Cheesy Potatoes

Ahhhh, Easter is upon us, and surely spring is working on it?
Easter has very much always been the same in my family, but still every year I look forward to two things most: Cadbury Cream Eggs and Cheesy Potatoes. Well.. we call them cheesy potatoes, but technically the recipe is called Herb Potatoes. Cheesy Potatoes only make an appearance twice a year in our house, Christmas and Easter. I used to wonder why if the whole family liked them so much why we didn't just make this recipe more often, but now I'm convinced part of the goodness and sacredness of this recipe is the anticipation and tradition. This recipe has been made at Christmas and Easter for decades, for as long as I can remember really.

So anyhow, this is my family's adaptation of a recipe for herb potatoes from The Best of Postal Recipes. The recipe book came out in the 80's soooo it's a bit dated... and our copy is beat to hell.. it is literally in pieces, the front half falls off to the Watergate Cake recipe, another family favorite. :)

 

Cheesy Potatoes

Ingredients 
5 (14.5 oz) cans of Del Monte whole new potatoes*
4 slices of white bread
~3/4 lb of Velveeta (yes, a ridiculous amount of cheese)
Green pepper (I use about 3/4 of a pepper, but it's personal preference)
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk
Salt
Pepper
Parsley flakes

*Del Monte also sells canned diced new potatoes, but I definitely prefer the whole. I find the diced to be smaller than I like and too moist, but it does save some time.

First, you'll want to drain the potatoes and then proceed to dice them. Size is a personal preference, but it's always a good idea to try to stick to a similar size all around. I'm a fan of bigger piece, but still bite size.

As I dice the potatoes, I toss them into a large mixing bowl that will fit all my ingredients.

After cutting up all the potatoes (which is the most time consuming part!) move along to dicing the bread, Velveeta, and green pepper. Side note on the bread, I've found slightly stale bread is much easier to cut, but the bread by no means needs to be pretty! 

Once everything is diced and in the bowl, I season with sea salt, pepper, and parsley. Well, I usually mix parsley in that is.. until I realized we were out of it, gasp! However, mom was running out and bought some later in the evening. So, I didn't mix any parsley IN this time, instead it was just sprinkled on top before going in the oven to bake.

Mix everything together, I just get my hands in there and mix things as best I can, which can be a wee tricky and will leave your hands very starchy and potato-y.

Next, carefully pour the goods into a greased casserole dish

Then, in a saucepan, heat a stick of butter (1/2 cup) and a cup of milk. Just until the butter has melted. As soon as butter has melted, pour this mixture over the potato/cheese/bread/green pepper goodness. Wrap with plastic wrap and place this baby in the fridge, preferably overnight! We have definitely made these and baked them the same day before with little time to rest and it was fine, but I can personally always tell a huge difference! 

Bake the potatoes at 375° for 45 minutes until bubbly, browned and maybe just a bit crispy on top ;) 

Happy Easter!

Stuffed Crust Pizza

Ok, so first and foremost this is not a tried and true recipe/method for me. While I have been using these same ingredients for a year or so, today was a new experiment. Awhile back I stumbled upon this recipe for "The Easiest Pizza Dough in the World" and have been experimenting with it since. For today's experiment, tried an all new method (for me) actually using the stand mixer with a dough hook and letting the dough rise for a bit. The dough was much softer and easier to work with this way, definitely a win.

Stuffed Crust Pizza

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1 cup warm water

3 cups of flour

1 tsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

pepper

oregano 

(When it comes to seasonings I rarely measure, so these are kinda just guesstimate.)

Combine yeast and warm water in mixer bowl. Let the yeast sit for 5 minutes or so to get 'er going. 

Meanwhile, I like to mix my flour, salt, onion & garlic powders, pepper and oregano in a separate bowl. 

After letting the yeast activate, add in the honey, olive oil, and part of the dry ingredients and start a-mixing. Once the dry ingredients start to incorporate in, slowly add in the rest. At this point I left my mixer on a medium setting for about 7 minutes to knead the bread. The bowl should start to look pretty clean and the dough smooth.

