Grilled Cheese Rolls

A couple of days ago on my way to work I stopped at Trader Joe's to grab something to eat. While I was checking out, the woman working looked at me and said, "You must be a good journalist!" I looked at her with a little confusion on my face and repeated, "Journalist?" Just on the off chance that I misheard her. She said, "Yeah, do you do any writing?" I thought for a second and answered, "As a matter of fact, I do write a food blog." Then she smiled and said, "You keep writing that, you are very good at it!"

Thanks Trader Joe's lady, for having confidence in my blog-writing abilities.

The end of August is nearing and I can actually feel a certain crispness in the air telling me that fall is here. Our short-lived summer season was nice while it lasted, but  its about time for the cooler weather to return to Oregon. Being the true Northwestern-er that I am, I am not entirely upset about the coming cool weather, and in fact I almost welcome it with open arms (as long as the rain holds off for another month or two). The fall has to be my favorite season out of the year. The weather is perfect as long as it stays dry, its football season, and the food is what puts the nail in the coffin. There is honestly nothing better than a warm meal on a cool night. You will probably notice an increase in posts during the next couple of months.

Today it's not cold out, but just cool enough and just grey enough for me to want to sit inside with a bowl of soup and grilled cheese watching HGTV in my sweat pants all day. These grilled cheese rolls are something I found on Pintrest. They are super easy to make and not fancy or gourmet by any means. They are just a fun spin on regular grilled cheese and good for kids...or 22 year old's who think they are still kids...

First thing is first, cut the crust off of a couple pieces of bread. I just used a soft wheat bread for mine.

Next, use a rolling pin (or a wine bottle if you don't have a rolling pin) to flatten the bread out. Then stick a slice of American cheese on each piece of bread. Yes, this cheese is gross, and it feels like plastic, but we all know it makes the best grilled cheese.

Roll them up tightly and they are ready to go into the pan. I just used a small frying pan with a little melted butter. Hold the roll in place for a few minutes until the edge is sealed and then roll it around to make sure it cooks all the way around.

Meanwhile I was heating a can of Progresso chunky tomato soup on the stove, and just like that I had an entire meal. Like I said, super easy to make, but fun to eat and the sticks are perfect for dipping in the soup! By the time I got around to making these the clouds had burned off and it had warmed up to almost 80 degrees. But thanks to my air conditioning I was still convinced that it was cool enough out to eat soup and sandwiches. I may be rushing into fall a little bit, but Safeway has Halloween candy for sale already, so it looks like I'm not the only one!

Summer Fruit Tart

Now that August is just about over, I'll go ahead and post my first entry of the month. I'd like to say that my posting consistency will improve once the fall comes along, but I can't make any promises. Rather than blogging I've been spending my time doing way more important things, like watching TV. It was the TV however that gave me inspiration for this post, so I guess it was a rather important activity after all. While Kyle and I were watching this week's episode of "Masterchef" we watched the creation of fresh fruit tarts during a head to head elimination challenge between contestants. (Kyle is my boyfriend for any who may be reading and wondering who he might be.) Kyle mentioned that he would like to try one of those fruit tarts some time, so I took that as an opportunity to challenge myself...and maybe earn a few brownie points in the process. Plus, I needed something to blog about again anyway. I wanted to find the most authentic and homemade version of the fruit tart I could. I looked through many recipes, sifting through "shortcut crust" and "vanilla pudding filling" and finally landed on a Fresh Fruit Tart recipe from Oprah's website. The shell is a legitimate pastry crust and the filling is a smooth homemade custard, or pastry cream. I had my work cut out for myself.

I started with the crust because it was going to need to chill for about an hour while I worked on the cream. One of the first instructions told me to use a food processor to cut the butter and cold water into the dry ingredients. Since I don't own a food processor, I listened to my semi-pro baker little sister who told me to use a blender instead. I wasn't sure if that was a great idea at the time, and in retrospect I'm positive that wasn't the best idea but I made it work. After the dough chilled I ended up with a pretty crumbly mess on my hands, in which I had to perform some Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like surgery on it. I pieced it together in the pan and ended up with a semi-descent looking crust by the time it was ready to go in the oven. The first 5 minutes of baking were supposed to include pie weights to ensure that the crust stayed in place. I used poor man's pie weights, which were dry kidney beans on top of parchment paper and that worked just find. After removing the beans, I stuck it back in for 20 minutes until I had a nice golden crust that didn't glorify my patch-work as much as I was afraid of.

