Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

Too Many Annas linked to a tortilla recipe. Last time I tried making home-made tortillas they ended up more like bannock. Maybe this recipe would work better?

A Year of CrockPotting: CrockPot Fried Chicken Recipelooks very tasty. We’ll doubtless be eating more chicken again as we’re pretty much done the half-cow we bought in January.

A Year of CrockPotting: CrockPot Spanish Rice Casserole looks simple enough and should be tasty.

A Year of CrockPotting: Seasoned Potato Wedges CrockPot Recipe looks tasty. For a while we were making potato wedges on baking sheets on a regular basis, but the cleanup was annoying. (Slice up potatoes, toss in olive oil, sprinkle with seasoning salt and bake.)

Winter’s Veil Bark from WOW Insider looks tasty. This looks like a recipe that that kids would have fun making.

The tools:

1. Microwave or stove-top.
2. Two microwave-safe bowls, or two saucepans.
3. Two spoons.
4. Preferably, a mortar and pestle (if not, an old plate or mixing bowl).
5. Small-medium sized cookie sheet or cake pan.
6. Wax paper.
7. A metal spatula.

The mats:

1. One box of baker’s white chocolate, equaling about six 6-ounce squares.
2. 1 cup (6 ounces) of semi-sweet chocolate chips (about half a standard bag).
3. One box of candy canes, about 12-14. Peppermint candies can also be used. When crushed, it should equal roughly a cup, although the actual amount used is up to you.

The first step in preparing your bark is to crush some candy canes. This part is fun, but also very sticky, so if you have kids in the house, log some sibling or parental moments and put them to work! After you unwrap them, break them up a few at a time and grind them using your mortar and pestle. In the absence of these handy tools, you can place the pieces into a mixing bowl, and use the bottom of a smaller mixing bowl to grind up the candy. I’ll let you guess which method I used!

Next, unwrap the white chocolates and place them in one of your microwave-safe bowls. Using about 70% power, melt the chocolate, stirring it until it is smooth and lump-free. Repeat with the chocolate chips in a separate bowl. If you are using saucepans, set your burners to low or minimum heat, and stir the chocolate until melted and smooth, then remove from heat.

Pick up your spoons, and dig into the candy cane bits! You’ll need to mix roughly six spoonfuls into each bowl of chocolate. If you’re using saucepans, be careful when using metal spoons not to scrape the bottom of the pans.

Now for the artistic flair. Grab your cookie sheet or cake pan, lined with wax paper, and start spooning in the two chocolate mixtures. Remembering that you are aiming for a fairly thin layer, about 1/4 of an inch thick, alternate the chocolate globs. Do not be disappointed if it looks unprofessional at this stage.

Once you’ve spooned all of your chocolate onto the pan, try to resist the urge to mix or spread it. Instead, coax the chocolate into the corners by shifting the wax paper. Drag the tip of a metal spatula, cake/pie serving tool, or even a toothpick, through the chocolate. Use swirling motions, and be careful not to stir it too much. Watch as in some areas, the chocolates will blend; too much blending will ruin the visual effect, as well as the taste of the two chocolates.

When you are satisfied with your swirling, take the remaining candy cane bits and shake them on top. While many people grind their candy canes very fine, I like to leave some slightly larger chunks for visual variety. At least, that is the story that I, with my mixing-bowl mortar and pestle substitute, am sticking to.

Speaking of sticky, because we are using wax paper to coat the pan, you should not have much trouble with clean-up. Provided that you run your bowls or saucepans and spoons under some hot water once you’ve spooned out the chocolate, dishes will be a breeze.

Simply place the cookie sheet into the fridge and chill until solid. Then, lift the wax paper off of the pan, and the bark from the paper. Break the bark into pieces; don’t try to cut it into neat squares. Store in the fridge in an air-tight container until game-night.

Writing macros, a series of lessons (7 of…) « Priestly Endeavors - a WoW Blog

These sound tasty, but these cheesecake cupcakes seem easier to make.

Oven preheated to 300 degrees F

Pans: 6-cup cupcake/muffin tin; cake pan large enough to hold the other pan

Other: 2 cup bowl or measuring cup, microwave safe. 2 qt (or larger) bowl plus electric beaters (unless you need to work out aggression - then just plan on beating a long time with a spoon or whisk.) Six paper cupcake cups. And a pitcher of water. Oh - a spatula and a spoon. Or two spoons if you don’t have a spatula. Ummm, and a small towel or washcloth.

Ingredients:

Shell:
1/2 package of graham crackers, crushed into crumbs
4 oz butter, melted

Filling:
8 oz neufchatel (or cream) cheese.
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/3 bag ( size 8-10 oz, so that’s approximately 3 ounces) chocolate chips (semisweet or dark, your preference)

Put the paper cupcake cups into the cupcake pan.

Mix the shell ingredients thoroughly, and divide equally between the cups. Press on bottom and sides so as to form an inner cup - tamp firmly. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and set aside.

Reduce heat to 250 degrees F

Put cheese into bowl. Add sugar and cream it. (For you non-cooks, just work it all together using a lower speed on your blender till it’s smooth.) Add the egg, and mix thoroughly.

Now put the chocolate chips into your smaller bowl/measuring cup, and melt it in the microwave. That means: 10 seconds, stir, 10 seconds, stir… till it’s melted. Beats the heck out of a double boiler. Where was I…

Temper the chocoloate and return to the batter. (Again, for you non-cooks. Add two or three large spoons full of batter to the chocolate and stir, then put this back in the main bowl. This will allow the chocolate to get stirred into the batter with re-solidifying into chunks OR cooking little chunks of batter too early.) Stir thoroughly.

