Archive for February, 2010

• Chocolate Chip Pancake Poppers

  Date: 2010.02.25 | Category: Breakfast | Response: 2

  I had planned on posting this yesterday, but I was not feeling well, I’m here today feeling a little better. Today I have a quick breakfast treat for you from Bakerella called Mini Maple Pancake Muffins, I renamed them, I thought pancake poppers sounded fun. Everyone should know who she is by now, if for some reason you have never heard of her; you should hop on over to her blog because it is unbelievable. She makes cake pops along with cupcakes, cakes, cookies, if it has sugar and butter then she has made it. Check it out I know you will love it.

  Onto the recipe and why I do not have any pictures of the pancake poppers.

  A couple of weeks ago hubby bought me a new camera, a Nikon D3000, it is the one I wanted. I know it is not the best of the lot but I can not justify spending $1,500+ on a camera when this one has all of the bells and whistles. I received it in the mail on Tuesday, made pancake poppers Tuesday night to eat for breakfast on Wednesday. Wednesday morning I took pictures of the cute little pancake poppers, viewed them on the computer, they looked fantastic,  and put the memory card back into the camera. Well somewhere between me viewing and putting the card back in the camera I lost the pictures of the pancake poppers. Not sure what happened because I have the other pictures I took while testing out all of the new features.

  So I’m sorry to say the only picture I have of the pancake poppers is one of little Kameron shoving the whole thing in his mouth. He was probably on his third or fourth popper in this picture because he has chocolate on his upper lip. I’m pretty sure it is safe to say he liked them.

  If you think they look yummy head on over to Bakerella.com, get the recipe bake up a batch for yourself. It is extremely easy not much to the ingredients, they were delicious. Next time maybe we will have blueberry pancake poppers.

  

• Fruit and Nut Couscous

  Date: 2010.02.18 | Category: Side Dish, Snack, Sweets | Response: 10

  Please head on over to Chef It Yourself and vote for your favorite!  Voting ends February 24th!

  Earlier this month I signed up for this great food challenge hosted by a local Houston Foodie, Anamaris of Chef It Yourself. This is my very first Top Chef It Yourself Challenge and I was excited when I found out what the secret ingredients were; dates, ginger and couscous!! I’m a big fan of couscous but the family isn’t, well Alyssa likes it but no one else.  I knew I was going to make my recipe sweet but wasn’t sure what to do.  After thinking about it for a few days I finally had a recipe in mind and it turned out great.  I loved it and so did Alyssa.

  

  Fruit and Nut Couscous
  Printable Recipe

  Ingredients
  1 10 oz box of Original Plain Couscous *I used the Near East brand
  1 cup water
  1 cup apple juice
  3 Medjool Dates, diced
  3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, chopped
  1/2 cup *cranberry fiesta mix (dried cranberries, coconut, walnuts, pecans and almonds)
  1/4 cup honey, save a little to drizzle on top
  1/4 cup apricot preserves

  Directions
  1. Prepare couscous according to package using 1 cup of water and 1 cup of apple juice.
  2. While couscous is cooking, chop the dates and ginger.
  3. Move couscous to a large bowl, while it’s still warm, add the dates, ginger, craberry fiesta, honey and apricot preserves. Gently stir until well combined
  4. Serve warm with a drizzle of honey.

  *A little side note. I shop at H.E.B and they have this great healthy living section that has bulk containers of fruits, oats, nuts, just to name a few. You are able to scoop the amount of product you want, put it on the scale, weigh it and it prints out the barcode for you. I love this little section of my store. For example, Medjool dates were $10.99 for 1lb in the produce section, they were $6.99 in the natural food section. I didn’t need a pound I only needed a few so I bought four big fat dates and it was only $1.40, great deal!! I also bought the ginger and cranberry fiesta is this section. I bought .10 lb of ginger and it was $0.45 and I bought .31 lb of the cranberry fiesta and it was $1.70, take about great deals. I’m sure you could buy a trail mixer to substitute for the cranberry fiesta. I would have spent a lot more if I went straight to the baking section for everything.

• Soft Pretzel Bites

  Date: 2010.02.17 | Category: Bread, Snack | Response: 8

  We love the pretzels that are at the mall. We get the cinnamon and sugar pretzel every time we make a trip to the mall. They are a little messy, but our kids love them. After seeing this recipe on Two Peas and Their Pod I knew I was going to have to give pretzel making a try. It’s a lot easier than I expected, to be honest.  The dough took an hour to rise and they took 15 mintues to bake.  If you love soft pretzels you must give this recipe a try.  I did try to make the basic pretzel twist and I failed, next time I will try again.

  

  

  Homemade Soft Pretzel Bites

  From Two Peas and Their Pod

  Soft Pretzels:
  1 1/2 cups warm water
  2 tablespoons light brown sugar
  1 package active dry yeast
  3 ounces unsalted butter, melted
  2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
  Vegetable oil
  3 quarts water
  3/4 cup baking soda
  1 whole egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water
  Coarse sea salt

  For the Pretzels: Combine the water, sugar, yeast, and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with the dough hook until combined. Let sit for 5 minutes.

  Add the salt and flour and mix on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and begins to pull away from the side of the bowl, about 3 to 4 minutes. If the dough appears too wet, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough from the bowl, place on a flat surface and knead into a ball with your hands.

  Oil a bowl with vegetable oil, add the dough and turn to coat with the oil. Cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.

  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

  Bring the water to a boil in a small roasting pan over high heat and add the baking soda.

  Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a flat surface. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 ounces each. Roll each piece into a long rope measuring 22 inches and shape. Cut the dough into one inch pieces to make the pretzel bites. Boil the pretzel bites in the water solution in batches for about 30 seconds. Remove with a large slotted spoon. Place pretzel bites on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Make sure they are not touching.  Brush the tops with the egg wash and season with the salt. Place into the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes until golden brown.

  Remove to a baking rack and let rest 5 minutes before eating.

  Cinnamon and Sugar Bites

  After baking melt 1/4 cup butter in a bowl.  Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 3 tablespoons cinnamon in a ziploc bag.  Toss preztels in butter then toss around in the sugar/cinnamon mixture.