Salted Caramel Apple Crumble

Salted Caramel Apple Crumble - made February 16, 2014 from Lauren's Latest

I'm a sucker for warm apple cobbler in almost any form, be it called cobbler, crisp, grunt, fool or crumble. And the picture from Lauren's Latest sucked me right in. What did I do for new recipes before I found all these visually appealing ones on pinterest? (Answer: I used my baking books and relied on the ones with lots of pictures.)

I liked this recipe, not just for the salted caramel addition but also because it could be made in a cast iron skillet. I bought an 8" cast iron skillet ages ago, probably because there was some kind of skillet cornbread I wanted to make. I can't remember actually making the cornbread and I've been hanging onto this cast iron skillet for years now. About time I used it.

Since it was a bit on the small side, I only could fit half the apple recipe, i.e. 2 Granny Smith apples. But by the time I realized that, I had already made a full recipe of the topping. Not to worry, I'm rather fond of crumble topping so I didn't see any harm in using a double amount of it. How's that for rationalization?

When making the topping, one trick I learned from Martha Stewart is to squeeze streusel topping into large clumps then when you break it over the apples, be sure to still leave large "crumbs". That is, you don't want fine, powdery crumbs as much as nice big clumps. The large crumbs bake up crisp and provide a nice texture that's a great contrast to the softness of the baked apples.

I thought this recipe was delicious. I was especially careful to cover the salted caramel all over with crumble topping as I knew if it was exposed to heat, it would get hard and chewy when cooled. Some of it did bubble up between cracks in the topping, especially around the edges but not too much. The only drawback is I did find it a bit too salty. You add salt to the apples when they're cooking and, combined with the Trader Joe's salted caramel I used, it was just a tad too salty for my bland taste buds. Next time I think I'd go with a regular caramel sauce. Regardless, I loved the crumble topping and this makes for an awesome sweet treat in winter - comfort dessert at its best.

3/4 cup salted caramel sauce (storebought or your favorite recipe)

Crumble
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons softened butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

Apples
4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. For the crumble- combine all ingredients together using a stand mixer. Mixture will be crumbly, but stay together when squeezed. Set aside.
2. Prepare apples and toss in lemon juice. Cook apples in a large cast iron skillet over medium low heat in butter to draw out moisture. Sprinkle with salt to draw out all the moisture possible. Drain apples and place back into skillet. This process should take about 5-7 minutes of cooking.
3. Pour 3/4 of prepared caramel sauce into the apples and stir gently. Squeeze the crumble topping into large clumps and break it off over the top of the apples, covering completely. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until topping is browned. Cool slightly and serve warm with vanilla ice cream if desired.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - made February 8, 2014 from The Food Mentalist

I had been letting a bunch of bananas ripen on my counter for a good month or so. Holiday baking wiped me out of overripe bananas and I had to start over. I gauge the passage of time by the ripening state of my bananas. When they had finally blackened enough to my satisfaction, I went looking for a recipe to use them with. I'm still on my never ending quest to make a banana cake like the one from Icing on the Cake; it's been a good 6 months (at least) since I last had that cake so I was due for another seemingly futile experiment to try and replicate it.

I tried out this one from The Food Mentalist. Initially I was concerned the baking temperature was a bit low as I don't normally bake cakes at temps below 300 degrees F. But I went with it because if it didn't turn out, I didn't want it to be because I screwed up and didn't follow the directions. It turned out pretty well and my coworkers liked it when I brought it into work but it still didn't have the fluffy texture I was going for. I think that was more my fault than the recipe's though as I could've baked this a trifle longer than I did. The toothpick came out clean, I turned the oven off and let it continue baking for another 5 minutes but it was still a bit heavy in texture rather than fluffy. The flavor was fine but you can tell from the pictures (and for the life of me, I couldn't take a good one) that it was a bit dense and moist rather than cakey and fluffy. Maybe that's a sign that I need to go back to Icing on the Cake and get myself a piece of their banana cake.

