Christmas food

Delicious foods we made over Christmas.

Cookies:
Christmas Cookies
Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies- I used half chocolate chips, half white chocolate chips
Gingerbread cookies

Christmas Eve spread:
Filo dough with roasted veggies
Roasted chickpeas with cinnamon and honey, we added almonds
Truffle and Parmesan popcorn
Hummus
Fresh Bread
Jalapeno Corn Dip
Pizza Puffs - made it vegetarian by using yellow pepper and mushrooms
Mushroom Risotto Balls - made it vegetarian by using mushrooms instead of sausage
Trail Mix and Pomegranates

Christmas morning:
Cinnamon Rolls with cranberry and orange
Bacon

Apparently I am trying to gain some weight.

Apple Pie Bars

Seriously, you must try this recipe. They are so good, I can't stop eating them. They are especially good when they are cold, despite what the recipe says. I made these for a school gathering, so thankfully we don't have too many left over because I plan on eating then rest very soon. This recipe makes quite a few bars.

I added cranberries to the recipe, and I am glad I did. They give it a good tartness, so it is not overly sweet even with all the brown sugar. I also did not do the browned butter part for lack of time.

But again, you must try this.

Apple Pie Bars
Adapted from Food & Wine
Crust
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

Filling
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 cups Fuji apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into diamonds
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 bag frozen cranberries, thawed and rinsed
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup water, as needed ( I didn't need this)

Topping
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Line a 12 x 17-inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper. For the crust, cook butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it foams, turns clear, and then turns a deep brown, about 6 minutes. Pour browned butter into a glass measuring cup to chill in the freezer until solidified. - I did not do this step, didn't have time, instead I just used room temperature butter.-

Beat solidified brown butter, vanilla, and brown sugar in a large mixer bowl on medium speed until smooth. Whisk together flour and salt in a medium bowl; gradually add to butter mixture, beating on low speed just until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press dough evenly into bottom of prepared pan and chill until firm, about 30 minutes (or wrap well with plastic and chill overnight).

Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake crust until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool crust in pan. For the filling, heat two large skillets over medium heat and melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter with 2 tablespoons brown sugar in each. Add 4 cups apples to each skillet and cook over high heat until softened, about 10 minutes. Stir 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon and an 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg into each skillet, as well as cranberries. Cook until the apples are caramelized and liquid has evaporated, about 5 more minutes. If needed, add up to 1/2 cup water to each skillet to prevent scorching. Let cool; spread filling evenly over cooled crust.

For the topping, whisk together oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Add vanilla and melted butter; toss mixture with a fork until it comes together in small clumps. Scatter crumbs evenly over apple filling and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, until topping is golden. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack before cutting into bars with a serrated knife. Arrange bars in a single layer in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or wrap individually in waxed paper and freeze for up to a month. Bring to room temperature or warm before serving.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

So I actually made this about a week ago, but time got in the way, so here they are. And I never took a picture because every time I thought about it, I ate one instead. And I only made the brownie part, Jeff made the cookie dough part, because baby doesn't like to cooperate. I never am able to finish something in the kitchen anymore. He also decides to be hungry or only want me when I am in the middle of making dinner or this delicious thing!

Taken from Brown Eyed Baker

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Yield: 32 brownies

Prep Time: 40 minutes | Bake Time: 25 minutes

For the Brownie:
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract ( this was by total accident but not a bad addition to the recipe)
1 cup all-purpose flour

For the Cookie Dough:
¾ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons whole milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups mini chocolate chips (used dark chocolate chips)

1. Prepare the Brownies: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch pan with foil, with enough to hang over all four sides. Butter the foil. In a medium glass bowl, melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, scraping the bowl as needed. Mix in the melted chocolate until combined. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and mix just until combined (don’t over-mix). Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely.

2. Prepare the Cookie Dough: In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to combine the butter and both sugars. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour just until combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Spread the cookie dough over the cooled brownies. Refrigerate until the dough is firm, about an hour. Use a sharp knife or a pizza cutter (my favorite way to slice brownies!) to cut the brownies. Store the brownies in an airtight container at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator.

Rhubarb Streusal Muffins

There was a lot of cooking and eating this weekend.  A lot.  I tried my best to take pictures of all of it, but by Monday I started slacking.  So there are no photos of the massive cookout that happened on Monday. 

