Dutch Babies

The Dutch baby, German pancake, or Dutch puff, whatever you prefer, has recently been added to my breakfast repertoire. I think the appeal to this dish is the sweet and salty effect that is created from the powdered sugar sprinkled on top of this delicious pastry, if pastry is the correct term. Also my fiancé was skeptical and I love making dishes she is skeptical about.  

Dutch babies are similar to a Yorkshire pudding in the base ingredients but have a much thicker consistency, more bread than pudding. I personally took great joy in watching this odd creation inflate to huge proportions in the oven only to watch it collapse; initially I was very nervous that I had messed something up. Though, a quick googling showed that it was the natural course with this dish.

I was unable to find any reliable history on this particular dish. The initial attraction was from the fact that it is baked in a skillet. To get a crispy outside to the Dutch baby you want to make sure that your skillet is fully preheated in the oven before pouring the batter into it. This recipe should fill a 12 inch cast iron skillet. 

Dutch Babies

3 Eggs

3/4 cups Milk

3/4 cups Flour

1 tablespoon Nutmeg

1 tablespoon Cinnamon

1 pinch Salt

3 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

1.       Preheat oven to 450 degrees with skillet inside.

2.       In a medium bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until light. Add milk and stir. Gradually whisk in flour, nutmeg and salt.

3.       Melt butter in hot skillet so that inside of skillet is completely coated with butter. Pour all the batter in the skillet and return skillet to oven. Reduce heat to 425.

4.       Bake until puffed and lightly browned, about 12 minutes.

5.       Remove promptly and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Pumpkin Soup

I have always loved pumpkin pie. It has been one of my favorite deserts since I was old enough to eat pie. That is why I was caught a little off guard when my fiance's mom made me pumpkin soup for dinner. All I could imagine was pumpkin pie flavored soup.

After eating pumpkin soup at my fiance's house I had to make my own version. Do not get me wrong hers was amazing, it just lacked a punch that people expect with my food. My first version was a little bit too strong for everyone so I made a few modifications to arrive at this recipe.

Initially I used chipotle as the main seasoning, the problem was that made it too spicy for most of my guests. If spicy is okay substitute the cajun seasoning for chipotle and add a pureed green pepper. This meal goes really well inside of a soup bowl.

Cajun Pumpkin Soup

4 cups Pumpkin Puree
2 cups Half and Half
2 tablespoons Cajun Seasonings
1 tablespoons Onion Powder
2 tablespoons Garlic Powder
2 tablespoons Seasoning Salt
1 tablespoon Black Pepper

1. Mix all ingredients and cook on medium heat for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings to make appropriate adjustments.

Stuffing

I have a minor allergy to onions, it is painful enough that I go pretty far out of my way to not have them. So for this last Thanksgiving I decided to bring my own stuffing to the Thanksgiving dinner, this would allow everyone else to have onions in theirs.

I always found having stuffing as a vegetarian a little bit odd. The entire point of stuffing is to fill the hollow cavity of a dead animal for cooking. It is a Thanksgiving tradition though, so I just go along with it.

Here in the US we do not have stuffing very often, but the rest of the world uses stuffing quite frequently. Because of this we often think of stuffing as mainly bread and celery. In reality stuffing can be made out of several different things. You can make your stuffing out of most any starch, including things such as corn meal, and potatoes. You can also use eggs to make your stuffing.

Most of my recipes come out tasting pretty good on a whole. This time I did make a small mistake though. I modified my original recipe to use McKay's chicken seasoning. I forgot to remove the salt from the recipe. The chicken seasoning has almost too much salt to begin so this dish was a bit saltier than I desired. Mixing it with my mashed potatoes solved that problem.

I like a mix of whole bread crumbs and a bread pudding like texture. I use a lot of liquid and bake mine for a while stirring occasionally then when it is close to done I add more toasted bread cubes. This still retains a lot of the bread cube textures but gives a smooth under taste. You can modify this recipe easily to make a sweet stuffing. You can add cranberries and mandarin oranges and leave out a lot of the more savory seasonings.

No Stuff Stuffing

8 cups Toasted Bread Cubes
5 cups Water
1 cup Chopped Celery
4 tablespoons McKay's Chicken Seasoning
1 tablespoon Sage
1/2 tablespoon Rosemary
1 tablespoon Thyme
1 teaspoon Black Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Bring water to boil with all seasonings.

3. Place half of the bread cubes into a baking pan.

4. Pour liquid over the bread cubes until almost covered.

5. Bake for 35 minutes stirring occasionally.

6. Add remaining bread cubes and bake for another 15 minutes. Or until top is nicely browned.

Eggnog

Several post ago I mentioned homemade eggnog, so I figured I should probably share the recipe with everyone. The only problem I have with eggnog is that it is a seasonal dish. There are a lot of seasonal dishes that I am okay with, stuffing, cranberry sauce, popcorn balls, ect. But people look at you a bit funny when you drink eggnog in the middle of the year.

I would normally be perfectly content to drink eggnog all year round. But it is only sold during Christmas time. As with many dishes, the thought never occurred to me that I could make my own eggnog. That is, until a few weeks ago when I realized, “that should be easy!”

