pulled pork

Just in case you were all unaware, I am fairly lazy when it comes to cooking.  I enjoy eating a nice meal when I come home from work that includes both protein and fresh vegetables, maybe a nice warm crusty piece of Italian bread, but I do not want to put any effort forth to actually prepare said meal.  I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but in my fantastic imaginary life I come home and dinner is fresh from the oven and waiting for me when I get out of work.  I eat at the table every night with my boyfriend or a close friend and share funny anecdotes about our day at work (because surely those exist).

Reality:  I settle for frozen entrees (fancy name for TV dinners) - maybe some herbed chicken, mashed potatoes, and something resembling a vegetable.  What I waste in money I save in time.  Four to six minutes in the microwave and dinner is hot and ready to be eaten at my desk or in my bed while I watch old episodes of Gilmore Girls.  I've only eaten at the table 5 or so times and only when I have company.  Sometimes I even treat myself to a glass of Coke even though the caffeine makes my heart beat a little funny.  It's worth it.  I feel a little shamed buying these dinners at the store and even a little guilty after I eat them.  I feel like a failure at taking care of myself or completing even the most basics of tasks (feeding myself).  At least I take the food out of the plastic container and onto a plate.

I think my parents understand this, as they got me a slow cooker and a little personal griddle for Christmas.  Despite being comfortable using technology, something about kitchen gadgets makes me wary.  Every day when I come home from work, I take a look at the griddle and the slow cooker as I'm microwaving my food.  They look easy enough, but I'm scared.  It wasn't until earlier in the week that I finally decided to use the slow cooker.  It seemed easy enough on paper.  Put food in, turn cooker on, leave for work, return, eat.  I had visions of my apartment burning down while I left my food simmering away, the slow cooker overflowing everywhere, the food either being overcooked or undercooked when I returned.

I put away my fears and planned a pulled pork dinner.  I picked up pork and instructions for cooking from my Dad during a trip to Connecticut and began with trepidation.

Pulled Pork
recipe from my Dad

Ingredients:

• Boston butt/pork shoulder (mine was 5.5lbs, cut in half so only 2.75 was cooked)
• Mesquite barbecue seasoning rub
• olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp of liquid smoke
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 jar barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)

1. Prep the night before.  I had forgotten/fallen asleep and these steps happened at 1:30am.  I do not recommend that.  Cut up onion and place in the bottom of the slow cooker insert to keep the meat from touching the bottom.
2.  Pat dry pork and rub with a tiny bit of olive oil.  Afterward, rub with barbecue seasoning and place on top of onions.  Place insert in fridge overnight.
3.  In the morning, place insert into slow cooker and pour half a bottle of barbecue sauce and the 1-2 tablespoons of liquid smoke over the meat.
4.  Turn slow cooker on low and cook for 11 hours.
5.  Meat is done when it can be pulled apart easily with two forks.  You will wan to pull the pieces of meat apart and put them in a separate bowl.  Remove fat and discard with juices and onions.
6.  Add desired amount of extra barbecue sauce.  Serve alone or on a roll.

granola bars

I'm trying to be good*.  I could have made those sugar cookies I've been sitting on for a while, but I decided I'd try my hand at granola bars because those are healthy, right?  Chocolate chip granola bars?  I've had a jar of honey from my friend's farm sitting in my cupboard for several years now.  The internet tells me that honey doesn't ever go bad, and if I can't trust the internet, who can I trust?  Unfortunately, the honey had solidified into a crystal-ly mass in the mason jar.  The internet also tells me that if I soak the jar in boiling water it will return to its original form.

Photo from Jackie Norris

So I boil the jar in a medium-sized pot of water and attempt to mix the rest of the ingredients together while I wait.  All goes well until I hit the brown sugar and I remember that my brown sugar has also solidified into a hard mass.  For this, I have no internet tips.  I probably could have looked something up, but my hands were all sticky and washing them off proved to be too much effort.  So I decided to dampen the brown sugar block in water and then use a cheese grater to  break it apart.  This was a great idea in theory.  In practice, it basically turned into brown sugar goop.  Between the goop and the hot honey, these granola bars are a little on the, uh, chewy/moist side.

* No, I'm not.  I just ate pumpkin cheesecake directly out of the box with a fork.

Granola Bars
recipe from Jackie Norris

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 cup flour

3/4 cup chocolate chips (or dried fruit)

3/4 t. salt

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup canola oil

2 t. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. Either line a 9×13 pan with parchment or grease thoroughly. In a large bowl, mix oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, chocolate chips and salt. Add remaining ingredients, gently mixing it all together. Press the mixture into prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. 

stuff

I haven't forgotten about this blog or the promise to cook more food.  But man oh man, 2011 has been rough so far.  Recently I've barely even had the energy to stand up for very long, let alone go get groceries or cook something.  It has felt like it's been one hit to my health after the other, leaving me sitting complaining in bed.  I've eaten a shameful amount of food that can be microwaved and for a brief stint I ate nothing but applesauce and Jello as it was the only thing I could swallow with my sore throat.  And oh, delivery.  Sweet sweet delivery.  Chinese food, cheeseburgers, and wraps delivered to my door in less than thirty minutes.  Bliss.

