Coconut-y Cream-y Pie Type Thing-y

The Phantom of the Opera was in town this weekend, and even though only three of us went to see it, at one point there were over 20 of us in my sister's house for dinner. The large number is helped by the fact that all ten of my nieces and nephews were there. The weekend was loud. It was boisterous. It was also full of food, fun and the kind of happiness that only comes from spending large amounts of time with a loud and boisterous family.

Since my house isn't large enough to hold more than about 4.75 people and two cats, the family dinners are at my sister's house. But I get to make the desserts. And with this many people, I get to make more than one. The hard part is deciding what to make. I can spend weeks pouring over recipes. I made an apple pie for one night- but I didn't buy enough apples, and I baked it too long. I brought it anyway, to keep me humble. The next night, though, I brought two desserts - a coconut cream pie and a blackberry chiffon.

I'm still on the fence about the blackberry chiffon. It was a lot of work (I wanted it to be seedless), and it didn't have the incredible blackberry taste I was going for. The coconut cream "thing", however, was worth every ounce of effort. Plus a few ounces that I didn't use. It wasn't really a pie - there were so many of us, that I doubled my recipe and made it in a 13x9 pan. And since the pie was mostly made for my mom - who loves coconut and views meringue as a waste of time - and since I don't really enjoy making meringue, I usually do this without all the fru-fru on top.
This pie takes a lot of wrist action. But it is worth every bit of it. It's a great recipe to get those whisking muscles into shape. It seems like every step takes twice as long as you think it will, because you just keep whisking, and whisking, and whisking...

Coconut Cream Pie
Crust:
3 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup Splenda
1 stick of butter, melted

Filling
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 14 oz can unsweetened coconut milk
3 cups whole milk
8 egg yolks
1 stick butter, cut into pieces
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, toasted and divided

Mix crust ingredients and spread in a 13x9 pan. Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes.

Mix Splenda, sugar, cornstarch and salt in a large sauce pan. Add the coconut milk and whisk together until it's smooth. Slowly pour in the whole milk, whisking the entire time. Put over medium heat and whisk constantly until it's slowly boiling. This will take almost as long as it takes to read War and Peace. Remove the pan from the heat.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they're golden and smooth. Whisk about a cup of the coconut mixture into the yolks, and then add the yolk mixture to the remaining coconut in the pan. Turn the heat back up to medium, and whisk constantly until it's slowly boiling again. Continue whisking and boiling until it's getting a little thick, about 2 or 3 minutes.
Remove from the heat, and use a spatula to scrape the bottom of the pan. Add the butter pieces and whisk some more until the butter is melted and everything is smooth. Add the vanilla and 2 cups of the toasted coconut, and whisk some more until it's ... well whisked.

Pour the filling on top of the graham cracker crust and smooth a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface. Refrigerate until it's set, about 5 hours or overnight.

Before serving, remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the remaining toasted coconut over the top. Devour on it's own, or be really decadent and spoon some whipped cream on top.

Fall recipes. And Craving lasagna.

I've been so busy baking desserts for the balooning family gathering this weekend, that I haven't actually cooked anything in days. Well, I guess I should say I was so busy looking at recipes. Because I only ended up baking three desserts, but narrowing the list down took the better part of three days and two bottles of wine. Thank you, Internet.

• Smitten Kitchen has posted what just may be the best looking fall recipe of all time. Butternut squash and caramelized onion galette. The name is long but the taste is strong. And I think I should get paid for coming up with that slogan.
• Last Night's Dinner has had some even more amazing recipes than usual this week - I need someone to cook like that for MY birthday. The "Keep it Simple" meal is making my mouth water at 10 AM after a full breakfast. And if THAT's not the mark of good food, then I don't know what it.
• It must be fall, because butternut squash is ALL OVER the internet these days. Roasted Butternut Squash Soup from Tasting Spoons makes me remember that it's been almost a year since I've made it. And as soon as I get the visions of tonight's lasagna out of my head, then I'll get right to it.