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 3 cups flour

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup butter, softened

• 2 1/8 cups sugar

• 3 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla

• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

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• Frosting:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 275°F /135C.
2. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.
7. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.
8. Stir in banana mixture
9. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
10. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.
11. For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
12. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
13. Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth
14. Spread on cooled cake.

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Restaurant Review: Free House

Free House, Berkeley, CA - dinner on January 30, 2014

The Campanile on the UC Berkeley campus

I was at my alma mater, UC Berkeley, last month to attend their Spring Career Fair for my company. There was a possibility I was going to be able to hire an intern for my team and it was a good way to meet some of the potential candidates firsthand. I haven't done college recruiting for several years so it was nice to be back on campus. I was making bets with myself how long it would take before I started thinking to myself, "was I ever this young? Man, I'm old." It wasn't more than half a dozen times. In the first 30 minutes.

I met a number of bright young students, some who seemed more mature than I ever was at that age and others still eager and shiny like a new penny, brimming with the optimism and fervor of youth. I occasionally feel a bit  tarnished myself after - gulp - 20 years in the workforce (not counting 2 years of grad school and a year off for culinary school, eek) so it's nice to be reminded of how I once faced the road they're about to travel on. Alas, if only I knew back then not to take life so seriously or feel that getting a summer internship or a post-graduation job was going to determine the outcome of the rest of my life. It didn't and it won't for these kids either but like me, they'll learn it when the time comes.

Outside Free House

But I really did enjoy the event and talking to more than a hundred students for 5 hours straight. I also enjoyed meeting up with one of my nieces who attends Cal and going out to dinner with her after the career fair was over.  We were trying to decide where to go since Berkeley has such a plethora of wonderful places to eat. When she was listing out options, she mentioned "sweet potato fries" at Free House so I stopped her litany of choices and let the fries be the deciding factor.

The inside

Free House is literally just off the Berkeley campus, on Bancroft. From the outside it doesn't look like a restaurant as it's housed in a stately old building built in the 1920s. Inside, it's got more of an English library feel, sans the books, with the hardwood floor, rafters and fireplace. Or maybe like a ski lodge. Without the snow outside. What is outside is a seating area which is where we opted to dine, made comfortable by a heating lamp.  Although honestly, this was the time when our climate was pretending it was late spring instead of January winter and the temperature was pretty comfortable. No polar vortex here.

Freehouse Grass Fed Burger - $10

As you can expect in Berkeley, Free House also sources locally and their grass-fed beef is from Marin Sun Farms, same as where Bierhaus and Paul Martin's source their beef. My niece went with the burger while I got the Steak Frites. We had decided early on we would also get the sweet potato fries as the appetizer since that was the main reason we went to Free House in the first place.

Steak Frites - $15

Both our entrees were good although I could've done without the red wine shallot butter on my steak. Too sweet and just not my thing. The handcut fries that came with my order were okay, not quite crisp but you can tell they were "real" potatoes without a whole lot done to make them into anything else but honest to goodness potatoes. But it was the sweet potato fries that took up most of my taste buds. They were sometimes crisp, always mealy and just plain good. The kind of good that reminds me why I'm obsessed with sweet potato fries in the first place and why, as my niece tells me, people come to Free House. I can't blame them. If I was still going to Cal, I'd probably put in an order to go for the sweet potato fries on my way to or from class. Every day.

Sweet Potato Fries - $8

For Berkeley, Free House might be a little pricey since most college kids usually eat in the $8-$10 range or less but after working the student crowd for most of the day as part of my job, it was fine by me. And cheaper than many other places I've gone to that didn't have such excellent sweet potato fries.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough on January 31, 2014 from The Culinary Capers

Whenever you see an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe pop up on my blog, it's safe to think "oh, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Rick must be in town." Because you'd be right and I got together with our old group, cookie bags in hand to distribute to all the dinner attendees. And, for Rick's sake, one of those cookies has to be oatmeal chocolate chip.