All I have wanted to do after getting out of the hospital on Saturday (after taking a much needed nap) is eat.  Sunday I was feeling a little better, and I actually decided to cook something.  It wasn't much of an undertaking, and most people find this kind of gross.  But it was exactly the simple/mildly hearty/iron-rich/comforting food that I needed.  I made Stuff.

Back when I lived at home, my mother would make stuffed peppers for dinner every now and then.  I haven't really been into peppers since I was a kid (insert story about how I'd grab fresh peppers from my grandfather's garden and just take a bite out of them here (with a brief stint a few years ago where I'd eat them sauteed, but that ended abruptly after a hit of the stomach bug one Easter)) so I would often just scoop out the insides of the stuffed peppers and eat that.  The insides were the Stuff.  After several years of this behavior, it came to my attention that I could just make Stuff whenever I wanted without having to go through all the effort of gutting peppers, stuffing then, cooking then, and throwing them away after.

Stuff has been the perfect food for when I'm feeling sort of peckish but want something filling and bland.  Because god, do I love bland food.

Kelly's Stuff
adapted from Mom's Stuffed Peppers

- 1lb ground beef
- 1 serving white rice
- ketchup/tomato sauce

1.  Brown ground beef on stove top in a skillet.  Drain excess water/fat when done.
2.  While browning, start cooking the rice.  I use generic minute rice because I'm lazy and poor.
3.  When both of the above are complete, mix the two together in a big bowl.
4.  Top with ketchup or tomato sauce to taste.
5.  Try not to eat it around anyone, as they will judge you.

banana bread

I've made a lot of lousy loaves of banana bread.  It took me several years to get a good recipe under my belt and I think that for a while I was afraid of bananas.  My early loaves were always too dry and then there was that unfortunate chunk of time where I stopped measuring everything and routinely added too much baking soda to all baked goods and wondered why my cookies and breads left my mouth tasting like burning.  Then there was that other unfortunate time where I thought I wanted to eat healthier and used nothing but whole wheat flour, bran, and applesauce to bake with.  In case you were wondering, everything I made during that time period tasted like sticks.

It turned out okay, though.  I buy bananas now for the sole purpose of letting them rot on my kitchen counter and throw them into the freezer for later.  I realized that adding more bananas would alleviate the dryness and using actual sugar wouldn't kill me (and neither would my impending diabetes, hopefully).  I don't even burn myself anymore!

Banana Bread
Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheal flour (old habits die hard)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (it is important to measure this)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 6-7 overripe bananas, mashed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten*. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

* At this point you can either keep the recipe as is, or add some nuts or chocolate chips.  I know this is starting to feel like a round of Cooking Mama.  Sorry.  This time around, I opted for one plain loaf and one chocolate chip loaf.

peppermint bark

My blog readership has doubled since my last entry!  I hope y'all (all four of you) had a wonderful holiday.  I'm still getting caught up on Christmas recipes, so bear with me.  I probably should have done this sooner as I had over a week off from work, but I was too busy wallowing in a bed full of post-Christmas malaise.  Life is tough, guys.

I had made peppermint bark the year before and recalled it being a pretty simple recipe to make.  You get out my Pyrex dish, melt some dark chocolate, spread it around, wait for it to cool, melt some white chocolate with peppermint extract mixed it and spread it on top of the dark chocolate, crush some candy canes and sprinkle them on top.  Done.  Eat.

Of course things do not go that smoothly.  I didn't check to see how much white chocolate I had left before I started making this.  Turns out, not really enough.  I ended up having to unwrap and throw in some candy cane flavored Hershey's Kisses which turned out to be a good idea.  The white chocolate was festively pink with little flecks of candy cane inside of it already.  I was a little too stingy with the peppermint extract, as it smelled like Listerine when I opened it and I was afraid of it being too overwhelming.  Lesson learned.

Most important lesson leaned?  LINE THE GLASS DISH WITH SOMETHING.  Chocolate is really hard to get out of glass, guys.



