be the only place that sells them. My next stop, the Restaurant Depot. Wonder if they have them there!

  So what's for supper tonight? Leftovers, of course! I served last night's meal with real mashed potatoes (as opposed to instant), and organic carrots. Tonight I'll probably make rice and maybe spinach. Bon Appetite!

See something you like? Be a Copy Cat!

I don't know about you, but I love to eat. I like to try new foods, and most of all, if there's something unusual or expensive that I like, I want to learn how to make it myself!

Why? First, because it's fun, second, it's a challenge, third because it's often better than what you can buy pre-made. Plus...it's often much less expensive to do it yourself! And nothing feels better (to me, anyway) than to save money.

Lately, I also find the research on how different recipes are made very educational. For example....the other day at work, there was a container of chocolate covered coffee beans. What a delicacy, especially when I needed a pick-me-up.

 

Crunchy, decadent, mocha delight! I thought there must be a special trick to it, so you don't break a tooth on the coffee bean. I was wrong! I looked up the recipe online-I only looked at about ten, there were probably 10,000. But the bottom line, it's as easy as pie! You just use high quality beans and high quality chocolate.  Dip, dry and enjoy. So today I bought a bag of espresso beans and a bag of chocolate chips.   When I have a chance I'll make them and share with all my coffee loving friends and family. And I saved a fortune, too. To hold me over, I ate a small handful of chips and two espresso beans. If you're really lazy, you can just keep a container of each on hand, and it tastes about the same!

 

Another recent snack binge I've been on is beef jerky. It's tasty but very expensive.  It's relatively easy to make, and even easier if you have a food dehydrator. We have one somewhere, but I think it's time to get a new one.

 

Lastly, it's just fun to recreate candy--there are dozens of websites devoted to copycat candy recipes.  Just google it, and pick out the ones you like. I like to make copycat Mounds bars. Yummy!

 

So, whatever meals or snacks strike your fancy, check for a copycat recipe and give it a try!

A Yummy Chocolate Cake!

     I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote an article here. I've been devoting what little time I have to my other blog. But I thought it was time to get to work!  And what better way to start then to brag about my triple layer chocolate cake!

    It was a pain in the neck to make, but the results were worth it. First I had to go and buy new cake pans with  three inch high sides. 

   I used vanilla butter-cream frosting for the layers, and a chocolate ganache for the top and sides!

   I didn't wait long enough for one of the cake layers to cool, so when it broke, I had to repair it with ganauche. My grandmother used to say it all looks the same when it hits your stomach.

  Anyway, here are the pictures of my cake. Making a cake from scratch isn't as convenient as a mix, but the texture is really something worth working on! Most cake mixes have pudding in the mix, so they're moist. But a real cake is tender and the mouthfeel (I hate that word, but I can't think of a better way to describe it) is superior.

So it's not perfect, but it sure tasted good!

Look at the gleam on the ganauche!

 This is the way it looked while I was fixing the broken part. I was fortunate that the ganauche was liquid, and poured over the top.     I don't have the recipe handy to share, but I got it from the Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It was an old Christmas issue. The original recipe called for peppermint cream cheese frosting inside.     Until next time, happy baking!

  

What to eat when it's too hot outside

     I don't know how hot it is where you live, but here in the Northeast, is has been hot and humid for days.  It makes it hard to work up an appetite when you're sweating, and it's hard to breathe. Aside from that, you really don't want to heat up the house by turning on the oven. So what should we have to eat? Let's think about some cool options.

     There's sandwiches galore- how about a BLT? Nothing like having one with your own garden fresh lettuce and juicy tomatoes. If you don't have a garden, be prepared to pay a fortune at the Whole Food or the local farm stand, but it's probably worth it. If you're lucky, you may have an ethnic store nearby with more reasonable prices. Trader Joe's also has good prices for fresh and frozen veggies.

     Other tasty and quick sandwiches- grilled cheese, with your favorite filling (ham, tomato), tuna melt with pickle on the side. Yum!

     A salad is a good choice on a hot day- how about a refreshing fruit salad? With two or three types of melon, grapes, pineapple, maybe some cherries or mandarin orange segments.

    Then there are cool salads like macaroni salad, or tuna or chicken salad plate. How about tacos, or a taco salad?  Or a "Stimulating Salmon Salad", as Donna Reed once inquired?

    If you don't mind firing up the grill (which does get hot blowing on you) there are the old standbys, hot dogs and hamburgers.  Swordfish and corn on the cob are delicious grilled, also.

      If it's really hot, you may want to just go straight to the fridge and grab some jello, a Popsicle, some yogurt, or my favorite, ice cream!

Stay cool!

    

    

Enjoying the Summer Bounty

     I can't believe I haven't written here since April! Now here is the July Fourth holiday upon us already!  So I thought it was time to write about a subject close to my heart: seasonal fruits and vegetables. Preferably, they are ones you grew in your own garden!

    We had a very late start with our home garden this year.  We actually have not purchased our tomato plants yet, because we considered giving the soil a rest. If you plant tomatoes in the same place every year, it depletes the soil.  Anyway, we did buy some basil plants and four types of peppers. We also got two zucchini plants, but they are looking pretty sickly right now, after languishing in a pot all this time. I hope they survive the transition.

     If you don't have a garden, you can still enjoy the benefits of one by going to the farm stand. The variety is pretty good, and the veggies are fresh.  Tonight I got 12 ears of locally raised corn for $1.99. You can't beat that price!  I cut the corn off the cob tonight, and may add some diced peppers for mexi-corn. I will make a corn chowder at some point, too.  There's nothing like corn when it's very fresh, crunchy and juicy, without being starchy.  MMM. It's important not to over boil, that's what ruins it. 

      We like to plant a lot of basil because it is very expensive. There are dozens of varieties to choose from, but you need to order seeds to get that kind of selection. The farm stands  tend to sell only three or four kinds. I use it in many dishes, especially pork chops. 

     Beans are probably the easiest thing to grow from seeds. The return is very good on how easy and quick they are, and how prolific the crop turns out. You can grow bush beans or pole beans. There are dozens of varieties to choose from, and they are all good!

     Well, it's time to go water the plants, so I'll go. Hopefully I will be back with a new post soon!