Divide the batter between the cups. (That means pour equal amounts into each cup. Each is going to end up half to 2/3 full.)

Put your small towel or washcloth into the cake pan. Put the cupcake pan into the cake pan next. Put the pan into the oven, and then pour water from the pitcher into the cake pan, being careful not to pour any into the batter. You want to add enough that it comes up about equal to the height of the batter in the cups. This needs explanation, bear with me…

What you’re doing is a trick to help your batter cook evenly. The water forms a thermal blanket for the batter - the towel is allowing the blanket to be under as well as beside the batter.

Bake for 20 minutes. Turn off oven and set timer for another 30 minutes. THEN remove pans from oven. (HINT: remove cupcake pan from cakepan instead of trying to carry both at once. This will prevent hot water splashing you or the cakes.) You can eat it now, or you can move the individual cups to the refrigerator - depends on your willpower, I suppose.

Two minor variations. 1) beat the batter on high for 3-5 minutes and it’ll add air which will make your cheesecake less dense. 2) Use sour cream instead of chocolate. If doing this, cheat — put a tablespoon of preserves (of your preference) in the bottom of each cup before baking the cups - the heat will also melt this so it’s an even layer.

I had tried to make tortillas at home with minimal success. Maybe these would work?

Easy cooking project: Homemade tortillas: Parent Hacks
HOMEMADE TORTILLAS

1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water

In a large bowl, toss the flour and salt together. Make a well in the flower, add water, and mix everything together till the dough holds together. Knead briefly in the bowl, adding a bit more flour as necessary. Divide the dough into four parts, and, with a floured rolling pin, roll each out into a thin, 6-inch, uh, circle. (None of our tortillas resembled circles, and it didn’t matter). Cook in an ungreased skillet over medium heat till little brown spots appear on the tortilla. Flip and repeat. Spread with butter (and honey, jam, or savory fillings) and eat.

How to Make Homemade Taco-Seasoning Mix

What you need:

* 6 tsps chili of powder
* 4 1/2 tsps of cumin
* 5 tsps of paprika
* 4 tsps of onion powder
* 1/4 tsp of cayenne powder

What to do:

* Mix everything up. You might want to try using a food processor or a grinder for a fine grind.
* Store in an airtight container.
* NOTE: This recipe is twice strong as the store-bought.

I’ve run across the Hillbilly Housewife site a number of times. It looks good, but I haven’t tried the recipes.

Cheesecake Cupcakes are delicious and easy.

We’ll use Vanilla Wafer cookies (Nabisco’s Nilla Wafers is the most commonly available brand) as a bottom crust for these cheesecake cupcakes. To make a dozen cheesecakes, gather up one pound (455 g) cream cheese, 2 large eggs, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, and 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar. The cheesecakes can be topped with whatever you like - maraschino cherries, streusel, Hershey’s kisses. I like to use mandarin orange slices.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Place the cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl and beat on medium-low speed until creamy.

Starting with softened cream cheese will speed up the process, but even cold cream cheese will eventually beat in with the eggs to form a creamy mixture.

Place cupcake or muffin liners (also called baking cups) into each cup of a muffin pan. While preparing these pictures and reading up on other recipes, I read a recipe that recommended getting aluminum cupcake liners but removing the paper layer (aluminum muffin liners have an inner paper lining placed within the aluminum liner). I decided to take this opportunity to test out different liners: aluminum with paper insert, aluminum without paper, and paper muffin liners. Aluminum with paper is what I recommend (more on why later).

Place a vanilla wafer cookie into the bottom of each muffin liner.

Pour the cheesecake batter into each muffin liner. Fill to about 3/4 full. The batter should be sufficient for twelve cupcakes with possibly a little left over. Top the individual cheesecakes.

Bake the cheesecake cupcakes for about 15 minutes in the preheated 350°F (175°C) oven. As soon as the cheesecakes are set, remove the muffin pan and let it cool for a couple minutes on a wire rack. After the pan has cooled a bit, pull out each of the cheesecakes and let them completely cool before refrigerating.

While pulling out the baking cups from the muffin pan, I realized that the aluminum liners made it easy to lift up and pull out. The cupcakes lined with only paper cups were a bit more difficult to grasp and lift up due to the less rigid nature of the liner.

However, the paper lined cupcakes peeled easily while the aluminum only cup had a tendency to stick to the cheesecake. Sometimes while peeling the aluminum lining off, it would tear the cupcake. So, for the best of both worlds, use the aluminum baking cups with the paper lining left inside.

After chilling, the cheesecakes will keep for a couple days - ready for a quick snack or for delivery to your next get-together.

Cooking For Engineers - Recipe File: Chocolate Cake I’ll have to give this a try.

I tried his Oven-Fried Onion Rings recipe and that worked very well.

This looked like an interesting recipe.

1/2 pound of lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped wilted fresh spinach (Frozen chopped spinach will
work but squeeze it to drain it. It at least gives the color.)
3 eggs
Salt and Pepper.

Optional:

1/2 cup cooked chopped mushrooms. cooked in BUTTER.

Cook the Ground beef chopping it on the grill while cooking sort of
like taco meat. leave some chunks. add spinach. Mix it quickly
into the cooked burger. You don’t want spinach soup. Add eggs and
scramble it quickly all together.

Serve on a oval platter and enjoy. then take three lipitor.

Mushroom option: Mushrooms are added just before the eggs.

This is one serving!!!

from Noel at FKWLounge@yahoogroups.com