Cooling inside the pan

While the crust was cooling, I started to work on my pastry cream. This is the second time now that I've made a pastry cream for the sake of my blog. I think that this time it turned out better, as I experienced more scorching last time. I also used a different recipe that I will probably stick to from here on out (omitting the cognac). I was supposed to strain it through a sieve, but I don't have one of those and there weren't any lumps that I could see so I put it straight in the fridge to cool.

Filled crust, still in the pan

All of the recipes that I read regarding fruit tarts showed the crust removed from the pan before they start filling it and assembling the fruit. While consulting my mom, the expert on most things food, she told me to leave it in the pan during the filling process. Since mom usually always knows best, that's what I did. I was afraid it was going to be too heavy and create a problem for me removing it from the pan after it was complete, but it didn't. Thanks mom.

Fully assembled, still in the pan

Here it is fully assembled. I chose to use strawberries, peaches, kiwis and blueberries because I wanted a good contrast between the colors. And since I was making this for Kyle in the first place, I chose fruits that I knew he liked. Besides blueberries, but that's why I put those in the middle, so he could avoid them if he wanted. Overall, I think that it turned out pretty well. After the crust mishap in the beginning I wasn't sure which direction this fruit tart was headed, but I can say that I was pretty proud of the outcome. For the record, Kyle ate almost the entire thing in one sitting, and brownie points were received. In the words of Gordon Ramsay, this was "the most stunning fruit tart!"

Cloud Nine

Yet again my hectic summer schedule has interfered with my blogging ability, and I am sure I have left oh so many of you checking frantically daily for a new post to arrive. Well, here it is! I have recently discovered Pintrest, and by that I mean I have recently become an active member. I had known about it all along but never really understood what the big to-do was until now. In the last few days I have discovered more blog-worthy recipes than I know what to do with. Looking through them was what inspired me to crank out a new entry despite the fact that I haven't had time to do so. So here I sit at work, blogging away yesterday's breakfast.

It was the picture of the recipe that first caught my eye. A light, fluffy pancake of sorts, with fresh fruits baked in, and topped off with a drizzle of honey. I could (almost literally) taste the summer flavors through the screen. Being a late July morning, it was the perfect time to recreate this summer breakfast. The recipe is called Honey Cloud Pancakes, and can be found here. They may look daunting, or maybe that was just me, nonetheless they are super simple to make. Next time I make this I won't even need to look at the recipe...and that may be as soon as tomorrow morning.

Here are my ingredients: Milk, flour, honey, vanilla, salt, 2 eggs (1 egg white and 1 whole egg) and fresh soft fruits. The original recipe used strawberries, peaches and blueberries and I didn't find any reason to make a change regarding fruits. After all, two thirds of them are my favorite fruits. In one bowl whisk the egg white until it becomes white and peaky. In a second bowl, mix the milk, flour, honey, salt, vanilla, and a whole egg. Then fold the egg white into the other ingredients using a metal spoon. I'm not sure why you are supposed to use a metal spoon but that's what the recipe said, so I figured its important and I should pass it on. At this point you'll want to have your fruit sliced up and ready to go because you're going to need it.

Melt 1 T butter in a 6 inch (oven safe) frying pan. The one I used probably wasn't oven safe at all, I got it for $4.99 at Winco. But the handle didn't melt and the pancake turned out just fine so this is the pan I'll continue to use. Anyway, melt the butter on the stove top and pour in the batter. Leave it on the stove for just a couple of minutes until you can see it starting to set up around the edges. At that point, sprinkle the fruit on top and pop it in the oven for 7 minutes. Once its done, it will have risen up a little bit and be a light golden color.