No Nuts in My Bread, Please

Banana bread is one of my favorite comfort foods. When I was a kid, the whole family got excited when my mom made it. I never understood their devotion to covering a slice with cream cheese, though. I prefer mine warm with a little butter melted into it. Or just a chunk straight out of the oven. Or if I'm home alone while I'm mixing it up, I may or may not be prone to scooping out a huge spoonful of pure batter bliss. This, of course, is just to taste it to make sure that, there's .. um...enough cinnamon in it. Yeah. Because I would NEVER subject The Professor to under-cinnamon-ized banana bread.

And I need to go ahead and apologize to the best friend - because she has a deep love of banana bread, and she's been known to purchase bananas with the sole purpose of letting them get over ripe and then handing them to me with a maniacal gleam in her eye. And I don't think she's going to get any of this.

Although I love pecans and walnuts, I've never really liked them in breads and brownies. It's just one of the little quirks that makes me a little more crazy unique.
I also made this with soy milk, since we don't usually have regular milk in the house, and Splenda. The bread cooked a little faster than usual, and since I've never made it with soy milk before, I'm going to assume that's the reason. Although I'm just talking off the top of my head and have no idea if that's accurate.

Banana-Cinnamon Bread That Is Not Cluttered Up With Nuts

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 Splenda
2 medium bananas, mashed
1/4 cup soy milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and re-arrange your racks so that the pan will be in the center of the oven.
Grease one 8 inch loaf pan or three mini-loaf pans.

Beat butter and Splenda together until creamy. Add the bananas, soy milk, eggs and vanilla and mix until everything's combined. Sift Flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together. Add to the banana mixture and mix it up. Taste a heaping spoonful to make sure you've put enough cinnamon in it. You probably haven't, though, so if you're afraid of salmonella poisoning, just go ahead and dust the top of the batter with more cinnamon and mix it up again.

Pour into greased pan (and if you're a real cinnamon freak like, uh, me then sprinkle a little more on top) and bake for about 40 minutes.
Put pan on wire rack for ten minutes, then remove from pan and place loaf on wire rack to cool completely. Or start breaking off chunks of it and devour immediatly. Really, at this point, you can't go wrong.

I don't like my banana bread to be baked all the way through - I love it to be a little bit underdone in the center.

Even more than that, though, I LOVE the way the house smells while this bakes.

Onions on sale, otherwise known as a really good excuse to make soup

Ahhh, Sundays. A day of endless possibilities. And it's almost the time of year - almost cool enough to actually be called "Fall" - when spending hours in the kitchen sounds like a joy. For the last five months, spending hours at a time in my small kitchen with a hot oven and a pot of something bubbling on the stove sounded more like some kind of terrorist torture method than a soothing, relaxing activity. There's a reason that iced tea and lemonade reign supreme here in the Deep South.

But it's not that time of year quite yet. So I had to find something that would fill the growing need to cook something in the middle of the day that is more complex than a grilled cheese sandwich without becoming a drooping, humid mass of frustration. I went to the store and wandered around the produce section, searching for inspiration, when I found a sale that made my heart go pitter-patter:
Sweet onions, 3lb bags, BUY ONE GET ONE FREE.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there are few things in this life that make me happier than the B1G1F sales at Publix. As soon as I saw the mounds of onions glistening there in front of me, I knew what I wanted to cook. And I planned on making enough to freeze some for later in the year, when I'm rushed with holiday shopping but still want something warm and soothing. In fact, I need something soothing right now - I just missed out on not one, but THREE great deals on Amazon because I waited a day too long to hit that purchase button.
Pass those croutons, STAT.

The Simplest French Onion Soup EVER

Ingredients:

1 stick butter
2 pounds sweet onions, sliced thin
a few healthy pinches of Kosher salt
6 cups Beef stock, chilled and defatted
2 cups white wine (optional)
1 tsp dried thyme
Big Fat Crusty French Bread Croutons (See below)
A Heap of Grated Cheese (I'm not going to be picky and tell you what kind, but I used Mozzarella this time)

Preparation:

In a stock pot or other large pot, melt the butter on medium-low heat and add the onions and a quick pinch or two of salt. Swirl the onions around to get them nice and coated with buttery goodness, then leave them alone for about 10 minutes. Walk away to somewhere cool and comfortable. Then you can come back and stir them around occasionally, cooking for another 20 minutes or so. You're waiting for them to let out all their onioniy love juice and carmelize;
they'll dramatically reduce in size.