Thanks to pinterest, it's a simple matter of searching for it across the site, scrolling past picture after picture of every conceivable type of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, skipping all the ones that have more than the words "oatmeal" and "chocolate chip" in their title with a polite no-thank-you to "gluten free!" "banana" "raisins", "peanut butter" and anything else that deviates from the purity intended for an oatmeal cookie that's got chocolate chips and only chocolate chips in it. I selected this one from The Culinary Capers because a picture says a thousand words and her picture had "yummy" written on it a thousand times over. As a bonus, there's also a great blog post that accompanies the recipe so do click on the recipe title to go to her site and read it.

I did have to break my normal rule for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that there be more oats than flour in the recipe. Otherwise it's just a chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal in it. But there was only a 1/2 cup difference between the two ingredients so I thought that would be close enough. The batter was thick, as all good oatmeal chocolate chip cookie doughs should be. I made the dough balls fairly big, about the size of golf balls and froze them before I baked them off the night before I needed them. They didn't spread much (always a good sign).

In general, I thought this was a good cookie. Because of the higher amount of flour, it really did seem more like a chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal in it than a true oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. It didn't have as much chewiness from the oats as I would've liked but it's still a good cookie, not too sweet and nicely chubby.

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 12-ounce package chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the oats.
2. In another bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium speed, cream together the 1 cup butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.
3. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour-oat mixture in 2 batches, beating well after each addition. You should have a stiff dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Grease two baking sheets. Roll golf ball sized lumps of dough between your palms to make a nice little sphere. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets, and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are just golden brown, and the middles are not doughy.
5. Let them sit on the baking sheets for a minute or two (they will keep cooking on the sheets) then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

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Red Velvet Nutella Lava Cakes

Red Velvet Nutella Lava Cakes - made February 7, 2014 from Half Baked Harvest

Ah, the crowning glory of my Valentine treats for the week. This is something you can make at home for you and your sweetie that takes relatively little time and effort yet is fitting decadence to mark the occasion. If you have these dessert shell pans, it'll be even easier. I got the original recipe from Half Baked Harvest but with my dessert shell pan, I went with the lazy baker's version of molten chocolate cake.

Which means you bake the cake batter in the dessert shell pan, making sure to grease them well so the cakes will come out easily and intact when you turn the pan over. One recipe below filled my 6-cavity pan perfectly.

Then you fill the cavities almost to the top with nutella. If your nutella is a bit on the solid side because it's cold, warm it up in the microwave just enough to be easy to pour or spoon into the cavity. You want it somewhat flowing and soft because this is the lava part.

Next step is to drizzle (be generous) salted caramel over the whole thing. I used ready-made salted caramel from Trader Joe's but you can use whichever you like, including making from scratch.

Finally, don't forget the ice cream. Right before you serve this, top it off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and dig in. This is best served when the cake is still slightly warm, the nutella and salted caramel are melty-warm and the ice cream is newly scooped. You'll get that flowing lava/molten chocolate effect although in this case it'll be molten nutella and caramel. I'm okay with that.

If you don't own a dessert shell pan, I've left Half Baked Harvest's original recipe as is below so you can do it the non-lazy way and include the ganache filling that'll make up your molten center. I didn't have heavy cream at the time I made this so I opted for the nutella filling. Just don't overbake the cake because you do want it moist, regardless of filling or no filling. What I liked about my version is this took almost no time to make. I worked from home last Friday, logged off at 5:30, turned my oven on, made up the batter while the oven was preheating and after baking, unmolding, and adding the nutella filling, salted caramel and ice cream, I was taking my first bite of this by 6 pm. No lie. Didn't take me that long to consume it either. Easiest dinner I've ever made, ha.

