Twice Baked Potatoes

I seem to have an abundance of potatoes, so while trying to use them up, I decided to try twice baked potatoes. Josh's step-mom makes some amazing ones, so I thought it was worth a shot. 

I baked two good sized potatoes in the microwave (Big mistake! Take the time to cook them in the oven! They were a little squishy.), let them cool for 10 minutes, then sliced them in half, and scooped out the insides. I learned that the key is to leave a little bit of potato left to the skin to help it hold it's shape, especially since they were a little squishy from being cooked in the microwave. 

I mixed up the insides with some shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, and a little bit of milk. Then I stuffed it back into the skins, and put bacon crumbles on top. (Of course I cooked an extra piece for Josh and I to share, it's just too yummy!)

Then it's into the oven for 15 minutes at 350°. They turned out really well, and I think I will make them again. 

Banana Bread

I don't know why it seems that people only make banana bread when they have bananas that they need to use up before they go bad. It's so good! But I am guilty, just like the rest, and had several to use up last night. So I gave my first attempt at banana bread a try.

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup margarine, softened

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups mashed banana

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x5 inch pan.

2. Cream margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour and soda, stirring just until combined.

3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 1 hour (or till toothpick comes out clean). Remove from pan and let cool, store in refrigerator or freeze.

My additions are in purple.

I was stuffed from dinner at my grandmother's for Easter yesterday, so I did not sample it until this morning- I'm pretty pleased. It's a lot denser than I would have liked, and I'm not really sure how to fix that but... I'll figure it out!

Blueberry scones

Well today I have off from work, so slept in a little, went to breakfast with Josh and then decided that I was going to make some scones. Katie, one of the girls on the What's Cooking board had a great looking recipe so I used her's. It's posted below. (This is only one of her fabulous recipes - see her blog, Good Things Catered for more.)

I had some issues cutting them in to triangles and transferring them onto the baking sheet so they turned into circle shapes instead. But I felt that I needed to try one before posting, so that I could give my honest opinion - They're Yummy!

Blueberry Scones

Ingredients:

2 c. flour plus 2 Tbsp, plus 1 Tbsp

1 Tbsp baking powder

3 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

6 Tbsp butter, plus 1/2 Tbsp, chilled

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 c. half and half, chilled

2/3 c. frozen Maine wild blueberries

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.

-In small bowl combine frozen blueberries and 1 Tbsp flour and toss to combine.

-Place blueberry mixture back into freezer.

-In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

-Take butter out of fridge, cut into chunks and add to flour mixture.

-Cut butter into flour until pea sized or smaller.

-Add vanilla and half and half and mix in with a spoon until just barely incorporated.

-Take blueberries out of fridge and knead into mixture until mixture forms a ball of sticky dough.

-Turn dough out onto floured surface and pat down into rough 9-10 inch circle.

-Cut into 8 triangles and place triangles onto prepared baking sheet at least an inch apart.

-Take 1/2 Tbsp butter and cut into 8 small pieces.

-Place one small piece of butter on top of each scone.

-Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.

-Let cool and enjoy.

Stromboli

Last night I made stromboli, even though Josh pointed out that we could have gone to the place down the road and gotten it faster. Sometimes I don't think he gets it!

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com and took out the things we didn't like. My altered recipe is below.

INGREDIENTS
1 (10 ounce) package pizza crust dough
1/2 pound lean ground beef
1 cup cooked ham, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 (14 ounce) jar pizza sauce
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 (8 ounce) package sliced pepperoni sausage
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef until no pink shows; drain. Mix in the ham, onions and pizza sauce.
Lay pizza dough flat on cookie sheet. Distribute pepperoni slices over dough. Place a heaping pile of the sauce mixture on one side of dough (some may be left over). Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Fold dough over and pinch ends and sides together. Poke holes in the top and brush melted butter on it.
Cook in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Slice into individual sections to serve.

Well then I realized that Josh must be a little more into this than I thought because he took this picture and sent it to me for this blog.

Here's the finished product. It didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped, but it sure was yummy!

Chocolate Ave. Grill

Admittedly, I've been slacking on the cooking lately. My second job has increased my hours and I feel like I'm never home to cook anymore! So I'm cheating and blogging about the restaurant we went to last night before we went to the theatre to see Lewis Black.

