The Bare Necessities

I'm going to take a break from recipes this week and focus your attention on your pantry!

If you're anything like me, my pantry always has the following items:

1. Ramen Noodles- a college kid's must have.

2. Canned Soup- another fast and easy meal.

3. Peanut butter- I can slather a heaping spoon full of this stuff onto almost anything to make it taste better!

Now that we have determined what our pantry looks like, we are now going to re-evlauate and try to add some other ingredients that are in most basic recipes or that can spice up the recipes you already have!

The good thing about the next few items I'm going to talk about is that they are relatively cheap, and you will definately use them!

But now it's time for story time! Get excited people! Last summer my friend Travis and I were making Snickerdoodle Cookies. I looked up a recipe online since I didn't already have one.  The recipe called for Cream of Tartar. So I bought some at the store, used maybe 2 teaspoons of it to make the cookies, and it has been sitting in my pantry ever since. Those are the types of ingredients that I dispise.

Now back to you're regularly scheduled blog.

Our first trusty ingredient is...

Grill seasoning!

I learned this trick from my good friend, Rachael Ray. She's a genius. What's great about grill seasoning is that it is a mixture of a TON of great, flavorful spices that can add some much needed flavor to endless numbers of meals! Each grill seasoning is different and will have different amounts of each spice, but the typical flavors in a grill seasoning are salt, pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, red pepper, and various other spices. The back label will have the ingredients listed in order of greatest amount to least amount, so when you're at the store just take a gander at the back to get a better idea of what's in it! Depending on what brand you get, grill seasoning will set you back about $2.

The next item on our shopping list is flour. Flour is a great item to keep on hand for emergencies, like forgetting that you have a friend's birthday party to go to in two hours and have no idea what present to get them. Bake some cookies! Or maybe you're at home one night and you hear your stomach do the hungry grumble noise... pancakes! Your roommates will love you. But, be warned! There are different kinds of flour that are used for different things! Cake flour (a super-sifted, super-expensive flour) is, obviously, used in certain cake recipes. Bread flour, also another obvious one, has higher amounts of gluten, which is better for making yummy breads.  What you need to get is just regular, all-purpose flour.  Any brand will do, but for you Okies, Shawnee Mills is a Made in Oklahoma brand, and I've found that sometimes the MIO brands are cheaper than the "Great Value" brands since they don't have to ship them across the country. Again, the flour will break your piggy bank at around $3.

This next one is more of a money-saving tip rather than an ingredient.  When buying meats, always look at the price per pound.  Even though one package may be more expensive, you will be getting more bang for your buck with a lower price per pound.  What I like to do, especially with chicken breast, is buy in bulk, which for me is a package of about 10 large chicken breasts.  The package usually ranges from $10-12.  When I get home, I take out individual ziplock baggies and place 1-2 pieces of chicken into each bag, making sure to get out as much air as possible. Freeze the chicken until you're ready to use it! Thawing is fairly simple; if you know you're going to use the chicken that night for dinner, set the frozen chicken out in a bowl filled with cold water on the counter that afternoon to start thawing.  By the time you're ready to cook, it should be ready to use! If it is still a little frozen in the center, just use the defrost setting on the microwave for a few minutes. 

On my next post, I will be using some chicken that I bought in bulk in a delicious and super simple recipe!

Oh, and remember this from last time? It is actually cake batter than had run over the side of a pan and fallen to the bottom of Sarah's oven where it had become a blackened and charred pile of molten grossness.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new! As always, I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions!

-Elise

Kid (and Kid at Heart) Friendly

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! It's been pretty crazy around here! Needless to say, here is a new post, woo!

They are called French Breakfast Puffs, and we got the recipe from The Pioneer Woman. If you've never heard of her, you definately need to check her out! She has some great recipes and some hysterical stories about raising her family on a farm.

This recipe is a dense muffin-like dough. First you combine the dry ingredients, then separately mix the shortening and sugar (this is where the recipe starts to get sinful!), and the eggs. Then alternate adding dry mixture and milk to the creamed sugar/shortening mixture.

Speaking of sinful... THIS is something that Sarah and I found. I want to see people's comments on what they think it is! On the next post I will reveal if there was a winner, and what this mysterious substance is. *Disclaimer: No, it did not come from a dog.*

After they are done baking, they should look something like this. We think we might have over-baked ours, so just make sure you're keeping an eye out for them! Set them aside and let them cool while you prepare the last few steps. It's about to get a little messy!

In a glass container, melt the butter. In another container, combine the sugar and cinnamon.

After the muffins have cooled, roll around a muffin in the butter, letting it soak up as much butter as possible. My doctor told me to say that last part.

Then you roll it around in the cinnamon sugar, making sure every nook and cranny is covered with this delicious stuff! Then set the muffin aside, and repeat with all of the muffins. This is the part that is great for kids to help with, since it doesn't involve the hot oven or possible mis-measurements!