Once your onions are ready, add the wine, the beef stock, the thyme and a dash or two of pepper. Or if you, like me, think of pepper as the best thing to happen to food since fire, then put in a bunch more. Then give everything a big stir, cover the pot, put the heat on low and walk away for at least 45 minutes. I let this batch bubble and brew for a little more than an hour while I sat outside in the shade with a beer and a book.

When you're ready to eat, ladle the soup into your bowls, throw a few good sized croutons on top and top with the shredded cheese. Put the whole she-bang under the broiler until the cheese is melted, bubbly and starting to brown.
Now, you have two options:
A.) Horde it and don't tell anyone in the house that it's ready, or
B) Build up some good karma and share your creation.

Note: I really really prefer this soup with fresh grated Romano cheese melted on top. But in my soupy-dream-filled delirium at the grocery store, I forgot to pick some up. So I used the whole milk Mozzarella that I had at home. And you know what? It was still yummy.

Big Fat Crusty French Bread Croutons
I've never measured anything for my croutons, but here's how I do it:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
cut about half a loaf of french bread into good size chunks, about 2" - cubes;
Melt a stick of butter. Add a few shakes of garlic powder and onion powder, plenty of fresh cracked black pepper, a few shakes of celery salt and a good dose of Italian Seasoning.

Gently toss the bread with the butter mixture and spread the cubes on a greased baking sheet. Bake for about ten minutes, turning half way through.

Ok, so I'm not a master gardener. Or even a good novice.

I had a lovely crop of Roma tomatoes and yellow squash this year. Both of them went absolutely nuts, which made feel a little bit less like "you have no business gardening, you lazy slug" and a little bit more like Martha Stewart. I thought I made more tomato sauce and salsa this summer than we could ever eat. But there's none left.

For a couple of weeks, I've been meaning to go out and pull up the dead plants, put some compost down and clean everything up for its long winter nap. Which isn't so long here in the Deep South, but a nap is a nap - There's no such thing as a bad one. And now I'm putting myself to sleep.

Well, I looked out at my supposedly dead tomato plants - they just couldn't take the massive heat wave, and gave up all attempts around the TWELFTH straight day of 100+ degree heat we had in August - anyway, I look out and my tomato plants have flowers and tomatoes all over them! I have an entire new crop of tomatoes growing!

So I raced outside with my gardening soul singing songs of joy and dreaming dreams of more red sauce. And maybe this time I would practice some self-control and freeze some for the winter. But first I really figred I should get rid of all the dead stuff. The squash vines were dead, so I pulled them up. And then I started working on the dead leaves and vines in the middle of the tomato plants. And I reached in and came face to face with a caterpillar. A very green caterpillar. Which kind of worried me, because now I knew why the leaves were half eaten on that little section. And then as I reached to grab a dead leaf, I saw this on the back of another one:

From What's In My ...

I didn't know what it was, but I was pretty sure that when unidentified caterpillars - that have been eating my plants - take up their long winter nap on the back of my leaves, it's only because of the proximity to the food source. And the last thing I want is a breeding mass of these critters.

So I frantically ran inside, looked up the information and discovered I have tomato hornworms. Or at least that's what think I have. And to prove that a Freddy Kreuger nightmare was in the making in my little plot of dirt, I found out that they may or may not have laid their eggs in the dirt around the plants. So I have to get rid of my tomato plants, and my dreams of chunky, garlicy, yummy red sauce have now disappeared. But I DID harvest the green tomatoes that were there. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them. (That's me begging for ideas, y'all).

On a happier note, the bell pepper plants that produced the bountiful harvest of ONE RED PEPPER this summer have now decided to go crazy as well. I have about 5 peppers growing; three of them are about 5 inches long. Now I just have to be patient and let them turn red before I rip them off the plants and devour them.