(Someone is figuring out how tasty hands can be)

These muffins happened because for Jeff's birthday a strawberry rhubarb crisp was made.  I asked Jeff to pick up two cups of rhubarb from the store and two cups became two pounds.  So... we had a lot of rhubarb left over, enter these muffins. 

And I will say they are actually tasty, and I don't care for rhubarb.  But the rhubarb has a nice tang to the sweet muffins.  And they are topped with streusal, just like more desserts should. 

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

In order to get over my frosting craving, I decided to make cupcakes.  Vanilla bean cupcakes to be exact.  Anything vanilla bean is Jeff's favorite so I knew he would help eat these, which he normally doesn't eat very many sweets. 

My cupcakes are a little darker than normal because of the coconut sugar, it has a brown sugar color versus the pretty white color of regular granulated sugar.  These cupcakes are really good, and the frosting is super good.  The addition of half and half to the frosting makes it really nice and fluffy.  

Trifecta Cookies and more

We have been having a very productive day in the kitchen today.  And it is amazing that everything is actually coming out how it should.

It really started yesterday with making some cinnamon applesauce and orange juice.

Today, we have made some homemade yogurt.  I finally got around to using our yogurt maker we received as a wedding gift over two years ago.  I think I still have a couple of wedding gifts that have yet to be used, hopefully I will get to those items soon.

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Muffins, taken from TwoPeasandTheirPod
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup water
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Streusel Topping:
1 1/4 cup oats
1 tablespoon flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two muffin tins with paper liners or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, water, pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth and combined.
4. Slowly stir in the flour mixture. Mix until ingredients are combined.
5. For the brown sugar cinnamon filling: in a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together. Set aside.
6. For the streusel topping: in a small bowl mix together the oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix in the butter with your hands until the mixture is crumbly.
7. Fill muffin cups half way full with the pumpkin batter. Sprinkle the brown sugar cinnamon filling over each half filled muffin cup. Fill the muffins cups with the remaining batter. Top each muffin with streusel topping.
8. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove pans from oven and cool on a wire rack. Remove muffins from tins and enjoy.
Makes about 24 muffins

These muffins are amazing, not much else to say about them.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Pumpkin Pie Squares are a favorite of Jeff's and they are made every Thanksgiving as dessert in his family.  I am a big fan myself, but I didn't' like that the recipe used cake mix.  So I found a recipe that is pretty similar but does not use cake mix and it includes cream cheese, the best ingredient ever.  All these needed were some fresh whipped cream, which I will make sure to have when I make these for Thanksgiving this year.

1-1/3 cups flour

3/4 cup  granulated sugar, divided

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup  (1-1/2 sticks) cold butter or margarine

1 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked

1/2 cup  chopped walnuts

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

3   eggs

1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin, we are lucky to have lots of pumpkin from our CSA, so we used fresh puree!

1 Tbsp.  pumpkin pie spice, don't have so I used a mixture of ginger, allspice, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons bourbon (optional)

a handful of butterscotch or chocolate chips for sprinkling on top (optional)

HEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides; grease foil. Mix flour, 1/4 granulated sugar and brown sugar in medium bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in oats and nuts.
RESERVE 1 cup oat mixture; press remaining onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 15 min. Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, eggs, vanilla, bourbon, pumpkin and spice with mixer until well blended. Pour over crust; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture and a handful of butterscotch or chocolate chips (if desired).
BAKE 25 min.; cool 10 min. Use foil to transfer dessert from pan to wire rack; cool completely.

Can’t find pumpkin pie spice? Simply mix 1 tsp. each ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg and allspice, then use as directed.

4th of July

This unfortunately was the second 4th of July in a row that no fireworks were purchased or shot off in the Stilley household.  It is pretty pathetic when I think of our 4th of Julys in Lee's Summit. 

This was the remains of a 5 gallon bucket, we would fill it with any kind of firework and set it on fire.  There are many videos involved too, I am slowly trying to upload all of my videos on my YouTube site (it is posted to the right of this post). 
I still had fun yesterday but it is just not the same as blowing stuff up all day.  We went to a neighborhood parade, which was awesome.  It was very entertaining.  Most of the parade were children and adults dressed in red, white and blue on bikes or just walking.  There were a couple of fire trucks involved and some old cars.  There was also some chanting of "USA", and old people clapping at everything.  I love just about any parade, not because they are always great but because they are entertaining at least.  Another reason I love Denver, it still has a small town feel with neighborhood activities like this. 
After the parade we went to a friends house to relax and enjoy some awesome food.  We took some cheesecake that was amazing. 

