Tag Archives: easy

06Oct / 2010

Vinaigrette

Remember the wonderful asparagus salad recipe I posted over the summer? Well, asparagus is really expensive right now, but I still found myself craving the combination of roasted red pepper, red onion, olive, and goat cheese. Switching out the asparagus for baby spinach is one of the best ideas I’ve had in a while.  I just made the dressing as usual and added the peppers, olives, and goat cheese as salad topping.

Spinach salad with goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and calamata olives.

This salad is one of my favorite things.

A word of warning:  brushing your teeth is an absolute must after eating this salad.

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05Oct / 2010

Super Simple Chocolate Birthday Cake

I’ve been making this Moosewood Restaurant vegan chocolate cake since I was in high school. The frosting is a really easy basic chocolate frosting whose origin I can’t begin to recall. For vegans, Moosewood has an optional chocolate glaze that goes with this cake, but I’ve never had much luck with it due to the impossibility of finding fancy chocolate in Northeast Mississippi.

I couldn't wait for the cake to cool, so the icing is a little melted.

To make this cake, you’ll need:

  • 1 ½ C unbleached white flour
  • ⅓ C unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 t baking soda
  • ½ t salt
  • 1 C sugar
  • ½ C vegetable oil
  • 1 C cold water or coffee
  • 2 t pure vanilla extract
  • 2 T cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 375º. Mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar in the cake pan. In a small bowl mix the oil, cold water or coffee, and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients into the baking pan and mix the batter with a fork or a small whisk. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly. There will be pale swirls in the batter as the baking soda and vinegar react. Stir until the vinegar is evenly distributed throughout the batter. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes then set aside to cool.

For the icing, you’ll need:

  • 2 C confectioners sugar
  • 1 stick butter, chopped
  • 1 t vanilla extract
  • 2/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
  • at least 2 T milk

Beat first four ingredients in stand mixer.  Add the milk slowly until the mixture is smooth.  Ice cake and save remainder for spreading on graham crackers, cookies, or eating by the spoonful.

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23Aug / 2010

Cast Iron Skillet Cookie Cake

The last thing I need is a cookie cake. Nevertheless, when I ran across this recipe at The Kitchn, I decided to make one anyway anyway.  We had almost everything we needed to make this cookie happen, so when we bought groceries the other night we made sure to get the only missing ingredients: chocolate chips and butter.  While Ms. Dianne and I were working on the muslin slipcover I posted about recently, this cookie cake baked in the oven. The only hitch we encountered was the size of the skillet–the recipe calls for baking the cookie 40 to 45 minutes in a 10″ skillet.  Our two cast iron skillets are 8″ and 20,” and I like a thinner cookie anyway, so we decided to use the 20″ skillet and decrease the cooking time by about 15 minutes.  This worked out well for us, as the center was still soft and chewy while the edges were crispy but not burned.

Throw on some homemade cream cheese icing and this cookie cake becomes an unstoppable force.

To make this, you’ll need:

  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 3/4 C unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 C sugar
  • 3/4 C packed light-brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 t pure vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 C (about 9 oz) mixed milk- and semisweet chocolate chips

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt then set aside. This next part calls for an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, but if (like us) you don’t have one, a big bowl with a spatula works just fine.  Cream together  the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy–the original recipe says this should take about 2 minutes in an electric mixer, but I imagine it will take longer if mixing by hand. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until they’re fully incorporated. Pour in the flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
Transfer the dough to your skillet (the recipe recommends a 10″ skillet) and press to flatten, covering bottom of pan. Bake until edges are brown and top is golden, 40 to 45 minutes. If you’re using a different-sized skillet then adjust the baking time to accommodate for the difference in thickness of the cookie.  Don’t overbake, because it will continue to cook a few minutes out of the oven. Cut with a pizza slicer and serve warm.  Both The Kitchn and Martha Stewart recommend topping this with vanilla ice cream.  I’m not the biggest ice cream fan, but I have a feeling that homemade cream cheese icing would make this cookie cake unstoppable.

