Pita Bread & Hummus

My kids love HUMMUS! I don't know where they get it from, but since it is a great source of protein for them, I buy it in bulk at Costco and Sam's Club. Both my husband and I grew up in the boon-docks and had no idea that all this Middle Eastern food even existed, but we both also enjoy it.

I went to a Middle Eastern Market last week with a friend of mine who makes her own Hummus. She showed me what I needed to make my own and I quickly snatched up the ingredients so that I could try to make a batch myself.

Today was the day that I finally found some time and felt lazy enough to stay at home to make my hummus. I got my food processor out and added the ingredients into it:

1 can chickpeas
1/3 C. FRESH Tahini
1/2-3/4 C. FRESH squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
4 Garlic Cloves
1/2 C. Canola Oil
1 Teaspoon Sea Salt
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1/4 Teaspoon Cumin

In just a couple of minutes, I had my own hummus. I spooned it into a bowl and this sprinkled it with Paprika and into the fridge it went. Now, I wanted to try to recreate LaShish Pita's and found a pretty good recipe to follow on Recipezaar for Arabian Pita Bread.

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder
6 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups water
Mix yeast, water and sugar.
Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flour, dried milk and salt.
Pour oil into water and mix well. Add dry mixture to liquids.
You might need to add more flour or water, depending on the absorbency of the flour.

Knead dough briefly, divide into 18 egg sized balls.
Place on a floured surface, cover and let rest for 15-30 minutes.
After the 30 minutes, I took parchment paper and cut it into small squares. I then put one ball onto each parchment square and covered with an additional square of paper. After covering the ball with paper, I rolled the ball flat, removed the top layer of paper and sprinkled with sesame seeds. I used a preheated 475 degree oven with my cooking stones inside the oven while preheating. I slid about 4-5 uncooked pitas onto the stone and cooked for 3 minutes on each side of the pita.I quickly removed them from the oven and placed onto a cooking sheet. I served the fresh pita with the fresh hummus and it was yummy!My oldest son will be home by the time the hummus is cooled in the fridge, so he will be very happy this afternoon!

Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake Daring Bakers April 2009

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. When I saw that this was this months challenge, I was very excited! I LOVE CHEESECAKE, the husband, not so much! Meaning, I don't make cheesecake that often because I would eat the entire thing! The real challenge this month is to take this basic recipe and play with it. Make it unique. Make a showstopper of a dessert. Add flavor, sauces, decorations – dress it up and show it off. So, I thought of all the variations that I could do and jotted them down on paper. I decided that since I have freezer full of raspberries, I could do something with them. As I read the recipe it called for lemon juice and I then remembered just purchasing about6 lemons at the store about a week ago! So, Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake was what I was about to make. Here is the recipe that we were to follow.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:
Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Filling:
3 (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

CHANGES THAT I MADE:

I used 2 cups of chocolate animal crackers instead of graham crackers
2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 Teaspoon fresh lemon zest
Raspberry sauce - I made this by boiling down some raspberries and then straining them from their seeds. I then again simmered them to make them thicker.
Omitted the liqueur

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside. I prepared the 8 inch spring form pan by lining the bottom with 2 layers of plastic wrap and bringing it up the sides of the pan then covered the plastic wrap with heavy duty aluminum foil and brought the foil to the top of the pan. This prevented the water bath from leaking into the pan and making the crust soggy!

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. This is when I swirled the raspberry syrup onto the top of the cheesecake. Next time I am going to pour half of the cheesecake mixture into the pan, spread raspberry syrup and then top with remaining cheesecake mixture. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

I then swirled my raspberry syrup on the top!

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done -I baked for 65 minutes and would probably bake for 70-75 minutes next time, this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve. Then dig in and enjoy! It was so yummy that I think that I will be making this for G1's First Communion this weekend!

Daring Bakers February Challenge Chocolate Valentino *Flourless Chocolate Cake*

Here it is the end of another month, February, where has it gone? The kids seem to keep us very busy and the end of every month just creeps up on me. The end of the month means lots of things, for me, it means it is time to BAKE! The Daring Bakers challenges are one of the few things that I actually make sure that there is time to do.