A Version of Strawberry Shortcake

Yesterday was the Hubs 26th Birthday.  So in honor of that I made Strawberry Shortcake.  He is not a big fan of desserts in general, crazy I know.  But he loves just about any dessert that involves fruit, so that is what we made.

This is the recipe I used, but I didn't follow a lot of it.  It was taken from Love and Olive Oil.

Strawberry Shortcake with Cream Biscuits

Recipe from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, via Ezra Pound Cake
Makes 8.
Ingredients
Cream Biscuits:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons sugar (optional)
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup heavy cream I didn't have enough heavy cream so I used whole milk instead          

Filling:
4 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 cup sugar We didn't use the sugar, I feel if you need to add this much sugar to your berries then they aren't in season or aren't good berries.

Topping:
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste
Powdered sugar (optional)

Directions

To make biscuits, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, sugar (if using) and baking powder. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or your fingertips. The pieces should be the size of small peas. Measure cream; set aside 1 tablespoon. Add the remaining cream to the flour, and stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together.
Lightly knead the dough a few times in the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board, and roll out about 3/4 inch thick. Cut six 2 1/2-inch circles or squares out of the dough. Reroll the scraps, you should be able to get 2 or 3 more biscuits out of it.
Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment, and brush the tops with the tablespoon of cream.  Once biscuits are mixed together just drop spoonfuls on a greased baking sheet.  Bake for 17 minutes or until lightly golden.
For filling, in a medium bowl, combine the strawberries and sugar. Remove 1 cup of the strawberry mixture, and purée it in a blender or food processor. Return the purée to the rest of the strawberries; stir. Set aside at least 15 minutes.
In a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, whip together the cream, vanilla and sugar until it starts to form soft peaks.
To assemble, gently break the biscuits in half. Spoon the strawberry mixture onto the bottom half, and add a dollop of whipped cream. Top with the other biscuit half, and dust with powdered sugar.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I decided to make carrot cake cupcakes because I can make some great cupcakes.  Which is nice since every time I try to make cookies they come out flat, flat, flat.  This really irritates me, I am still trying to figure out why this happens.  But until then, cupcakes will have to be the dessert of choice.  Another great thing about cupcakes is that I can make butter cream frosting and lets just face the facts, butter makes everything better.

Source: Simply Recipes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup of shredded coconut
• 1/2 pound of carrots
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk (or add a teaspoon of lemon juice to regular milk and allow to stand for 10 minutes)
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil applesauce (I refuse to use oil in baking, so I always replace it with applesauce or butter)
• 1 tablespoon of orange zest
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
• 1 teaspoons of ground cardamom
• 3/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350F. Toast the walnuts in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
• Rinse the carrots and peel the rough skins off, then grate the carrots.
• Place the carrots, buttermilk, oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and orange zest together in a bowl and whisk thoroughly.
• In another bowl whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon.
• Fold the flour mixture into the carrot mixture, being sure not to overmix. Fold in the toasted walnuts and coconut until evenly incorporated.
• Scoop into cupcake papers about 1/2 to 3/4 full and bake for 19-21 minutes at 350F, being sure to rotate the pan after the first 15 minutes of baking. Afterward allow to cool for 5 minutes before taking the cupcakes out of the cupcake tin and allowing them to fully cool on a wire rack. Frost cooled cupcakes.
• Makes 12 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softened
• 8 oz of Philadelphia cream cheese
• 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Beat the cream cheese and butter on medium speed until well combined. Sift in the powdered sugar and mix. Spread onto cooled cupcakes. 

 Enjoy.

Brownies

So the other night I was craving cake but knowing it would not be super easy I choose brownies instead. 

Brownies
1/2 cup butter- melted
12 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar- I usually cut this in half
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup flour
4 eggs

Mix all ingredients together until combined.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

I honestly cannot remember where I got this recipe from but it is very good and super easy.  This time Jeff "helped" meaning I asked for the cocoa and he gave me hot chocolate powder, I didn't realize this until I was halfway through adding it.  Thankfully the brownies still turned out good, a little cakier than usual, but I blame that on the hot cocoa mix. 

Enjoy