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 teaspoons red food coloring
coconut whipped cream, whipped cream or ice cream, for serving (optional)

Ganache
4 1/2 ounces (about 3/4 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup canned coconut milk or heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Make the ganache: in a microwave safe bowl add the chocolate and coconut milk (or heavy cream). Microwave on high for 30 second intervals, stirring between each until melted. Once melted stir in the vanilla extract. Cover and place in the fridge.
2. Grease 6 (4 ounce) ramekins or 4 (6 ounce ramekins) and place on a baking sheet.
3. Heat the chocolate and butter together on low in a small saucepan, stirring until just melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour and salt until smooth.
4. Add the eggs to a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer beat the eggs and slowly add the sugar until the eggs are pale in color, about four minutes. Add the vanilla extract and food coloring, mix until combined. Pour in the melted chocolate mixture and use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to fold the chocolate into the eggs until just combined. Divide the mixture among the prepared ramekins.
5. Spoon about 1-2 heaping teaspoons of the chilled ganache (you will not use it all) into the center of the ramekins. Use a spoon to scoop the red velvet mixture over the ganache. Cover the ramekins and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.
6. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. After 15 minutes remove ramekins from the fridge and place in the oven. Bake for 10-20 minutes (10 minutes for 4 ounce ramekins and 18 minutes for 6 ounce ramekins). Loosen the edges of the cakes with a butter knife and turn out onto plates. Serve immediately with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Restaurant Review: Gombei

Gombei - dinner on January 26, 2014

I've eaten at Gombei multiple times so I was surprised to discover I hadn't done a review of it yet. My friend Cindy was the one who first introduced me to Gombei months ago and since then, I've returned with other friends but more often with my cousins. It's a convenient meeting place for my cousin Christine and me and this time around, our other cousin Ellen joined as well as my cousin Chris, Christine's brother, who was in town for the day. Christine's son, Vanilla King, was there as well but since I had literally just come back from driving half the day returning from Southern California where we visited two more cousins (yes, I have a lot of cousins, big extended family), I hadn't had time to bake so no snickerdoodles or vanilla cake for Vanilla King this time around - sorry, kid.

We were there early since Chris still had a 3-hour drive back home so the restaurant was pretty empty. Later on it would be more crowded and we would likely have had to wait for a table but since we were there at 5 pm, we were one of the first ones seated. At Gombei, you can sit at a table or at the sushi bar. We opted for a table.

When I first went to Gombei, I had ordered the beef teriyaki don - grilled beef in teriyaki sauce atop a bowl of moist rice. It was sublime. The rice isn't as good as at Gochi but still good nonetheless. I like this dish because it's simple and non-fussy. Meaning I don't have to pick out stuff I don't eat, like onions or mushrooms or bean sprouts. Yes, I'm one of those people who will painstakingly pick out whatever's in the dish that I don't like before I'll eat it. Remember Banana Leaf when they made a mistake and included bean sprouts in my pad thai? Yeah, I picked out every single bean sprout from that sucker. Fortunately, with the beef teriyaki don at Gombei, that's not a problem; it's just beef and rice. I've had the chicken katsu don as well and that's pretty good too with the soft-cooked scrambled egg on top but it comes with onions that I didn't want to take the time to pick out so I went back to my mainstay and got the teriyaki beef this time around.

Beef Teriyaki combination plate

There was a period of time when I went to Gombei that the quality of their entrees had gone down. The beef was tough and they included more fatty pieces in it. When I asked for the meat to be cooked to medium, it came out a combination of medium well and medium rare but not medium. So I haven't been back in awhile. Fortunately, this time around, they were back up to snuff as when I had first eaten there and everything was done well. Or at least medium.

Udon and tempura 

Besides or in addition to the entrees, you can also order various types of sushi which is what my cousins opted to do. As you know, I don't eat sushi so I didn't pay much attention to what they were checking off on the strip of paper that listed all the sushi choices which we turned into the waiter who came to take our orders. I don't know what any of it tastes like either but they are sushi aficianados so I assume it met their taste standards. All I did was take pictures :).

