Daring Bakers: Cookies

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I must admit this, I was not thrilled about this months challenge at first.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love cookies.  Almost all kinds of cookies.  I even like when they take all day to make.   My issue with this challenge was that I made one of the cookie recipes a few years ago with less than stellar results, so I was kinda bummed.  The other cookie also seemed a little boring.  I went into this challenge with a rotten attitude…but I came out a very happy girl.

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The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole     at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I made the Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies first.

Day 1: I made the cookies a day before I planned to make the marshmallow and cover them.  The cookie dough was easy to deal with and the cookies made my house smell so wonderful while they baked.  I tried the cookies alone, and I found them to be a bit dry, but they had good flavor.

Day 2: I’ve made these cookies before, so I have made marshmallow before.  I really enjoy making food that starts out with a very ordinary and unassuming list of ingredients and miraculously becomes something completely different!  That’s why marshmallow is so fun to make.  It creates quite a sticky mess, but is worth it.  mallow1

Be sure to use good vanilla as this is the only flavoring in the marshmallow besides sugar. I recommend Nielson-Massey Vanilla Bean paste or Madagascar Vanilla.

The marshmallow was beautiful and piped out quite nicely onto the cookies.  I let them set at this point for a few hours at room temperature.

The process of covering things in chocolate and I do not get along very well.  Unless I am using that chocolate bark, my chocolate doesn’t ever harden completely without putting it in the fridge or freezer.  And yet again, I had that problem with these cookies.  They looked beautiful coming out of their chocolate bath, but even after 3 hours the chocolate was still wet.  So, in the fridge they went!  The chocolate hardened and then we were able to taste them!  The chocolate formed a nice hard shell around the soft gooey marshmallow and crumbly cookie.  I liked these cookies, but think they might require more work than they’re worth in the taste department.  They are beautiful and impressive, though.

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Summer Vegetable Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce

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This is time consuming, frustrating, quite prep intensive, and not easy.  The resulting dish is delicious and worth every drop of sweat and shed tear.

Summer rolls are one of those things that seems so daunting that most people, or maybe just me, do not even want to attempt to make them at home.  Why spend so much time preparing something like this?  Why not just be content to order them at a restaurant where someone else labors instead of you?  Because once you know how to do it you will realize that it’s not an impossible task and that they taste better when you’ve made them yourself.  Oh, and it’s quite a bit cheaper than restaurant fare.

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This recipe is from Epicurious.com, and had really high fork ratings and 95% of people would make them again, so I figured I could handle it.  I prepped everything and made the sauce early in the day.  I didn’t really measure my vegetables and herbs.  I chopped and shredded more than I needed and made more noodles than called for.

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This resulted in a lot of leftover veggies, but made more rolls and I had more chances to screw up and tear the rice paper…which, by the way, is very easy to do!  Use a light hand with the wrappers and be prepared to toss some into the trashcan. I like bean sprouts, so I added those to a few of the rolls when I added the carrots.  After adding the carrots, when rolling the roll closed, is when I would tear the rice paper.  Good news though, by the last couple rolls I was putting out some very pretty, tight, nice looking rolls.

Tips for making summer rolls:

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S’mores Cookies

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Oh goodness gracious.  These cookies were so tasty.  I decided to make them at the last minute while doing a little pantry cleaning.  I had a bag af mini marshmallows, 2 half bags of chocolate chips, and some leftover cookies I’d made over the weekend that taste like graham crackers.  I couldn’t help but think of a s’more.  I haven’t had a true campfire s’more in a while, and while this doesn’t quite duplicate the experience of extinguishing a flaming, gooey marshmallow before pressing it on to a few squares of Hershey’s chocolate and a graham cracker, it is a good substitute.

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I found this recipe on Cookie Madness.  I had to change a few things in the recipe as it was a last minute decision and I did not feel like going to the store.  I will try them the way they should be next time, but the ones I made were great anyway.  I’m curious to see if they could be any better!

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Bacon, Mushroom and Spinach Breakfast Strata

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Breakfast is always a bowl of cereal for Ben.  Not only that, he uses the same bowl and sits in the same spot to eat it every morning.  I love that about him.  I usually eat some fruit and yogurt.  Sometimes I make banana bread and we’ll eat that for a few days, and if we’re really getting crazy, scrambled eggs.  Needless to say, breakfast is not too thrilling around here.

