Flavor-full, photo-full, and recipe-full!

It's been a while since I've posted any recipes, and for that I am so sorry! Despite this, I have been baking like crazy lately, so this post will be full of many delicious recipes!

But, first...

My last recipe that was posted was a layered minty brownie. Despite the components of them tasting very good that night, when I brought them to work it was kind of disastrous. The frosting slowly melted while at work. It only took about 10 minutes out on my desk for it to start getting really messy. My coworkers also gave it mediocre reviews. Edible, but not delicious, so I don't think I'll make these again.

Determined, I continued on with the baking and came up with many other delicious things to compensate for this semi-failure.

Apple Doughnuffins

About 15 Muffins

Based on this recipe.

Full nutrition is here.

For muffins:
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
.5 cup sugar
3 packets Truvia sweetener
.25 tsp ground cinnamon
.75 cup light plain soy milk
3 tbsp egg whites
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

For topping:
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp Earth Balance spread, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease muffin tray with non-stick spray.

Mix all wet ingredients until thoroughly combined, followed by dry ingredients. Distribute evenly in muffin tray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until it passes the clean toothpick test.

For topping, melt the margarine. In a separate bowl mix the cinnamon and sugar. When muffins are done baking, brush tops with melted margarine and dunk in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Serve immediately or let cool.

Fun fact: The apple sauce I used was home-made by a friend's mother! It's so so so yummy! I named them "doughnuffins" because they are extremely airy like a doughnut!

What I learned: These muffins stuck to the paper liners. I never used to use liners, but decided on a whim to try them a few months ago. I loved how little clean-up there was after baking (hell, I'm lazy, so this was great!) but now I know that the less butter there is in something, the more it will stick... and holy crap... these were practically PLASTERED to the liners! Whoops. Now I know.

So, this was a bit of a failure, too, but what you could separate from the liner was yummy!

Mocha Brownies

Makes 32 Squares

Based on this recipe.

Full nutrition here.

Because I precisely followed the recipe (for probably the first time ever!) I'm not going to post the full recipe here. I even used all of the ingredients... even heavy cream! *shock!* The only thing I did differently was use two 8x8 glass dishes instead of one 13x9 dish. Because I'm a dork, I know that the usable square inches is nearly identical so I figured it wouldn't affect it too much... and I was right!

These were a complete and utter success!

What I learned: Firstly, I made ganache for the first time! This taught me patience, yet again.

Heating the cream on medium-low heat took a while, especially staring at it waiting for the bubbles to start forming. Letting the hot cream sit on top of the chocolate for 5 minutes was absolutely painstaking! In the end, it was totally worth it and it yielded a creamy, delicious ganache!

I also used a pastry bag for the first time! I only did some simple dots of ganache with a #4 tip, but it was still fun to use!

In the middle of the large dot in the center is not a jelly bean - it's a Trader Joe's Espresso Pillow! These things are delicious just as a snack, but they totally worked with this brownie treat!

Finally, I learned that sometimes the full-fat, original recipes can be the best. I was told by many of my friends and coworkers that this is the best recipe I've ever made. A few wanted the recipe, too, and I totally gave credit to the original!

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Makes 12 Slices

Loosely based off of this recipe.

Nutrition info is here.

1.5 cups whole wheat flour
.25 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2 eggs
1/4 cup agave nectar
1.5 cup diced strawberries
2 tbsp ground flax meal
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 bananas, mashed
2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp light plain soy milk
1 tbsp quick oats

Spray the bottom and sides of a loaf pan with non-stick spray. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, mix the diced strawberries and agave nectar and set aside.

Mix together the mashed bananas, vanilla, flax meal, soy milk, apple sauce, and eggs in a large bowl. When combined, add the strawberry-agave mixture and mix.

Add all remaining ingredients to the mixture except oats. When everything is mixed together, pour into prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle oats on top.

Bake for 20 minutes. Cover with foil and bake for another 25 minutes. Remove bread from the pan and let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before slicing.

...isn't strawberry season the best season??!! :)

One Big Lesson Polenta Has Taught Me

I attempted making polenta for the first time tonight and learned a few things along the way.

I used a 4-to-1 water-to-cornmeal ratio that I found in my Joy Of Cooking book for making polenta, cutting it down to two 1/4-cup servings. Browned 3 tbsp minced garlic, wilted some baby spinach, then added 2 cups of water on top. Brought it to a boil, added 1/2 cup of cornmeal, stirred constantly until thickened, and stirred in some black pepper and dried basil.

My original goal was to bake it, so I poured the partially-cooked polenta in an 8x8 glass dish, topped it with 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, and put it in a 350 F preheated oven for 30 minutes. I cut it into quarters and sandwiched some pan-seared tofu that I crumbled and added to tomato sauce (a fake-"meat" sauce, I guess, haha) to make it like lasagna.

Believe me, this is not a success story! Here's the #1 thing I learned from this: Patience.

I started off good. Really, I did! I patiently stirred the polenta as it cooked in the boiling water for exactly 10 minutes. I patiently waited the full half hour for it to bake in the pan. I even waited for it to cool to room temperature before cutting. Go me! However, The polenta was still runny on the bottom when I cut it, so I put it in a 400-degree oven on the bottom rack for 5 minutes. I saw it sizzling and took it out... then I was impatient.

I cut it again and it looked, uh, better (I guess). I tried using a spatula to take the first 1/4 of it out and onto my plate. I basically slopped it on there and rearranged it into the square it once was. While moving it from the dish to my plate, it started dripping off the side of the spatula and, stupidly, I tried catching it. Because I was too impatient to wait for it to cool this time around, the molten mush burned a few of my fingers.

After assembling the layers of "meat" sauce and polenta (and taking the photos) I was so freaking starving that I shoveled the first bite into my mouth. You'd think the feeling of the semi-burned dots on my hand from the previous incident would have told me, "Hey, stupid! Blow on it, or just wait a second for it to cool down!"

Nope, I burned the hell out of the roof of my mouth. Fan-freaking-tastic! (Note the sarcasm...) This was a yummy dish, flavor-wise, but definitely needs some perfecting before I'm confident enough to share it with others!

Overnight Failure

I wasn't prepared for disappointment this early in the morning. That pot with the brick-like object in the middle of a cloudy liquid? That's my crock pot as it was about 15 minutes ago this morning after an attempt at Overnight Oatmeal.

Epic fail indeed! About 85% of my steel-cut oats were nicely burned to the side of my crock pot, most of which was actually burned.

I was hoping that this morning I would be able to blog about how cooking oatmeal overnight is a great solution for those too lazy to make a nutritious breakfast in the morning. In the words of Borat... NOT! The only thing I did differently in this recipe was that my oats spent closer to 9 hours in the crock pot rather than 7-8, but 1/4 inch thick layer of burned oats doesn't just happen in one hour!

What to do, do? I need a quick breakfast with minimal effort!

Plain ol' oatmeal in the microwave.

1/2 cup quick-cook oats

1 cup water

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 packet Truvia

approx 2 tbsp Craisins

approx 2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Combine ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl, stir to combine, microwave for 2 minutes, and enjoy!

I'd consider this a learning experience, but I used the last bit of my steel-cut oats (which means I need to buy more) and the Overnight Oatmeal was supposed to yield 8 servings; that's 8 meals down the drain... literally!

Epic fail this early in the morning? Yikes. At least my last-minute oats were yummy.