Gombei is reasonably priced for lunch with most entrees under the $10 price point. Dinner is a little more expensive for basically the same food and I haven't noticed a difference in their portion sizes between lunch and dinner. There are more menu options for dinner but if you're a basic chicken or beef teriyaki eater like me (for connoisseurs of Japanese food, insert eye roll here), you can get whatever you prefer at either meal. They do get crowded for both lunch and dinner though so I'd recommend getting there a little early if you want to avoid the rush. Service tends to suffer a bit when they're very busy but when they're not, they're pretty prompt.

Chocolate Truffles

Chocolate Truffles - made February 11, 2014 from The Pioneer Woman

I've mentioned before that I've started recording episodes of The Pioneer Woman to watch whenever I have time. Usually it's when I'm working out in the morning. I like to watch food shows to remind me why I'm working out in the first place. The more I want to eat empty calories, the more I give to my workout. It's my way of maintaining balance in my world.

I recently watched the chocolate episode where Ree makes up chocolate treats then Ladd and the kids deliver them to their friends in town. One of the treats she makes is these chocolate truffles. This isn't red velvet, heart-shaped or pink or red but chocolate is a big component of Valentine's Day so I had to make these for Valentine week. This is the easy cheater's version because it just involves melting two kinds of chocolate with a can of sweetened condensed milk and adding vanilla. None of that boiling cream and pouring over chopped chocolate to make the traditional truffle filling. I also knew the sweetened condensed milk would make for a smooth truffle center. Sold.

The other advantage to this recipe is you can make the truffle mixture one night, chill it overnight then finish it off the next day. Which is what I did because I didn't have a weeknight where I had time to do everything from start to finish in the same night. I got home late from work the night I made the filling but it took only a few minutes to melt the chocolates with the sweetened condensed milk, beat in the vanilla, cover and place in the fridge to chill. These were meant to be dark chocolate truffles but the bittersweet chocolate I was using was pretty high end and I knew that would be really dark so I added a little over 4 ounces of milk chocolate as part of the semisweet chocolate portion to lighten it up a little.

After chilling overnight, the mixture was solid rock so I did have to let it sit out a bit....okay, I cheated and microwaved it for 10 seconds to soften it enough for me to scoop out the truffles. I would recommend chilling these initially only until the mixture is firm enough to scoop and hold its shape so you don't have to do the microwave thing. Then you can chill them further once they're scooped out. I was originally going to enrobe them all in the milk chocolate and leave them as is but I wasn't happy with how the plain ones looked (not as smooth) so I enrobed them in a thin coating then rolled them in chopped toasted almonds while the coating was still soft so the nuts adhered easily. They turned out much better this way and I enjoyed the texture contrast with the almonds plus it cut the richness of the filling. The truffle center was more like fudge than a truly creamy ganache truffle center but it was still pretty good. For the easy version of truffles, I recommend going with this one.

8 ounces high quality semisweet chocolate (I used a mix of milk chocolate and semisweet)
8 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
8 ounces milk chocolate candy melts
Sea salt for garnish or chopped toasted almonds, optional

1. Heat chocolates and sweetened condensed milk in a double boiler over medium low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in vanilla to combine.
2. Remove from heat, cover and refrigerate for 2 hours (I chilled mine overnight). Or, to make it easier, chill only for 15-20 minutes, just long enough for the mixture to become firm enough to hold its shape when scooped out. When they've been scooped, you can chill further if desired. 
3. Once chilled and rolled into small balls, dip in melted milk chocolate coating, enrobing completely. Lay on wax paper and sprinkle with sea salt or roll in chopped toasted nuts while chocolate coating is still soft. Let cool until chocolate coating has set.