Sidenote: I originally only used 2 1/2 cups of flour but noticed the dough sticking to the bottom on the bowl and added about another 1/2 cup.
After about 7 minutes or so my dough was still a little on the sticky side, but I didn't want to over work it or something. So, I simply added a tiny bit more flour and kneaded it in by hand, at which point the dough was smooth, non-sticky and easily formed into a ball.
Next, grease the bowl and dough, cover, and let it rise in a warm place for about an hour.

Pre-rise

Risen!

Once the dough has about doubled, punch it down and you're ready to go.

From here, I like to cover my pizza pan with parchment paper, and then sprinkle that with cornmeal to prevent stick-age and press out the dough.

For stuffed crust, I spread out the dough a bit farther so there is room to lay a ring of cheese and fold over the edge like so;

Cheese ring! I went with provolone, but any pizza cheese should be just fine!

Time to top it to your hearts desire. Classic pepperoni and mozzarella today. 

And thennnn, at the last minute I thought to brush a little bit of melted butter around the outer crust:

(I brushed a little more on part way through the baking)

Bake at 450° for about 12 minutes. 

The dough puffed up a bit more than I anticipated, and the provolone in the crust oozed out a bit, but I must say, the result tasted pretty fantastic. 

Nutella Scones

Nutella Scones
So, this morning I woke up craving scones, and a few months ago I found this really great "Starbucks Cinnamon Scone Hack" recipe. It's pretty basic and I've gotten great results every time! But instead of sugar and cinnamon, I wanted to change it up a bit. Time to experiment. But because this is such a great basic recipe to start with, I honestly just stuck to her original, adding a little variation of my own: Nutella. 

Here goes.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into small cubes
1 egg, separated
3 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup buttermilk*

1 tsp vanilla

Nutella (I don't have an exact measurement here, I just eyeballed it. Maybe about 2 tbsp) 

*In place of buttermilk (because we never have buttermilk just hanging about) measure out the milk and then add a splash of lemon juice. Mix and let it sit for a few minutes. I learned this substitution trick from this recipe and I have always used it since! I always mix this first to give it time to sit.

*Buttermilk substitute: 1/3 cup milk + a splash of lemon juice. Stir & let it sit for at least a few minutes.

Moving along, 
Combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in a medium/large bowl. 
Cut in the butter. Here, I prefer to cut the cold butter into fairly small cubes before adding to the mixture. And while there are much more technical ways to "cut in" the butter, I prefer to do it by hand. Get your hands dirty; so much more satisfying. 
Basically, I mix the butter and dry mixture together by kind of squashing the butter in my hands so that the chucks break up and incorporate with the butter. Fair warning, you do wanna be a little careful doing it my hand because obviously if you work it too much, you're hands will warm up the butter and that's no good.   

After a few minutes you shouldn't have any large chunks of butter and the mixture will be crumbly.
Like this:

In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk substitute, egg yolk (keep the white!), and honey together. This is a weird thick mixture at first because of the honey, but after a few minutes it will come together. After mixing I added a teaspoon of vanilla, just for that extra bit of flavor. 

Add this wet mixture to the dry and stir just until blended. It should resemble something similar to cookie dough. Mine was a little too wet this morning, so I add about an extra tbsp of flour. 

And then, at the last minute I decided I was just going to mix some Nutella right into the dough. (Originally, I was just going to make a Nutella glaze, this plan went much better!)

I don't know quite how much Nutella went into this.. I would guess maybe about 1 1/2-2 tbsp? I just got two butter knifes full of Nutella and loosely mixed it into the dough to get a sort of marbled effect.

Next, move the dough to a floured surface and pat the dough out into a circle-ish shape. Probably about a half an inch thick or so. As usually.. I just eyeball it. 

Look at those awesome Nutella swirls!
I was getting pretty excited at this point.

Cut this disc of awesome into 8 pieces (more or less if you feel like), basically just cut it like a pizza.

Place on a greased baking sheet and brush the tops with you egg white. 

Bake at 400° for about 8-10 minutes. 

Bake time depends a little on the size, so keep an eye and decide for yourself. They should be looking just a little golden around the edges and flaky! And if all else fails, look at the bottom. I let them sit on the tray for just a minute and then move them over to a wire rack because no one likes burnt bottoms.