To say the least it is not as easy as I initially thought. I would not say that it is difficult, it is simply time consuming. I suggest practicing how to make a basic custard before diving into this recipe. Make sure that you have an air tight container to store the finished product in.

Homemade Eggnog

2 cups Milk
2 teaspoons Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
6 Egg Yolks
3/4 cups Sugar
2 cups Light Cream
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg 

1. Combine milk, cloves, vanilla, and cinnamon in a saucepan, and heat over lowest setting for 5 minutes.
2. Slowly bring milk mixture to a boil.

3. In a large bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar. Whisk together until fluffy.

4. Whisk hot milk mixture slowly into the eggs. Pour mixture into saucepan.

5. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 3 minutes, or until thick. Do not allow mixture to boil.

6. Let cool for about an hour.

7. Stir in cream, vanilla, and nutmeg. Refrigerate overnight.

Doughnuts

Ah doughnuts, or donuts... Which ever you prefer. Doughnuts are one of the few American classic dishes, and in American fashion they come in every shape, size, color, and flavor. I have seen some pretty obscure doughnuts in my short time here on earth, from doughnut voodoo dolls, to doughnuts covered in bacon, BLEH!

I chose to make doughnuts tonight because I just got a candy thermometer. I was always fearful of making doughnuts without a candy thermometer. The reason for this is that is you need the temperature of the oil to be pretty close to 350. If it varies from this too much you will either get soggy doughnuts or you will end up with uncooked doughnuts.

Personally I like my doughnuts plain. I do not cover them with sugar, glaze, maple stuff, nor baco-bits. Now you are welcome to do this if you desire. If you do coat it with sugary goodness you are going to want to do it while it is cooling. I suggest cooling it on a wire rack for 3-5 minutes then coating it.

Doughnuts

2 tablespoons Yeast
1/4 cup Warm Water
1 1/2 cups Lukewarm Milk
3/4 cups White Sugar
2 teaspoons Salt
2 Eggs
1/3 cup Shortening
5 cups flour

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, and let stand for 5 minutes, or until foamy.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 cups of the flour.

3. Mix for a few minutes.

4. Beat in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time.

5. Knead for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

6. Place the dough into a greased bowl, and cover. Set in a warm place to rise until double.

7. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut and let doughnuts sit out to rise while covered.

8. Heat oil in a deep-fryer, large heavy skillet, or pot to 350 degrees.

9. Place doughnut into hot oil. Turn doughnuts over as they rise to the surface. Fry doughnuts on each side until golden brown.

10. Remove from hot oil, to drain on a wire rack.

Stroganoff

Tonight I decided I did not want anything healthy, all I wanted was a delicious dish. I do not try to avoid fat to be healthy. No, I avoid fat so that I can justify having very fatty meals like this. It is nice to occasionally eat stroganoff but I do not suggest doing it often.

I use prime steaks for the meat in this dish. You are not limited by that fact at all. I have done this with gluten steaks, fri-chik or no veggie meat at all. The reason I use the prime steaks is that the gravy complicates the natural flavor of the stroganoff.

You can use fat free sour cream if you are desiring to cut down on the fat, but I do not suggest it. You can use any cream soup. I prefer the cream of mushroom soup, and will often add extra mushrooms. A good side dish to have is cream corn.

Stroganoff

1 bag Egg Noodles

1 16 oz container Sour Cream

1 can Chopped Prime Steaks

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

Pinch of Salt

1 tablespoon Onion Powder

2 tablespoons Minced Garlic

1. Cook pasta.

2. While pasta cooks mix the rest of the ingredients.

3. Cook the sauce over medium heat for 5 minutes.

4. Add sauce to drained pasta and cook for another 5 minutes

Misery Cookies

At some point or another all of my friends run into hard times. Whether it is a pet dying, bad grades, or something worse, I always have a meal on hand ready to help cheer them up. For example my fiance needs some kind of homemade chocolate to put a big smile on her face. I like to bake her a huge extra dark chocolate brownie batch.

Recently, one of my friends has been going through a hard time, and I happen to know that she loves chocolate. I decided that it was time to come up with a recipe to put a smile on her face. Quadruple Chocolate Toffee Peanut-Butter Chip Cookies. These cookies are not for the faint of heart by any means.

One thing that makes them quadruple chocolate is the addition of cocoa nibs. Cocoa nibs are small bits of cocoa bean that have been roasted. Cocoa nibs are probably my favorite type of chocolate to cook with. I like the crunch they add to the dish, and the expression on peoples face as they try to figure out exactly what they are.

As with all of my recipes I suggest modifying it to work for your purposes. Normally I cook my cookies on a baking stone, so you may need to change the temperature and or time if you do not have a baking stone available to you. These cookies are of the chewy variety, if you prefer a softer cookie try decreasing the fat content.

Quadruple Chocolate Toffee Peanut-Butter Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cups Butter
2 cups Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1/8 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 cups Flour
1 cup Baking Chocolate
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 bag Chocolate Chips
1 bag Toffee Pieces
1 cup Cocoa Nibs
1 bag Peanut Butter Chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the baking stone already in place.

2. Cream butter and Sugar

3. Mix in eggs, vanilla, and whipping cream.

4. Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

5. Slowly add to the cream mixture.

6. Place spoonfuls of cookie dough onto baking stone.

7. Cook for 8-10 minutes and then cool on wire racks.