-
What’s Cooking?
Recent Comments
-
Categories
- Advice (6)
- Books (2)
- Cuisine (46)
- Culinary School (16)
- Food Products (5)
- Fruit (5)
- Dates (1)
- Figs (1)
- Oranges (1)
- Pumpkin (1)
- Strawberries (1)
- Fun (1)
- Gigs (1)
- Healthy (32)
- Introduction (1)
- Meat (30)
- Misc. (14)
- Pillsbury Bake-off (1)
- Quick & Easy (11)
- Recipe (63)
- Restaurant (1)
- Starch (13)
- Tools & Equipment (1)
- Travels (9)
- Vegetables (23)
- Brussel Sprouts (1)
- Cabbage (5)
- Carrots (9)
- Cauliflower (2)
- Corn (2)
- Eggplant (1)
- Green Beans (2)
- Kale (2)
- Leeks (2)
- Lettuce (1)
- Peas (1)
- Peppers (3)
- Potatoes (3)
- Spinach (1)
- Squash (2)
- Sweet Potato (4)
- Turnips (1)
- Vegetarian (25)
Category Archives: Bar Food
Sandwiches & Sweet Potato Cupcakes
Sometimes things are really busy at work and I get home and just don’t want to cook. It’s a strange feeling because I almost always want to cook. Last Tuesday we decided to make sandwiches. My favorite kind of sandwich is an Italian sandwich — especially with a little proscuitto! I made a little roasted red pepper salad to go with them. Along with some stove-popped popcorn, and some carrot sticks, it made a perfect, delicious, and quick weeknight meal.
Balsamic Roasted Red Peppers
1/2 jar roasted red peppers, roughly chopped
1 quarter small red onion, sliced very thin
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
Salt & pepper, to taste
Easy roasted red pepper salad.
Perfect, simply weeknight dinner.
This past weekend, we had two parties in one night. We attended an early Thanksgiving feast at Ronit and Ty’s; it was their yearly friends Thanksgiving and Ty has been throwing this for 13 years! I’m pretty sure we’ve gone to at least 6 of them. Lots of food and fun! Then we had to jet to party #2: Kevin’s birthday. We had a great time at both shin digs.
I never, ever want to go to a party empty handed — I always need to bake or cook something. In this case, I make two batches of Sweet Potato Cupcakes. I got the recipe idea from Martha Stewart’s Cupcake cookbook. I tweaked it slightly by adding cream cheese frosting along with toasted marshmallows and caramelized pecans (the cream cheese frosting was my idea; marshmallows and pecans from Martha.) I also added a couple of extra spices to the dry ingredients: ginger and cloves. These were DELICIOUS. Super tender, moist, and spicy. They also looked awesome (the caramelized pecans looked sparkly!) This is the second cupcake recipe I’ve made from her book — her yellow cupcake recipe was just as delicious, so I heartily recommend this cookbook.
Sweet Potato Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes
Yum! Sweet potato cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, toasted marshmallows, and candied pecans!
2 cups roasted, mashed sweet potatoes, cooled
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups miniature marshmallows
Candied pecan pieces (see below)
Cream cheese frosting (see below)
Preheat over to 325. Line cupcake tins with cupcake papers.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.
With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Beat in mashed sweet potatoes and vanilla.
Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three batches, beating until completely incorporated after each.
Fill cupcake papers with batter to 3/4 full. Bake for about 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cupcakes on a wire rack before frosting.
To decorate, spread each cupcake with 1-2 tablespoons of cream cheese frosting. Top with 5-6 miniature marshmallows. Torch the marshmallows with a kitchen torch being careful not to melt the cream cheese frosting. You have to be quick. The marshmallows might catch on fire (like when roasting over a campfire!) Just blow out the flame as you go.
Sprinkle with crushed candied pecans.
Cream Cheese Frosting
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
With an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy. Reduce to low and add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and then vanilla. Mix until smooth and combined.
Candied Pecans
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Heat sugar and water to a simmer in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring; cook until syrup comes to a boil. Boil, gently swirling pan occasionally, until mixture is light amber. Remove from heat. Stir in pecans with a wooden spoon to coat completely. Immediately remove pecans from caramel; spread in a single layer on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let cool completely before using or storing; break into small pieces, if necessary.
Posted in Bar Food, Comfort Food, Cuisine, Dessert, Italian, Recipe, Sweet Potato
Leave a comment
Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones
Last year, we had a St. Patrick’s Day bash at our condo. My favorite part about throwing parties is creating a menu. There’s nothing more traditional in this part of the country than corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. I wanted to include it on the menu, but I had to think of a way to make it portable and easy to eat at a party.
The solution: I created this recipe that stuffs the usual corned beef and cabbage dinner ingredients into a calzone — with a delcious tangy, mustard dressing. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these calzones.
They are a bit of work, but if you’re only going to make them once a year or for a party, they are well worth it. And you can actually do a lot of the prep work ahead of time*.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones
2 lbs. of your favorite pizza dough (I’m partial to this recipe — or you can get it at your grocery store.)
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 large carrots, medium dice
3 medium red bliss potatoes, medium dice
2 lbs. corned beef, cooked and medium dice
1 medium onion, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup grainy mustard with horseradish
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
All of my veggies chopped and ready to go.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Add shredded cabbage. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until cabbage is cooked but still al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until cabbage is cooled. Dry in a salad spinner or between paper towels. Set aside.
Put the carrots and potatoes in a medium pot. Cover with water (about an inch over the vegetables) and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender. Make sure that when you dice the carrots and the potatoes, you keep them even in shape so that they cook at the same time. Drain and set aside.
In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft, but not browned — about 10 minutes. Add the diced corned beef (should be roughly the same size as the carrots and potato) and cook another 2-3 minutes.
Add cider vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper (to taste). Stir and toss in the cabbage and coat with the dressing. Add the carrots and the potatoes and stir to coat with the dressing. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Divide your dough into 10 equal portions**. Roll into balls and allow to rest about 10 minutes.
To assemble the calzones, flatten a pizza dough ball into about a 6-inch round (the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick). Fill with a healthy 1/2 cup of the corned beef filling. Fold the dough over to create a half-moon shape. Crimp the edges of the dough to close the calzone. Repeat for the rest of the dough balls.
Transfer to a baking sheet (or better yet, a pizza stone you have warming up in the pre-heated oven.) Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the calzones are GBD (golden brown and delcious!)
Enjoy with a Guiness, Harp, or Magners!
* You could create the filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to stuff your calzones — will probably last a couple of days in the fridge.
** Play around with this recipe. For a party, you could make mini-calzones to feed more people! You’d just need to divide your dough into smaller portions and put less of the corned beef mixture into each calzone.