From Untitled Album

Fettuccine e Verdure

I was so busy thinking about the wonderful grilled chicken that I had planned for dinner tonight, that I forgot to plan what I would serve with it. The Professor likes chicken just as much as the next guy, but if I simply gave him a plate full of meat and went on my way, he would probably take me to a shrink. So I had to come up with something fairly quickly. In my world, that means randomly pulling things out of the refrigerator or pantry and throwing them in one big bowl and giving it a fancy name. Somehow, I have convinced the Professor that this is an actual talent, rather than desperation.

This was the pasta of choice. When he asked, I told him it's called Fettuccine e verdure.

Somehow Fettuccine and vegetables sounds much more like an actual planned dish when you say it in Italian.

The fresh basil and Parmesan cheese were the stars of this dish. Everything else was just there to give them something to cling to. Although a plate of Parmesan cheese and basil sounds pretty good, now that I think about it...


Ingredients:
8 ounces Fettuccine
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, cut in decent size chunks
1 white onion, cut in decent size chunks
1 pound button mushrooms, cut in decent size chunks (our mushrooms were HUGE, so I quartered most of them)
olive oil
one stick of butter, divided
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup half and half
about 6 or 7 fresh basil leaves, chopped

Preparation:
start cooking your pasta.

Slowly heat the olive oil and garlic in a skillet without really sauteing, so the garlic infuses the oil.
Add the onions and peppers and saute them for five minutes. Add the mushrooms and - here's the really yummy part - add several tablespoons of butter. The mushrooms will absorb that like drunks on a 3 day binge.

Drain your pasta and return it to your pan. I added about 3 tablespoons of butter and a half a cup of Parmesan cheese. Then on a whim, I grabbed the half and half out of the fridge and splashed about 1/4 cup in the pasta. Once the butter is melted, add your sauteed vegetables and your chopped basil and stir it all together.


As a side note - some of the onion stuck to the saute pan, and apparently continued to cook while I stirred my pasta-ness together. Those five or six little pieces got brown and crispy, and had such an incredible taste. Maybe next time I'll saute the onions separately so that they can really caramelize.

So many recipes, so little time

There are sooo many good looking recipes out there. So many blogs that make the food look so good, I'm almost scared to post pictures of my stuff. But I figure if nothing else, my own food photography will keep me humble. So I go on. Purely for the sake of keeping my vanity in check, you understand.

And purely for the sake of keeping my waist line in check, here are some recipes that I did not immediatly make upon reading. They are now in the "To be made" list, but in order to keep the treadmill torture from being completely counteracted, I won't let myself spend the weekend making every last one of them. Maybe all but one, but not every last one. So if you make one, tell me how awesome it is, so I have justification to make it myself.

• Bloomin Sourdough - oh my. I almost had to have a private moment when I saw this. My resolve is slowly crumbling - but that's ok, I have family coming in town soon, and I plan on wowing them with this.
• Smoked Scallops with Zucchini Ribbons - This is almost enough to bring tears. Scallops? Smoked? With zucchini ribbons? It's a good thing there are some scallops in my future.
• SAUTÉED OKRA & GARLIC - I have never cooked with okra. And outside of the slimy mass inside the fried things that are all over the deep south and the occassional bowl of faux-gumbo that can be found in the same places, I've bever had it. So I have to try this. For educational purposes.
• Pan Seared Filet Mignon with Wine-Shallot Sauce - I'm afraid this will be on the dream list for a bit. My budget has no room for filet mignon. But looking at that picture of a perfectly cooked steak...resistance may be futile.

Veal a la Barone

Yes, the name is completely my invention. One time when my in-laws came for a visit, I looked around for a few veal recipes, trying to decide how I wanted to cook my veal. Of course, I found 20 that I liked (the main criteria for me to approve was for it to require A.) Veal and B.) some type of wine). In the end, when it was time to cook, I just cooked on my own. I briefly thought about looking up one of them, but then forgot about it by the time I was finished drinking the first glass of wine chopping the onions. So I tried to remember what I did, cause it was yummy. It very well might be extremely similar to something that has a real name. But don’t tell me. Let me believe I’m original. (If you want specific amounts, you’re out of luck, but you can look through the recipe and see what I put down. Welcome to my ADD way of cooking.)