Peppermint Bark

• 8oz semisweet chocolate chips
• 8oz white chocolate chips
• 1tsp peppermint extract
• candy canes

Directions

1. Lightly grease a 9x9 inch pan and line with waxed paper, smoothing out wrinkles; set aside.
2. Place the semisweet chocolate in the top of a double boiler over just barely simmering water, stirring frequently and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to avoid scorching. When the chocolate is melted, stir in 1/4 teaspoon of the peppermint extract. Pour the melted chocolate into the prepared pan, and spread evenly over the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate until completely hardened, about 1 hour.
3. Place the white chocolate and the remaining 1 teaspoon canola oil in the top of a double boiler over just barely simmering water, stirring frequently and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to avoid scorching. When the chocolate is melted, stir in the remaining 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract. Pour the white chocolate directly over the semisweet chocolate layer; spread evenly. Sprinkle the remaining crushed candy over the top and gently press in. Refrigerate until completely hardened. Remove from pan; break into small pieces to serve. 

white chocolate chip chocolate cookies

Image from VeryBestBaking

These are another cookie that I grew up eating every year for Christmas.  They are essentially a reverse chocolate chip cookie, with the chips being white chocolate and the cookie being chocolate flavored.  I made these when the Chocolate Crinkles had to be put in the fridge over night. Aside from that, these cookies were baked without incident, which means I have nothing amusing to tell you.  Just bake the cookies, they are delicious.




White Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies
Recipe from AllRecipes

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Fold in the white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are set. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

chocolate crinkle cookies

I felt that for the next recipe made in my Christmas cookie sweatshop, it would behoove me to try something new.  My boyfriend had expressed an interest in "chocolate crinkle cookies" and having never made nor eaten one before, I thought that it would be interesting to give it a go.  I find the powdered sugar tops to be charmingly festive and perhaps it would have added a bit of visual interest to a bag of misshapen lumps.

I started the recipe after dinner one night, having psyched myself up for making cookies.  I picked this recipe out of my pile of Potential Cookie Print-Outs and started making the dough.  I should let it be known that I do not read recipes in their entirety before I start making them.  I do a little skim to make sure I have all the necessary ingredients and cookware, but I don't go much deeper than that.  Imagine my disappointment after mixing together the dough when I realize that it must be refrigerated overnight.  I angrily put the bowl in the fridge and started on another cookie. (recipe forthcoming)

Fast forward to the next day.  I pull the dough out of the fridge and find that it has formed into a fudge-like consistency.  I dig my spoon into the mix and it bends under the pressure of my attempted scooping.  I give up after a few balls are made, choosing instead to dig my nails into the fudge and claw wildly until I have enough to form a tiny cookie.  Then the rolling.  I have to roll the dough between my hands to form a ball, the fudge melting slightly and leaving my hands a dark brown color.  It's a mess.

The balls go into a bowl of powdered sugar, where you roll them around.  At this point, there is powdered sugar everywhere in my apartment, being stuck to the trail of melted chocolate fudge from when I inevitably have to touch things.  It's a mess.  It's a mess, and I didn't even care for these cookies.

As a side note, please notice that this recipe makes FIVE DOZEN COOKIES.

Chocolate Crinkles
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

• 1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips (I used a mix of bittersweet & semisweet)
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 1 stick) unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup (4 3/4 ounces) sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups (7 ounces) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• confectioners' sugar* (for coating)

Dough: Place the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, and heat or microwave till the butter melts. Remove it from the heat, and stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, vanilla and espresso powder. Stir in the chocolate mixture, baking powder and salt, then the flour. Chill the dough for 2 to 3 hours, or overnight; it'll firm up considerably.

Shaping: Put about a cup of confectioners' sugar into a shallow bowl. Using a teaspoon-sized cookie scoop, a spoon, or your fingers, scoop out heaping teaspoon-sized portions of the dough; they should be roughly 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Drop the dough balls into the confectioners' sugar as you go. Once about five or six are in the bowl, shake and toss the bowl to coat the balls with the sugar. (If you try to do this with too many balls at a time, they'll just stick together.)

Baking: Place the coated dough balls on a lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between them. Bake the cookies in a preheated 325°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes, switching the position of the pans (top to bottom, and front to back) midway through the baking time. As the cookies bake, they'll flatten out and acquire their distinctive "streaked" appearance. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool on a wire rack. Yield: about 5 dozen 2 1/2-inch cookies.

corn soufflé

If we were still operating under the guise that there were any rules left to this blog, I would say that this entry was going to be a little bit of a cheat.  I have made this recipe several times already and I didn't make anything new last week.  But it is so delicious that I can't store the recipe away forever.  This recipe will be new to you.  At least I cooked something at all, okay?  Get off my back.

The 21st was my third annual Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving.  This is an event that I host every year the weekend before Thanksgiving, whereupon I invite all of my friends over to share a pot-luck style dinner.  I have normally seen these kind of events referred to as "Friendsgiving," but I do not find this cute and there is no need to make myself feel bad if no friends show up to my Friendsgiving.  In my usual fashion, I went into hostess overdrive, preparing far more dishes than were necessary, fretting over tablescapes (despite them being non-existent year after year), and wondering if anyone would show up.