 

Because of the butter on the bottom it slides out really easily onto a plate. Drizzle some more honey on top and its ready to eat!

The name honey cloud was spot on. It was light, fluffy and not overly sweet, and barring the butter, it isn't half bad for you. The cool thing about this is that you can substitute any fruits or toppings you want to adapt it to the season. I plan on making this again multiple times this week. Its that good.

Strawberry Danish

Its summer time (technically, but Mother Nature has little to show for it), which means fresh local strawberries are in season. I found a recipe online a few months ago for strawberry danish pastries that I had been wanting to try but hadn't gotten around to yet, so I figured this was a good time to so. The recipe can be found here. I followed the recipe almost exactly, except for the pastry cream - in which I used this recipe. Besides the pastry cream the other two ingredients are puff pastry dough and strawberries, so really it was the formula from the first recipe that I was actually following and not so much the recipe itself.

I made my pastry cream a day in advance so that it would have time to chill in the fridge. My days are usually packed pretty full of work and other various activities, leaving a 1-2 hour window of kitchen time - so anything that can be done in advance is extremely helpful. I unwrapped my puff pastry dough and set it out on the counter to thaw out for about an hour while I took a nap, which is one of my scheduled "other activities" that my day is so jam-packed with.  After I woke up  it was time to get to work.

The first step in the recipe involves draping the dough around a wooden dowel in order to cut even strips on either end, but I like to be a little rebellious sometimes and this was one of those times. (The wooden dowel approach seems confusing, so look the real recipe in order to see what I'm talking about.) Also, I didn't have an extra wooden dowel laying around so I just cut my dough into rectangles and then cut the strips one at a time trying to make them look as even as possible. It looks more rustic that way anyway. The only thing you really need to make sure of here is that there are the same number of strips cut on either side because these are going to be folded over on top of one another to create the braid effect. Each box of puff pastry contains 2 sheets of dough, which make 3 pastries each. The first two rectangles were easy to cut out - the third one required re-rolling scraps of dough in order make a large enough piece. Since I don't own a rolling pin and I was in ultra creativity mode, I cleaned off a bottle of flavored syrup that I had laying around and used that. I was pleasantly surprised with how well that worked.

Next, I spooned a few tablespoons of pastry cream on to the centers of each of the rectangles and topped them with a good amount of sliced strawberries. After tasting the finished product, I decided that I probably could have used more of the pastry cream than I did. Plus, I had over half of the recipe leftover.

Now it was time to braid the dough. It really is easier than it might seem, you just cross the strips over each other, alternating which one goes on top. There is probably a much fancier way to do this, but this method worked for me and it looked nice when I was finished too. There isn't anything sealing either end, so be careful when transferring the pastry to a baking sheet that the strawberries don't fall out of the ends.

6 pastries later, I lined them up on an ungreased baking sheet and topped them off with an egg wash to make them shine. The recipe didn't specify if the baking sheet should be greased or not so I took my chances and went without and didn't have any problems getting them off. I baked them at 375 for 35 minutes. When I pulled them out it looked like a murder had taken place in my oven. Strawberry juice had leaked from each of the ends, making blood red pools around each of the pastries. This didn't end up being a factor when removing them from the pan however.

You'll notice that some look nicer than others. This was due to the second sheet of dough being stickier than the first. I ate the one on the far right first so that no one else could see it.

And here is one of the nicer looking ones posing for a photo opp. They really did end up being pretty good, especially the next morning for breakfast. Like I said, I will add more cream to the center next time to add a bit more substance to the center. I may mess around with this recipe and adapt it according to fruits that are in season. I'm thinking a peach or raspberry version might hit the spot, or maybe a mixture of the two!

Margaritaville

It's been awhile since my last posting, and to any of the 3 or 4 people that might follow along with the blog, I apologize. To say that I've been busy is an understatement. The only thing my kitchen has produced in the last couple weeks have been peanut butter and jelly or frosted mini wheats. But between my crazy work schedule this week, I managed to find time (in the middle of the night once again) to create a pretty quick but great tasting dinner. By viewer request, I took on homemade pizza.