It's a neat little place in Hershey, Josh thought that the decor was a little old (ceiling tiles were old for sure!) but I thought it had some cute touches.

Anyway, for an appetizer we ordered the spring rolls, a crab and shrimp blend, stuffed in crispy fried rice paper rolls, served with a black raspberry chipotle sauce. I thought they were pretty good, especially with the sauce.

For dinner, I ordered the Chicken Chesapeake, a sautéed chicken breast topped with broiled crab meat and mornay sauce served with a mediterranean risotto. The chicken and crab and sauce were very good, but the risotto was a little gummy for me.

Josh ordered Key West seasoned sautéed sea scallops with a citrus butter, over a toasted almond and pineapple risotto and sautéed asparagus. The risotto wasn't really his thing, I'm not even sure if he touched it! But he did surprise me and try the asparagus! And he kind of liked it! So I plan to get some at the farmer's market and try getting him to eat it at home.

The show was funny, as expected and it was the first that either of us have been to the Hershey Theatre, which is a beautiful building. Over all it was a good night, but I can't wait to try to get some cooking in this weekend!

Chicken Noodle Soup

I don't know if it's because it's been so chilly and windy here lately or not, but I have been craving homemade chicken noodle soup. I found a great recipe on a blog from a cooking board I lurk on - Elly Says Opa! She has some other really great recipes on there, so check it out if you get a chance!

I had to change it slightly, and here is my version. Please see Elly's site for her version.

Chicken Noodle Soup
2 Tbsp. butter
1 handful onion, diced

1 handful baby carrots, sliced

2 stalks of celery, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

64 oz. chicken broth

1 Tsp. dried parsley

1 lb. cooked chicken, chopped or shredded

5 oz. (about 1.5 cups) uncooked egg noodles

fresh ground pepper, to taste

In a large stockpot or dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. Add onions and cook for about 3 minutes before adding the celery and carrots. Continue cooking a few more minutes before adding the garlic. Stir until fragrant.

Add the chicken, broth, parsley and ground pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce. Simmer lightly for 30 minutes.
Add the noodles and simmer until cooked, about 8 minutes.

It was delicious and I can't wait to have some leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

On another note, the bake sale at Josh's office is today, and I ended up making star-shaped chocolate lollipops instead of the Oreo truffles because I just couldn't get them coated correctly! The lollipops are really cute though and I made them with regular milk chocolate, white chocolate and purple white chocolate. I have a few left if anyone wants me to send them one!

oreo truffles

Ok, so I should have realized that I was doomed from the start - crushing up oreos is a sin in our house. But for a bake sale at Josh's office, I decided to make oreo truffles, mostly since they would keep until Thursday. Recipe was as follows:

The Ingredients
1 lb Oreo cookies (3 sleeves)
8 ounces cream cheese , room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (using different extracts allows for subtle flavour changes...I've used mint extract, upped to 1 tsp)
1 lb milk chocolate
1/2 lb white chocolate

Directions
1. Using a food processor, grind cookies to a fine powder.
2. With a mixer, blend cookie powder, cream cheese and vanilla extract until thoroughly mixed (there should be no white traces of cream cheese).
3. Roll into small balls and place on wax-lined cookie sheet.
4. Refrigerate for 45 minutes.
5. Line two cookie sheets with wax paper.
6. In double-boiler, melt milk chocolate.
7. Dip balls and coat thoroughly.
8. With slotted spoon, lift balls out of chocolate and let excess chocolate drip off.
9. Place on wax-paper-lined cookie sheet.
10. In separate double boiler, melt white chocolate.
11. Using a fork, drizzle white chocolate over balls.
12. Let cool.
13. Store in airtight container, in refrigerator.

Sounds pretty easy right? Well I don't have a double boiler, and according to the chocolate I got, you can melt it in the microwave. (I used Wilton's chocolate wafers.) But it kept getting chunky and my oreo truffles look like this so far:

This is not what they are supposed to look like. I guess tonight I'll try getting the chocolate hotter and see if that helps the consistency.

But since I had warmed chocolate, I also made star shaped chocolate lollipops. Those have turned out so far and I even have purple ones. I might just make more of those and send those to Josh's bake sale!