When company comes I tend to get a little excited about breakfast.  This breakfast strata is very adaptable to anyone’s personal taste.  I used bacon, mushrooms, spinach, and a combination of swiss and cheddar cheese.  Ham would be delicious, or spicy breakfast sausage…mmmm.  It would even be great with just vegetables.

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There are easier overnight breakfast casseroles.  I made one once that used a box of croutons instead of fresh bread and I’ve seen recipes that use frozen hash browns.  I liked that this one was completely from scratch.  It didn’t take too long to put it together on Friday night.  The hard part was getting out of bed early to pre-heat the oven and bake it for an hour and a half.  But it was worth it.

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Roast Beef Empanadas

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A few weeks ago Ben and I went to visit our friends Jason and Carrie in Decatur.  Along with having a fun weekend catching up and enjoying our time together we ate some incredible food.  Carrie made us empanadas with a chicken, black bean and corn filling.  They were crazy good.  The empanada dough is from Smitten Kitchen, but the filling was her own creation.  I envy her ability and confidence in creating recipes without a recipe.  Someday I will be able to break free from recipes and spread my culinary wings…

The chicken filling was good, but Carrie mentioned trying a different filling of roast beef at some point.  On her way to Albuquerque this week, Carrie made a pit stop here and spent a few days with us.  We tried these roast beef empanadas with lovely results.  The flavors are quite different from a traditional empanada.  It reminded me of a cheese-steak, only wrapped in pastry instead of a soft bread roll.  Are you drooling?  I am.

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Cheater Apple Dumplings

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I haven’t had my camera for a few weeks now, but I’d been doing pretty good remembering to take pictures with my iphone.  Unfortunately, the last few yummy things I’ve made haven’t been photographed before being consumed.  This is one of those things, so here is the picture from The Pioneer Woman’s website, where I got this delicious recipe.

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I usually make fun of recipes like this that use pre-prepared foods like canned crescent rolls.  And Mountain Dew…what is this all about?  But these looked and sounded too good to shun on the basis of a few ingredients.

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4th of July Feast

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It was a lovely 4th for us here in Amarillo!  It was cool enough last night to be outside for dinner and not be sweating like a pig.  After dinner we went to a park a few blocks from the house and played bocce ball.  My glowing friend Jackie (9 months pregnant, due any day now) beat everyone.  I miss a lot of things about central Texas, but I love the weather up here.

Originally my thought was to have burgers, potato salad, etc., your typical American 4th of July meal.  We weren’t sure how many people were going to show up to our little shindig, and I didn’t want to have a bunch of leftover hamburgers.  So, I decided to make pulled pork sandwiches.  We also had potato salad, cole slaw, fruit salad and patriotic sugar cookies.

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Asparagus and Chicken Pasta with Goat Cheese and Lemon

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I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen the day she posted it, and I immediately printed it.  Since then it has been sitting in my cookbook holder…teasing me with its inevitable deliciousness; making me wonder and dream about how all those yummy ingredients would someday combine in my kitchen to create a clean and delightful pasta dish perfect for summer.  I finally got around to trying it last night.  It was tangy, light and wonderful.  “Light” is not a word often used to describe pasta dishes, but this was not too heavy on the sauce and the flavors are mild and refreshing.  It is also very good at room temperature or just slightly warm.

I added some shredded chicken to this pasta, so I should have increased the sauce a bit.  Also, be careful with the lemon juice.  Add just a bit at a time and taste it to make sure it isn’t too overpowering.  It is a must that you use the creamy style goat cheese and fresh tarragon.  Fresh herbs always make a dish better. (more…)

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Blueberry Focaccia

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I never would have tried this recipe had it not been for one of the partners at Bens firm.  During a recent flight (with an apparent lack of reading material) he saw the recipe in this months Woman’s Day and the recipe found its way to my email inbox.  Thanks, Sam!

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I love blueberries.  I like them cool from the fridge, but there is something about them after they’ve cooked that is spectacular.  They pop in your mouth and release all the warm sweet juices in a completely different way than a raw berry.

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Strawberry Bread

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So many strawberries!  I used up the rest of them in this strawberry bread.  I liked this bread.  I made 4 mini loaves with this recipe and baked them for a little less time.  The tops of the loaves got nice and crunchy.  The bread is wonderfully moist.  The strawberry pieces are not too sweet and perfectly tart.

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I usually grease and flour my bread pans, but I tried something different with this bread.  I greased and floured 2 of the pans and greased and sugared the other two.

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