Red Velvet Sugar Cookie Bars

Red Velvet Sugar Cookie Bars - made February 8, 2014 from The Recipe Critic

Get that bottle of red food coloring back out for this recipe. It's red velvet time again. While I do like red velvet in most forms, I'm a little picky on which type of red velvet recipes to try. There are some that barely contain any chocolate and have more red food coloring than cocoa. I've learned to pass on those because those are barely chocolate flavored and seem more like food dyed red than real red velvet. A good red velvet should actually have a chocolate taste. If it doesn't, it's just not good red velvet (duh). This is where I think red velvet gets a bad rap because anything can be colored red and called red velvet but if it's not going to taste like chocolate, what's the point?

So what's my criteria for what could potentially be good red velvet? For one thing, depending on the proportion of the other ingredients, it should have a reasonable amount of cocoa. By reasonable, I don't mean 2 teaspoons for an entire 9 x 13 cake. The minimum I look for is 1/4 cup and even then, I make sure to use a good dark cocoa for maximum chocolate flavor.

I'm not usually big on sugar cookie bars but I was captivated by the photos on pinterest that someone had pinned from The Recipe Critic. And one picture is usually all it takes to get me to pin something and go back to it later to try. This is super easy to make and came out pretty well. You almost have to tell people it's a sugar cookie bar because at first glance it'll look like a dry brownie or a dense cake and might be wrongly judged as such. It's not "fudgy" like a brownie but it's moist for a bar cookie and a sugar cookie. I really liked this bar cookie for its taste and texture. Just try not to think of how much red dye #5 is in it and you'll be fine.

To make it even fancier for Valentine's Day, you can also sprinkle it with red and/or pink sprinkles or, like The Recipe Critic, make it more elegantly classy with white sugar pearls (check out how hers look by clicking on the recipe title above). I left mine unadorned because I was taking it to work and figured, as adults, my coworkers didn't need sprinkles on their baked goods. Plus, with the cream cheese frosting, I didn't know how long it would be before the colored sugar crystals melted into the frosting and became more like a canvas of paints running together than sugar sprinkles glittering on top of the bar cookie. Not that my coworkers seemed to have minded one way or the other since the 9 x 13 pan's worth of bar cookies disappeared before the end of the morning - always a good sign.

3⅓ cups flour

¼ cup unsweet­ened cocoa
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bak­ing pow­der
1 cup butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons (one 1-ounce bottle) red food coloring

Cream Cheese Frosting
2 8 Oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13 inch pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream together 1 cup butter softened and sugar until light and creamy. About 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and food coloring until combined.
4. Add the flour mixture until a soft dough forms. Press into the bottom of the 9×13 inch pan. Bake for about 20 minutes until the edges start to pull away from the sides and a toothpick entered into the center comes out clean. Allow to completely cool before frosting.
5. To make the cream cheese frosting, Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat together until smooth. Frost the top of the bars. Cut into squares and serve.

Restaurant Review: Buca di Beppo

Buca di Beppo - dinner on January 25, 2014

When we were down in Southern California visiting my cousin(s) a few weeks ago, we had dinner at a Buca di Beppo: me, my parents, my sister, my cousin, her husband and their two kids. Buca di Beppo is a chain of family-style Italian restaurants. If you've ever been to one, you know it's going to be the last place to go for a romantic dinner for two so skip it for your Valentine's Day dinner. Furthermore, you never want to go with a group of people fewer than 6. Even more is better.

That would be because Buca di Beppo is almost always crowded, certainly noisy and most of all, they serve a ton of food. Each dish is meant to be shared family style. If there are only two of you, prepare to get only one entree to share and even then, you'll probably end up with leftovers to take home. It's much better to go with a crowd so you can get a variety of dishes to split. "Regular"-size entrees start at around $20 but they typically serve 3-4 or more people so, with a large group, the per person cost can be pretty reasonable. But the key is to go with a bunch of people. With just 6 adults and 2 small children, we were pushing the limit by getting the garlic bread appetizer and 3 entrees. Even then we still ended up with leftovers.