While letting these guys cool just a little, I made a real quick glaze by mixing together:

A scant cup of powdered sugar

About 1 1/2 tsp of milk

1/2 tsp of light corn syrup 

And just a little bit of vanilla

(I was just making this up as I went sooooo do whatever works for you)

After they cool down a little drizzle glaze over scones and boom! 

These guys are definitely best when fresh and warm! And with a cup of coffee/tea (or whatever pleases you). Soooo get to it! 

I was pretty pleased with these considering they were somewhat experimental. Definitely a keeper.

Mini M&M Cookies

Mini M&M Cookies

So, this is a recipe I received from my future mother-in-law for chocolate chip cookies, but instead of using mini chocolate chips.. tonight I decided mini M&Ms sounded fantastic. And I must say, they worked out pretty awesomely. I love this cookie recipe, they come out so soft and chewy :)

3/4 cup butter-flavored Crisco (which I didn't even know was a thing)

1-1/4 cups firmly pkd. brown sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 egg

1-3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1-1/2 cups mini M&Ms (or mini chocolate chips)

Ingredients, what up.

Cream Crisco, brown sugar, milk and vanilla. Add egg and mix until blended.

In a separate bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda. 

Slowly add this into creamed mixture until just blended.

And you should get something like this.. (after scraping down the sides)

And thennnnnnn it's time to add the mini M&Ms! 

I never bother to measure, I just eyeball it

Mix those suckers in!

Drop rounded balls of cookie dough unto an ungreased cookie sheet. I use my mom's medium sized cookie scoop for this step, it just makes it even easier.

Pop 'em in the oven at 375° (oh hey, should've mentioned that earlier) and bake for about 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them approaching the 8 minute mark. I usually pull them out at around 8 minutes when I start to see the edges get golden brown. After taking them out tap the baking sheet on the counter to get the air out (and therefore making them chewy). Let the cookies rest on the sheet for a minute or two and then transfer to a wire rack. 

Ta-Da, cookies!

Chocolate Glazed Mini Baked Donuts

Chocolate Glazed Mini Donuts

So, I received a mini donut pan for Christmas that I've been impatiently waiting to try out. Tonight was that night. While everyone else was watching sappy Super Bowl commercials, I was in the kitchen trying out some recipes. 

I hope to some day be sharing my own recipes, but today is not that day. I can honestly say this is the first time I've made donuts, so I very much needed the assistance of Pinterest. 

DONUTS!!!!!

For the donut itself I used this recipe by Cupcake-Princess

Given that I was making minis, I cut the recipe in half like so:

1 cup flour

6 tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

A decent sized pinch of ground nutmeg

A decent sized pinch of salt

6 tbsp buttermilk *

1 beaten egg

1 tbsp butter, melted

*We don't regularly have buttermilk in the house, so I went with a substitute I've tried a handful of times in my favorite sconce recipe. Said substitute is just simply the 6 tablespoons of milk and then just 1/4 tablespoon + a splash of lemon juice. Mix the milk and lemon juice and then just let it sit for a few minutes :)

Heat the oven to 425°F

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt.

Add in the buttermilk (or substitute), egg, and butter. Stir until combined. You should have a decently thick batter. 

From here, I opted to put my batter into a quart Ziplock bag to pipe it into my donut pan. I would highly suggest doing this or something similar since this batter is a bit too thick to just be poured into these tiny rings.

Next up, pop those suckers in the oven! Because they are minis they bake very quickly, I pulled them out after about 5 minutes and did the classic toothpick check and they were golden. Literally. On the bottom that is, the tops were a bit deceiving.

Pop these little guys out onto a rack to cool. Splitting the original recipe in half yielded 24 mini donuts.

In the meantime.... time to make frosting! 

Chocolate Glaze

I kidnapped this basic chocolate frosting recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction

Once again, I split the recipe in half, and though I didn't quite have enough to cover all 2 dozen, but I wanted to leave a few plain, so it worked out anyhow. In the future I will probably just follow this full recipe:

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp light corn syrup

2 tsp water

Put all ingredients in a bowl and microwave for about 30 seconds. Mix together. just 30 seconds did it for me, but you might need to microwave a little longer, in 10 seconds increments. Stir until smooth. Dip the mini donuts into the chocolate glaze and then return to rack to dry. Apply sprinkles to your hearts desire ;)