Archive for December, 2007
Sweet Potato Waffle with Blueberry Syrup
Since my family was visiting today, Seth and I took everyone to the Waffle Shoppe for breakfast. Their waffles are some of 
the best I’ve had, and it reminded me of my horrendous waffle iron at home. I tried replicating Sarabeth’s Pumpkin Waffles with said iron, and needless to say, it wasn’t a complete success. I have also tried the make sweet potato waffles with my waffle iron. I am a pretty big fan of sweet potatoes, so when I saw a recipe for sweet potato waffles in the Mayo Clinic cookbook
The Twelve Cookies of Christmas, plus a few extra…
My mom has made Christmas cookies for as long as I can remember and I always helped out, but this was the first year that I made cookies by myself. I actually didn’t mind the baking, but it was hard to decide what types of cookies to make. Seth’s solution to this was to make one batch of all the cookies I wanted to make, so we could at least try them all and decide which ones we liked. Which is how I ended up making 15 different cookies, plus hazelnut truffles, peanut butter cups, and tipsy turtle bark. It was a lot of fun though, and we ate a lot of cookies in the process. Here is a quick run down of all the cookies, plus our opinions of them.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Munchies – This is a chocolate fudge cookie with a peanut butter center. The recipe seemed fairly simple, but it was actually really complicated to get the chocolate around the peanut butter. They do taste pretty good though – very similar to a peanut butter cup.
Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clusters – A very chocolaty cookie with macadamia nuts, coconut, and chocolate chips. You can’t really get a better combination in my book. This cookie taste just like a chocolate covered macadamia nut, and if you have ever spent any time in Hawaii, you know how good they can be.
Snowmen Cookies – A cute little cream cheese cookie decorated like a snowman! These are really simple to made, and easy to decorate. The taste wasn’t quite what I expected though. I thought the cookie would be more of a delicate cream cheese cookie, but it actually taste more like a shortcake. They are good, just different.
Chocolate Crinkles – Seth’s Mom used to make these cookies, and was nice enough to give me the recipe. Classic chocolate fudge cookies, rolled in powdered sugar, and then baked until they crackle. They taste great, are fun to make, plus I get bonus points from Seth for making his Mom’s cookies.
Chocolate Surprise – I have made these cookies so many times because they are Seth’s favorite cookie. A rolo is wrapped inside a chocolate cookie to make a gooey chocolate center.
Chocolate Cherry Treats – This is basically a chocolate chip cookies (or an M&M cookie) with cherries and coconut. I thought they cherry flavor would be a little more prevalent, but it’s not as dominate as I would have liked. It’s a pretty colorful cookie too – I bet it would be popular in Key West. The cookie is really good regardless, but I will probably add more cherries and less M&M’s next time.
Pistachio Oat Sandies – Nothing is better than a green cookie, and these little pistachio sandies are definitely green! They melt in your mouth and have the delicious taste of pistachios. This might be my new favorite non-chocolate cookie.
Snowball Cookies – Little tiny mountains of mini chocolate chips sprinkles with powdered sugar. Similar to the pistachio oat sandies, these also melt in your mouth, but they are loaded with chocolate chips. A wonderful, simple cookie.
Peanut Butter Cup Cookies – Another old favorite. This is my spin on the classes Peanut Butter Kiss or Peanut Blossom cookie. Instead of just rolling the cookies in balls and putting a chocolate kiss on top, I bake them in miniature muffin tins and then put a peanut butter cup in them. It’s a delicious combinations of peanut butter and chocolate.
Kahlua Chocolate Chunk Cookies – I wasn’t sure about this cookie, since it’s base is a packaged chocolate chip mix, but it had so many reviews, I couldn’t resist trying it. The flavor of the cookie is amazing. It packs a major coffee punch! The package cookie mix did cause some consistency issues, so I may try something else in the future, but these are great cookies with a cup of coffee.
Molasses Cookies – When we were in Seattle, Seth had a molasses cookie from a local bakery that he raved about. I finally found a recipe for a soft molasses cookie. This cookie has a wonderful spiced flavor, plus has a great chewy texture. I really like the crunch from the raw sugar on the outside. It creates a nice contrast, both if flavor and consistency.
Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies – This is a jazzed up Christmas oatmeal cookie. It’s red and white! Cranberries and white chocolate chips are mixed in with the oatmeal batter, and it makes one outstanding cookie.
Cappuccino Crunch Bars – When I baked this, it puffed up very similar to a cake. When I took it out of the oven, it deflated and looked like a complete disaster. It taste incredible though. The bars turn into a carmely toffee that is studded with white chocolate chips and just a hint of coffee flavor. They are really rich though, so cut them into small bars.
Hazelnut Truffles – Seth has been harassing me for months to make truffles. The recipe is easy, but it need to be followed exactly time wise to get the truffles to come out right. I tried making the pretty molded ones, but that was just so time consuming, so I ended up making truffle balls that I rolled in hazelnuts. They may not look as nice, but they taste just as good.
Tipsy Turtle Bark – If you like chocolate turtles, you will probably like this. Dark chocolate is covered with a layer of pecans, then caramel, and then another layer of chocolate. The tipsy part? A little bourbon. It gives the chocolate a nice flavor, and pairs really well with the sweet caramel.
2 commentsSweet Potato Casserole
Last Christmas for our family Christmas party, my aunt made an awesome sweet potato casserole. The topping was brown sugar and pecans, which gave a nice crunch to the creamy sweet potatoes. Seth really 
enjoyed it as well, so I asked my aunt for the recipe. A year later, Seth asked me to make this casserole for his Christmas party at work, and of course, I have no idea where the recipe is. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. So at 10:30 last night, I called my mom and asked if she had the recipe. She said she didn’t, but she would look. She found a recipe for Sweet Potato Crunch that she thought was the one, but as she is reading the recipe to me, I knew it wasn’t right. The recipe called for 3 cups of sweet potatoes and 1 1/3 of milk, which I believe would turn into sweet potato soup (sorry Mom). I searched the , and found a lot of recipes, but they all seemed vague – four cups of sweet potatoes, 40 ounces of sweet potatoes, 3 pounds of sweet potatoes – all calling for the same size pan and same amount of sugar. I ended up devising my own recipe, based on many others. This has never really worked out for my in the past, but today must have been my lucky day (or maybe Seth’s since this was for him). I ended up going with 5 pounds of sweet potatoes, which filled a 13×9 dish perfectly. I was hoping for a little extra so I could have some for myself, but I guess I will just have to wait to hear what everyone else thinks.
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
One of my new favorite ingredients is butternut squash. I have made everything from raviolis to waffles with it, but I think 
it’s best in a simple dish where it’s flavor can shine. I roasted a squash the other night for a side dish, but with so much leftover, I needed to find another recipe to use it up. I came across this really easy soup recipe that I thought sounded outstanding. Just saute some onions and put them in a blender with the roasted squash. Add chicken stock to puree the mixture, and then return it to the pot to heat though. I added about 2 cups of chicken stock total to get a nice thick soup. I also crisped up some sage leaves to sprinkle on top of the soup. It was simple, but it tasted so good. I think it’s one of my new favorite soups!
Paella (pah-EH-yuh)
My dad called me the other day to tell me about a recipe that was in the local paper. He wasn’t exactly sure what is was, but 
he said the picture looked really good. I found out later it was actually a paella recipe, which is a Spanish rice dish, and, coincidentally, I had just seen Ina Garten make on her cooking show. When I was home visiting my parents, I decided to make it for them for dinner.
Although I based my paella on Ina Garten’s recipe, I made a lot of changes to it. The biggest being the substitution of shrimp for lobster. A lot of people that had reviewed the recipe suggested this substitution, mainly because of cost, but also because the shrimp seems to hold up better in the dish. The other changes I made were basically just seasoning alterations, based purely on taste. The base of paella is rice and saffron, and then various meats and vegetables are added. I believe any long cooking rice will work for this recipe, although basmati rice is recommended since it stays firm during cooking and won’t stick together. I used risotto rice (arborio rice), which is a starchier rice, but I think it worked out okay. >> Read more