You’ll need:
veal cutlets (we had 7)
bread crumbs
olive oil
a couple of egg whites
pearl onions
shallots
fresh garlic
fresh sliced mushrooms (I got a package of the gourmet mix from Publix with Baby Bella, Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms)
Your choice of wine (I had also intended on making a Marsala sauce, but couldn’t find any Marsala. Or Madeira for a Madeira sauce. So I used the open bottle of Sangiovese from our local winery).
chicken broth
cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste.
And whatever other seasonings you like.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in large skillet.Dip veal cutlets in beaten egg white, then bread crumbs. When oil is sizzling, put the veal in the pan.Cook for about 3 minutes on the 1st side, and 2 or 3 minutes on the second side (you may have to add another tablespoon of oil).
While the veal is cooking, finely chop 5 or 6 pearl onions and 2 or 3 shallots. When the veal is finished, remove it from pan (leave the oil) and place on paper towels to absorb excess oil. Put veal on cookie sheet and put in a very low temp oven while you cook the sauce. It’ll get nice and crispy.

Put chopped onions and shallots in remaining oil in pan, and press fresh garlic into pan as well. Crack fresh pepper to taste into skillet. Sauté-until well cooked (about 5 or 6 minutes, longer if you added fresh oil after veal). Dissolve 2 tablespoons corn starch in ¼ cup of wine, and set aside.Pour ½ to 1 cup of wine and 2 cups of chicken broth into skillet. Add the mushrooms. When mushrooms are cooked as much as you like (about 5 minutes if you’ve got thick slices), add the cornstarch and wine mixture, stirring constantly. Cook until the gravy is the consistency you like. Place Veal on serving platter and either pour the gravy over the top or serve on the side. Eat with a really good red wine. We had another bottle of Sangiovese with it, then opened a Valpolicella.

Did someone say Chocolate? And Pumpkin? And Cheesecake?

I found this recipe in a magazine about 2 years ago, and it became the only cheesecake I ever wanted to eat again. Don't worry, I still devour any cheesecake in my line of sight. But this...this is heavenly. Angels actually start to sing when you put the first bite in your mouth. And those angels? Every time you make one of these and the timer dings, one of them gets their wings. Scout's honor. So make it for the angels.

Crust ingredients:
1⅓ cup Chocolate Graham Cracker Crumbs
¼ cup butter or margarine, melted
1 Tbsp Splenda
½ tsp cinnamon
4 squares of Milk Chocolate Baker’s Chocolate, divided

Cheesecake
3 packages cream cheese, softened
1 can of pumpkin
1 cup Sugar (I used Splenda, and it tasted great)
¼ cup Brown sugar
4 eggs
½ cup evaporated milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp ground Cinnamon
½ tsp Allspice
⅛ tsp Nutmeg

Crust: Mix these ingredients together and press evenly around the bottom of a springform pan. Crush 2 oz of chocolate into small pieces and sprinkle over crust. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt milk chocolate, stirring constantly. DO NOT BURN! Set aside.

In a bowl, beat cream cheese, pumpkin and both sugars til smooth. Add eggs, milk, cornstarch and spices and beat until well incorporated. Remove ¾ cup of pumpkin mixture and pour into melted chocolate. Stir completely and thoroughly.

Pour remaining pumpkin mixture into pan evenly. Spoon the chocolate/pumpkin mixture over the top, and swirl to create a marbled effect.

Bake in a 350° oven for 50-60 minutes. The middle should not be completely set when you remove the cheesecake from the oven. Cool completely and refrigerate.

Hint: the best topping in the world for this French Vanilla Whipped Topping, with a slight sprinkle of cinnamon.

Chayote Squash

A few months ago, I ran across a new item in the produce section. I had seen them a couple of times, but never paused to investigate. The label said Chayote Squash. What in the world....?
So of course, I bought a couple.

I looked up a few things online, and ended up simply doing it up in a saute pan with some olive oil, sliced white onion, garlic, black pepper and oregano. It was incredibly yummy and light. I'm going to have to experiment with this some more. Any ideas?
Carnivorous husband's quote: it "Wasn't at all disgusting." Does he know how to compliment my cooking, or what?