Garlic Bread appetizer

I don't know that I would call it gourmet Italian food but it's generally pretty good. If you're an Italian food snob and prefer your pasta from Italy and tomatoes harvested from vineyards in Tuscany, this may not be the place for you. If you're coming with a large party and want "safe" dishes that can appeal to a variety of palates, Buca is a good option. I first discovered it in business school when my friends and I traveled in large packs before b-school events and the one in Palo Alto could easily accommodate groups of our size. With so many options to choose from, it was easy to let those who had a strong preference order and the rest of us ate whatever was put in front of us.

Prosciutto-Stuffed Chicken

For this family visit, we mixed it up a bit with the Prosciutto-Stuffed Chicken (really good), Shrimp Florentine (tasty) and my comfort food of choice, spaghetti and meatballs. The meatballs were huge so this was a fitting dish for a carnivore (that would be me) as well as a carb-lover (also me).

Shrimp Florentine

And you all know me well enough to know I usually like to get dessert when I eat out but Buca di Beppo is one of those places where you (or at least I) are(am) often too full at the end of the meal to have any room for dessert. Even water gets filling at the end. This is not a place to go if you're on a diet, especially if you don't exercise strict portion control. It's also not somewhere you go for a quiet dinner for two because, besides the large portion-sized entrees, all of the Buca di Beppo restaurants I've gone to have been crowded and noisy. If you tried whispering sweet nothings to your date, I'm afraid you'd end up shrieking it at him or her just to be heard. I'm not sure I've ever even seen a table for two at a Buca.

Spaghetti with Meatballs - sorry for the blurry picture)

Although, speaking of dates, on the night we went, it must have been some kind of Winter Formal type of evening for the local high school because many of the long tables were filled with teenagers, the guys in suits and the girls in really short gowns. Really short. Or I'm just old and way past 16 to appreciate teenage couture.

Valentine M&M Sugar Cookies

Valentine M&M Sugar Cookies - made dough February 7, 2014 from So We Think We Can Cook

As I look at my repertoire for Valentine-themed treats, I realize so many of them are red velvet in some shape or form. I like a good red velvet but I also believe in all things in moderation, including food dyes. So here's one way to forego the food color but still stay on theme - add Valentine M&Ms to it. All the pink, red, fuschia and white M&Ms you like. At first I was going to make a chocolate chip M&M cookie or a Monster cookie but I decided to go with a sugar cookie so the girly colors would show up better against a more pale cookie. Plain M&Ms work better for this type of cookie than peanut M&Ms, simply because they're not only flatter and won't stick out as much in a sugar cookie but also because I don't like peanuts in a non-peanut butter cookie.

The only thing I don't like about baking with M&Ms, plain or peanut, is the ones on the outside will inevitably crack during baking so they're just not as pretty when baked. The colors also bleed into the cookie so they're just not as pretty. I tried to circumvent that with these cookies by withholding a handful of M&Ms and pushing them into the cookies as soon as I took them out of the oven. It sort of worked. They look better in the pictures but because of the candy shell, didn't melt and adhere to the baked cookies as much as I would've liked. Despite how it sometimes looks, this is a good cookie option for kiddie Valentine parties. Kids like M&Ms, you don't have to worry about peanut allergies with the plain M&Ms and the only food coloring is in the M&Ms instead of the teaspoons or tablespoons of red food dye that goes into red velvet baked goods (that'll be tomorrow's recipe, ha).

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
3 C flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t cream of tartar
dash of salt
1 medium bag (12 oz) Plain M&M's, Valentine edition

1. Cream the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, or until fluffy.&nbsp
2. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix for 2 more minutes.&nbsp
3. In a separate small mixing bowl combine all dry ingredients. Add to the butter mixture and mix until well combined. 
4. Pour in your M&M's and mix just until combined. Form into round balls (about 2 inches in size) and lay onto a cookie sheet (or chill or freeze for several hours). Press the tops down slightly. 
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until you see the cookies start to crack. If desired, press remaining M&Ms over the tops of baked cookies as soon as you remove from the oven.