Lets start with the dough...

I forgot to take a picture of the dough so I found this picture on google images. This is pretty much what it looked like though.

 The dough can be made a day or two in advance, which in my case I did. As long as its kept tightly wrapped and in the fridge, it'll keep - and in fact some say it actually makes for better tasting crust if it has time to slow rise in the fridge overnight. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that statement, but since some food scientist said so, I'm going to choose to believe its true. I got the recipe out of my Bread Machine Magic book, which called for 1 C warm water, 3 C flour, 2 T olive oil, 1 t salt, 2 T sugar and 2 t active dry yeast. All of the ingredients get thrown together in the bread machine (salt on the opposite side of the yeast because it will kill it...thanks mom) and then turn the machine on and wait. This can be done without a bread machine as well, just use a mixer with a dough attachment and beat it until it forms a solid ball. Then let it rise in a oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap for about an hour. Since I went the bread machine route, I let the dough rise in the machine.

After its finished rising, or a couple days later, the dough is ready to use. This is the fun part because you can do whatever you want to make this pizza yours. I tapped in to my inner Italian roots and made a four cheese margarita pizza. I don't actually have any Italian in me at all, but nevertheless this is one of my favorite pizzas. The first thing I did was slice up some tomatoes pretty thin and marinated them in olive oil and smashed garlic for a few minutes while the oven preheated and I rolled out my dough. Once the dough was prepped, I brushed the olive oil mixture (minus the tomatoes) on to the dough in a nice even layer. Then I sprinkled on 3 out of the 4 cheeses - mozzarella, parmesan and fontina. I arranged the tomato slices around the pizza and put some freshly chopped basil on and then topped it off with some crumbled feta. Before I put it in the oven I sprinkled garlic salt around the crust because that makes it taste extra good.

Here is the pre-baked pizza. This image is legit, not googled.

I threw it into the 400 degree oven for close to 20 minutes. It probably could have used another minute or two but it looked good enough and at this point I was pretty hungry so I decided it was done.

The finished product

Ready to eat

I've never been to Italy, but I imagine if you could take a bite out of it this is probably what it would taste like. The subtle garlic flavor really comes through in the tomatoes and I think the crumbled feta is the secret ingredient. I'll keep experimenting with other kinds of pizzas, but this recipe is definitely a keeper.

XXL Oreo: Round 1

I was snacking on a couple of these, contemplating my next blog entry when it donned on me. I wanted to make an extra extra large Oreo - in cake form. I was given a set of cake pans for Christmas a couple years ago that I had yet to try out, so i thought this would be a good opportunity to do so. They are round pans with frilled edges like an Oreo. The top pan has grooves in the bottom of it that are meant to resemble the top of the cookie. I assumed this would be a fun and fairly easy project. Here is the story of one of my more embarrassing outcomes...

I was pretty much doomed from the beginning when choosing my ingredients. Like other times when I am feeling vivacious, tonight was a different story. After sitting through a graduation ceremony in a torrential downpour, I wanted to take the quickest and easiest route possible. My normally unsophisticated pantry was fully stocked with everything I needed - Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix, water, oil, eggs and even cool whip in the freezer. I got out my pans and went right to work. I read somewhere once that while making chocolate cake its a good idea to grease the pan and dust it with cocoa powder rather than flour in order to omit any white residue. Since the top of the cake wasn't going to be frosted with anything, I thought this was probably a good idea. In retrospect, I'm not so sure if this was good advice or not...but I'll get there. I mixed up the batter and poured it into each of the pans and stuck them in the oven for a half hour. When they were done, I cooled them in the pans for about 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. This is where most of the cake went wrong. I started with the bottom half first, which ended up breaking in half upon removing it from the pan. Maybe I should have let it cool longer first? But the box said 10 minutes was enough! I figured it wouldn't matter much anyway since it would be the bottom of the cake. I started taking the top cake out of its pan and I had a full on disaster on my hands. The cake stuck in the grooves on the bottom of the pan that were meant to resemble the top of the cookie so I was left with a ripped up, divot-ed surface that was supposed to be the top of the cake. Thinking that it couldn't get any worse than it already was, I decided to flip the top half over and use the other side as the top. It wasn't pretty either but at least it didn't have a chunk an inch deep taken out of it. In the process of flipping it, the cake crumbled into about 6 pieces in my hands. At this point I thought I should probably just keep this mishap to myself rather than posting it for everyone to read, but then I wouldn't be holding to my original promise of documentation of trials and tribulations. I emptied a container of cool whip between layers and pieced the cake together as best I could. Here is how it turned out...