For this month, The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I originally wanted to make this recipe for the hubby for Valentine's Day, but didn't get around to it since we were on a long weekend in Northern Michigan visiting the Hubby's Father, my F-I-L or otherwise known as the "World's Smartest Man"! Since the "World's Smartest Man" doesn't care for chocolate, I didn't bother bringing the ingredients to make this recipe. So, with that said, I stopped at the Butcher Shoppe here in my town and picked up some Chicken Cordon Bleu and decided to surprise the hubby with a nice dinner and dessert.

This recipe comes together so quickly that it is going to be my go to recipe for a quick and delicious dessert. All you need is 12 ounces of chocolate, 1 stick (+ 2 TBLS) unsalted butter and 4 eggs. I had to roughly chuck the chocolate and use a double boiler to melt the butter and chocolate together and then let it cool. While I was letting it cool, I proceeded to whipping 4 egg whites until stiff peaks were formed. I transferred those to another bowl and then beat the egg yolks. I added the egg yolks to the chocolate/butter mixture and then folded in the egg whites. I quickly buttered my 8 inch round spring form pan and gently transferred the mixture to the pan. I baked for 25 minutes at 375 degrees. I set to cool on a wire rack and then took the sides off of my spring form pan. AND THAT WAS IT!!! It was like magic!

This cake is so rich that I served it with some vanilla ice cream. Ice cream was store bought, I did intend to make it, but with going on vacation early Saturday morning, I had to cheat and by some at the store!

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While the chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F
9. Bake for 25 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads 140F.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Crock Pot Chicken Tacos/Quesadillas!!!

Growing up I swear that I lived with the 3 amigos. It seemed like at least once a week we HAD to have tacos, nachos or some type of mexican/spanish type dish. With this said, I think that the reason I don't LOVE Mexican food is because I had so much of it growing up! Well, guess what food is my hubby's favorite? Yep, taco's. So, I have been on the search to find the tacos/quesadillas recipe that makes me WANT to eat them. I follow so many blogs and see so many different ideas on home decorating, recipes and child care that I knew I would someday find a recipe that I really enjoyed.

On the blog Prudence Pennywise, Prudy shared one of her family favorites for making chicken tacos/quesadillas. This recipe uses chicken, tomatoes, brown sugar and some crushed red pepper---very tasty 4 ingredients! I have altered the recipe a bit to fit our family's taste! I have doubles the recipe and omitted some of the brown sugar. You can find Prudy's original recipe here: Slow Cooker Sweet and Spicy Chicken

Here is my version of the recipe:
2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cans (14 ounce) petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Coat inside of crock pot with no stick cooking spray. Place all ingredients in crock pot. Cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low for 8-10 hours, or until chicken shreds very easily with a fork. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Chicken will absorb some of liquid after it is shredded, just drain off what is left) Serve in tacos.

Mexican Bubble Pizza

A few weeks ago I found a few new recipes that I thought I would try on my often finicky darlings. I found this recipe on the Pillsbury website and decided it was worth trying out. Well, fortunate for me this turned out to be such a success with the kiddos that they wanted me to make it a second night in a row! This is so easy and can be dressed up to your taste. The kids just had more cheese and some salsa on theirs. We had the works on ours and it was GREAT!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. lean ground beef
1 pkg. Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix
3/4 cup water
1 can condensed tomato soup

1 can Pillsbury Grands! Corn Biscuits

or 1 (16.3-oz.) can Pillsbury Grands! Buttermilk Biscuits
8 oz. (2 cups) shredded Cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded lettuce
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 cup Old El Paso Thick 'n Chunky Salsa
1 can sliced ripe olives, drained
1 8 oz. container sour cream
3 green onions, sliced, if desired

DIRECTIONS
Heat oven to 375°F. Brown ground beef in large skillet over medium-high heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently. Drain. Add taco seasoning mix, water and soup; mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Separate dough into 8 biscuits. Cut each biscuit into 8 pieces. Add pieces to ground beef mixture; stir gently. Spoon mixture into ungreased 13x9-inch pan.
Bake at 375°F. for 18 to 23 minutes or until sauce is bubbly and biscuits are golden brown. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with cheese. Return to oven; bake an additional 8 to 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. To serve, cut pizza into 8 squares. Top each serving with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, olives, sour cream and onions.