I catered to a smaller crowd than is the norm this year, which actually worked out for the best as my apartment is a cozy size (read: small) and barely enough room for me and my excessive amount of belongings.  This was also my first year without a full-sized stove and someone to coerce into roasting the turkey.  I opted instead to purchase a rotisserie chicken, which took off some of the pressure and allowed the stove to be used for the last minute preparation of literally everything else I was making.  Independent woman, and all that.

I made candied yams, stuffing, expired garlic and cheese biscuits, and a bowl of corn souffle.  Do not let the name fool you, corn soufflé is not actually a souffle.  Answers.com tells me a soufflé is: A light, fluffy baked dish made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a main dish or sweetened as a dessert.  Corn soufflé has eggs in it, and is not "light and fluffy" by any stretch of the imagination.  One of my guests referred to it at "corn pudding," but I do not find this name to be particularly accurate either.  I guess no one would want to eat it if it was called "corn mush," which is what I'd name it if I were in charge of such things.  Luckily, I am not.  I have a hard enough time getting people to try this dish with even its fancy name.  It is not very appetizing looking.

Corn Soufflé

• 8oz Sour Cream
• 1 can of corn niblets
• 1 can of creamed corn
• 1 package of Jiffy corn muffin mix
• 1 stick of butter

Mix all ingredients together in a baking dish.  Heat oven to375 and cook for 45 minutes or until center is cooked through and something inserted into the center comes out clean.

peanut butter blossoms

My miniature Christmas tree has finally been decorated (as of 2am).  The presents are wrapped and underneath the tree.  I participated in my first non-denominational office holiday party/Yankee gift swap.  I've walked arm-in-arm in the flurries to catch the train.  And so begins the Christmas cookie season.

Because I now have coworkers that I can stand to be around for 7 hours a day, I thought I would make everyone little bags of cookies for the holidays.  This satisfies my desire to give people presents, bake, "taste test" cookies, and make everyone around me fatter so that I look skinnier by comparison.  With the holidays rapidly approaching and only one recipe completed out of a planned five or six, my apartment promises to be a little Christmas cookie sweatshop these next few days.

The first/only cookies I've made so far are peanut butter blossoms.  I have had these every year for Christmas for as long as I can remember, but this is only my second year doing more than just pressing the Kisses into the hot cookies.  This recipe is fairy simple, which I appreciate.  No Kellys were burned, cut, or maimed in the making of these cookies (for once).



Peanut Butter Blossoms
Recipe from AllRecipes

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 18 milk chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine sugar, peanut butter, and egg.
3. Shape into 1 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. NOTE: If dough is too sticky, refrigerate 1/2 hour or until easy to handle.
4. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove cookies from oven. Press a chocolate kiss into the center of each warm cookie.

belated egg nog cake

I am terribly late writing this entry, as I did not particularly care for the cake nor do I feel particularly strongly about egg nog.  I should have seen this apathy coming when I decided to make an egg nog dessert outside of the holiday season.  I love the holidays.  I have created very rigid guidelines about when I can start to enjoy myself about Christmas, otherwise my apartment would be filled with pine boughs all year round and I'd be listening to nothing but Christmas music.  Because that certainly does not happen.

I have been met with a lot of questioning when I have told people about how I made this cake coupled with the fact that I do not like egg nog.  For the record, I made it for someone who does, in fact, like egg nog.  This person has stared longingly at the egg nog in the refrigerated section of the grocery store since it arrived in mid-November (not egg nog season, thank you) and has put up with my scorn for his lack of holiday willpower.  I'm a terrible girlfriend.  To make up for this, I bought egg nog and decided to turn it into a cake.  This also allowed the extra egg nog to be sent home with him at no extra charge.  I am the best girlfriend.

As with all of the recipes that I find, I took a little artistic liberty.  All of the pictures on the website where I got it had it drizzled with custard and nicely shaped.  I drove all over town looking for a bundt pan to no avail, so mine was just a circular blob of cake.  I also didn't know how I felt about custard, so I made my own glaze that I poured over each slice.  I tried sprucing the cake up with some red sprinkles, but they just turned the cake pink over time.  The picture that you see to the left is not my cake, but this is what I want you to imagine my cake looked like.  Pretend it tasted good, too.



Egg Nog Cake
adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (I used butter cake, this may have been a mistake)
• 2 cups egg nog
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Beat on low until moistened, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 12-cup fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack. Remove from pan; cool completely. 

For glaze, combine egg nog with confectioners sugar and a dash of vanilla extract.  Mix with fork until smooth.  Pour over cake if you like mushy cake, as this is not actually a glaze.