Please note that you WILL get messy, as is beautifully displayed by the lovely Sarah!



Upon completion, you will have a plate full of bready-cinnamony-sugary-buttery goodness. They go perfectly with a big glass of milk!

Enjoy!
-Elise

French Breakfast Puffs
-from Pioneer Woman Cooks

3 cups Flour

3 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

½ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg

1 cup Sugar

⅔ cups Shortening (Crisco)

2 whole Eggs

1 cup Milk

1-½ cup Sugar

3 teaspoons Cinnamon

2 sticks Butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups. In a large bowl stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside. In a different bowl, cream together 1 cup sugar and shortening. Then add eggs and mix again. Add flour mixture and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition. Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden. In a bowl, melt 2 sticks butter. In a separate bowl combine remaining sugar and cinnamon. Dip baked muffins in butter, coating thoroughly, then coat with cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Sweet and Salty

Welcome to my first blog post! I hope it turns out to be everything you've ever dreamed and hoped for.

First, I'm going to try to explain the point of this blog and why I decided to start a blog. The main reason is because I'm stuck in Stillwater for the summer and I have nothing better to do. But the reason you probably wanted to hear is that I'm trying out recipes to see if they turn out the way the recipe says, and if not, how to fix it! Since I am a college student I will also try to sneak in some college budget friendly recipes.

This summer, me and my friend, Sarah, are venturing through recipes together, hoping that they will turn out fine so we can eat the delicious concoctions and not have to share them with anyone else.

Just kidding. Sharing is caring.

The first recipe we decided to try was a Chocolate Cupcake with Salted Caramel and Dark Chocolate Frosting, in honor of my favorite cupcake shop in OKC, Cuppies and Joe.
The recipe is from a cookbook called Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Now, I know what you're thinking (because it was the exact same thing I was thinking before I tried this cupcake)... "How in the world can you mix salt and chocolate to get a yummy dessert?" Oh, you'll see.

The first problem I encountered with this recipe, and usually "fancy" recipes in general, is that it called for an obscure ingredient that a normal person who shops at walmart can't find. Dutch processed cocoa powder. I wasn't sure if there was a difference between that and regular cocoa powder, so, being the great researcher that I am, I googled it. Dutch processed cocoa is processed differently which makes it alkalized (or doesn't react with baking soda). The alternative I found was Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder. It is a mix between regular cocoa powder and the fancy Dutch processed cocoa powder, as seen behind the cupcake liners in the picture below!

The batter recipe is pretty straight forward. Combine Dry ingredients.

Then you add in the wet ingredients (of which I don't have a picture because my camera started dying) and mix it all up. PS- this recipe calls for buttermilk. If you don't want to go buy a quart just to use a part of it for this recipe, you can make your own! Just mix in 1 Tablespoon of distilled white vinegar to 1 C of milk, and bingo! You've got yourself some buttermilk! Then just measure out the amount the recipe calls for.

At this point, you fill the liners 2/3 of the way with batter and stick em in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes!

The liners in this picture produce jumbo cupcakes, so normal liners will make a few more than you see pictured.

The second problem with this recipe came when we attempted to make the caramel sauce that goes inside the cupcakes. I had made a caramel apple pie a few months ago and had problems then making caramel sauce, so when I was gathering ingredients, I picked up a bag of the pre-wrapped caramel squares. We ended up just melting them and using that as the filling. It worked just as well as a home-made caramel sauce would and it was 234983 times easier.

The last part of the recipe was the frosting. I'm a huge fan of dark chocolate so when I saw this frosting recipe I jumped for joy! We added more powdered sugar to the frosting to take away the bitter bite that dark chocolate has, but it was still delicious!

Now for assembly:
1. Take a cooled cupcake and hollow out the center, about the size around of a quarter and just as deep.
2. Eat the holed-out piece.
3. Fill the hole with the caramel.
4. Pipe (or plop, depending on your tools!) some of the dark chocolate frosting on top of the entire cupcake.
5. Sprinkle a little bit of the sea salt on top.
6. Repeat and devour.

I'd love feedback from you guys!

Here's the recipe!

-Elise

Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes
-Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
3/4 tsp. Baking Powder
3/4 tsp. Salt
2 Large Eggs
3/4 C Buttermilk

3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

3/4 C Warm Water

25 individually wrapped chewy caramel squares, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. In a mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.  Add in wet ingredients, beating together until smooth and combined. Divide batter evenly into the liners, making each about 2/3 full. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before assembling the cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate Frosting-

1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder

1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp boiling water

1 1/2 C (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 1/4 C Confectioner's Sugar

pinch of salt

1 pound semi sweet chocolate melted and cooled

Combine cocoa and boiling water, stirring until cocoa has dissolved. With and electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, and salt until pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Reduce speed and beat in cooled, melted chocolate, beatine until combined and making sure to scrape the sides. Beat in cocoa mixture. This frosting can be refrigerated up to 5 days.