The original recipe can be found here: Mexican Bubble Pizza Let me know if you made the recipe and how your family liked it!

CUPCAKES by "My Little Guy"

G2 was bound and determined that he was going to buy a special cake mix at the store last week. In my mind I was thinking, "WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM???". For some reason my little 5 year old wanted to make cupcakes and he had to make sure that he got the right flavor. We ended up with a confetti cake mix that he was SO very excited about making. The next day we got the mixer out and got ready to make the cupcakes!

He was very adamant that HE was the one that was making the cupcakes, NOT MOM. So, I let him! With just a little help on the eggs, he did do it all himself. We got the batter made and into the liners and then baked them all up. This is the point at which G2 lost interest in the making of cupcakes. He told me to finish making them and to make sure to make his special cupcake with lots of frosting a some sprinkles. He was happy with how I decorated it!! How fun for me to have them show some interest in something that I have such a passion for!

January 2009 Daring Bakers: "Tuiles"

Here we are January 29th, 2009 and it is yet time again for another Daring Bakers Challenge. I have been missing in action lately on this blog, but I have 2 good reasons! I have been trying to get back into the swing of things ever since the kiddos went back to school at the beginning of the month....for some reason, I AM NOT BACK INTO THE SWING OF IT! Could it be that my husbands birthday was on the 21st, G2's (my littlest guy) b-day was the 24th and last but not least my favorite father-in-law's (yes, I do and have only ever had one!) b-day was on the 26th. So, I have been busy! I kind of forgot that this challenge was due today, so I made these just this afternoon.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Traditionally, tuiles are thin, crisp almond cookies that are gently molded over a rolling pin or arched form while they are still warm. Once set, their shape resembles the curved French roofing tiles for which they're named. The Dutch angle: traditionally this batter was used to bake flat round cookies on 31st December, representing the year unfold. On New Years day however, the same batter was used but this day they were presented to well-wishers shaped as cigars and filled with whipped cream, symbolizing the New Year that's about to roll on.

For this challenge we were to make the Tuiles recipe and shape them into whatever shape we so desired. You could make a stencil to use or just pipe the batter into the shape so desired. This is what I chose to do since I had very limited time frame to work with.
I started with using my Kitchen Aid to cream the butter, sugar and vanilla into a paste. Gradually I added the egg whites and then the flour. VERY SIMPLE FOLKS!! I then grabbed the saran-wrap and tossed it into the fridge while G2 and I went and got our teeth cleaned. (How is that for multi-tasking?) When we returned home I piped both circles and hearts followed by baking in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes were up, I then transferred the cookies onto my 2 rolling pins to add the dimension that the challenge called for.
I cannot believe that I waited until the last hours of this challenge to complete it! What a quick and easy dessert to serve when you are entertaining. I took the circle cookies and formed them over the bottom of a glass and created a bowl. I then filled the little bowl with some ice cream and fresh blueberries! I now have 3 very pleased men under my roof!

Recipe:Yields: 20 small shape/6 large. Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

¼ cup (not melted but soft)

½ cup sifted confectioner’s sugar

1 sachet vanilla sugar (substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)

2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)

1/2 cupsifted all purpose flour

1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice

Oven: 350F Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the bakingsheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly.

Bake batter shapes in a preheated oven (350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from baking sheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again or place a baking sheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.If you don’t want to do stencil shapes, you might want to transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tip. Pipe the desired shapes and bake. Shape immediately after baking using for instance a rolling pin, a broom handle, cups, cones….