Obviously not the prettiest cake in the world, and it barely even looks like an Oreo. Not even the off-brand kind. Believe it or not, this picture actually makes it look better than it did in real life. You also can't see the entire other side which is in shambles. Oreo Cake - 1, Suzannah - 0. You can bet I'm going to take another crack at this one...

The Quinoa Project

I was recently introduced to a new grain (which really isn't new at all, its just currently in the spotlight, it was actually used regularly by ancient Incas, so its quite old). You could say its the "it" thing right now among foodies. My mom, the food hipster, has of course been cooking with it for 15 years, but it is just now making its way into my vocabulary. Per request of one of my (very few) followers, this post will be all about this grain. It's called Quinoa - pronounced keen-wah. It is used often in South American cooking and contains more protein than most other grains. Since I'm on a bit of a health kick (this week) I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to experiment with this grain and see what it has to offer.

I wasn't sure where to start with this stuff, so I typed it into Google and discovered that there are a multitude of different ways to cook it. I decided that I wanted to try out a few different recipes in order to fully grasp what this grain is all about. Besides. my health kick isn't going to last forever, so I thought I may as well get as much use out of it as I can right now.

Breakfast

Quinoa Pancakes

For breakfast I made quinoa pancakes. This is one of Martha Stewart's recipes, which can be found here. It was like any other regular pancake recipe, with the addition of a cup of cooked quinoa. Normally I can throw down quite a few pancakes, but not these guys. They were quite a bit more dense and I had a hard time finishing three. It did however keep me full for a good portion of the morning. Other than their density, I don't have much to complain about, but I'll probably stick to regular ol' pancakes from here on out.

Dinner 

Quinoa Chicken Tacos

For this I got onto Allrecipes and looked for any recipe including quinoa. I decided on the most popular and highest rated, Quinoa and Black Beans. Rather than a side dish however, I wanted to make this the spotlight of the meal, so I came up with quinoa and black bean chicken tacos. I followed the recipe down to the T and then cooked up some boneless skinless chicken breast pieces in some vegetable oil, lemon juice, water, cayanne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and salt. I served these on whole wheat and corn tortillas with fresh cilantro, diced tomatoes and avocado.  I was pleasantly surprised with how well these came out. Turns out I can eat healthy and still still enjoy it! It made enough for 3 days worth of tacos, so I'll probably be making them again but not anytime soon. 


Dessert

Quinoa Pudding

Rice pudding is one of my favorite desserts, so when I found a recipe for quinoa pudding, I knew it had to be among the recipes I tried. This recipe was also located at Allrecipes under Quinoa Pudding. Like many of the reviewers suggested, I made a couple of alterations. I used vanilla soy milk instead of the 2 cups of apple juice it called for, and a teaspoon of lemon juice rather than two. It was a far cry from the rice pudding I know and love, but I can honestly say its 100% guilt free. It really didn't satisfy much of a sweet tooth, so I think i'll eat the leftover in the morning for breakfast. Tastes more like a hot cereal anyway. 


I guess I should note that I made all of these over the course of a couple days, not all in one day. I do have a refrigerator full of cooked quinoa now, so I will have leftovers for a few days - enough to finish my health kick without the need to cook anything else. While I may not make a couple of these recipes ever again, I'm glad that I had a chance to experiment with them and broaden my grain horizon. On the off chance that I'll ever need to cook for a vegan, I'll have a couple of recipes up my sleeve.