(Via TheKitchn, Martha Stewart)

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08Jun / 2010

Hershey’s Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

I forced my self to stop and take a picture mid-bite because I didn't know how much longer these guys were going to last.

Overall, yesterday was a pretty lazy day.  We went to my grandparents’ house for a while, scored some discount plants at Lowes (more on that later), swam a little, and watched a movie.  In other words, we did absolutely nothing to warrant making five dozen chocolate chip cookies.  Yet we did.  It started out innocently enough: we had salads for lunch and wanted a sweet treat (terrible logic, I know) but didn’t want to eat something from a package (at least we had that going for us?).  I decided to make chocolate chip cookies from the recipe on the back of the bag of Hershey’s semi-sweet chocolate chips, diving headfirst into the recipe without realizing that it made five dozen cookies.  While we were temped to make them all, I ended up putting half of the dough in the fridge for later in the week.  We only had one cup of semi-sweet chips and the recipe called for two, so I used Hershey’s special dark chocolate chips for the other cup.  I’m typically not too crazy about dark chocolate by itself, but the combination of dark and semi-sweet chips was perfect in these cookies.

The makings of a pretty sweet afternoon.

To make them, you’ll need:

  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups chocolate chips (I used 1 cup dark chocolate chips and 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Heat oven to 375°F.  Stir together flour, baking soda and salt–set aside.  In a large bowl, beat the butter, granulated and brown sugars, and vanilla with mixer until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating well until combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Unless you’re making these for a party or bake sale, if you’ve made the whole batch it’s wise to put half the dough in the fridge at this point (unless, for some reason, you want five dozen cookies sitting on your kitchen counter).  Bake 8 to 10 minutes (nine was perfect for me), or until lightly browned.  Allow time to cool slightly (about the time it takes me to stick the next pan into the oven and reset the timer seems to be just right), then remove the cookies with a spatula onto a wire rack or a plate.  The recipe says to let them completely cool before serving, but we were dipping them in milk and eating them before they’d been out of the oven a full two minutes (probably not a good idea, so don’t sue me if you burn yourself).

I was so pleasantly surprised with the way these turned out because I have a particularly bad track record with cookies.  I tend to bake breads, cakes, muffins, and even brownies much more frequently.  There’s just something about cookies (specifically, finding the right balance between flat/crispy and puffy/cakey) that I can’t seem to figure out.  I’m not sure if it’s the oven or the recipes I’ve been using, since today was a departure from both.  However, I’m looking forward to experimenting a little further, and I’ll be on the lookout for new cookie recipes.  Do you have a favorite to recommend?

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23Mar / 2010

Sweet Spring Jersey Skirt

A couple of months ago I bought a lot of bright, floral jersey fabric on super discount at Dirt Cheap.  It’s been hanging out in my fabric cabinet since then, patiently waiting for Spring to kick me  in the butt.  Using The Jersey Skirt Tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff and the dimensions from my favorite and most-worn skirt of all time (bought on clearance over a year ago at a Gap after-Christmas sale), I managed to piece together this sweet spring skirt.  I’ve been itching to wear it all week, and today it’s finally warm enough!

There's some weird light happening in my hallway this time of day.

You can see the color and pattern of the skirt better in this picture.

A few things to note:

  • If, like me, you’ve never sewn with jersey before, then this simple project can prove pretty frustrating.  If you look on some of your store-bought jersey items, you’ll probably notice a two rows of stitches on the hems.  I wasn’t able to make this happen on my skirt for several reasons (I don’t have the manual to my sewing machine, it was after midnight when I was working on this skirt and didn’t want to go to the store, I am impatient), but it really does look more professional and will probably hold up better.  I’m going to learn from this and try and take those factors into account on my next jersey project.
  • I should’ve used a stretch needle, made especially for super stretchy knit fabrics like my floral jersey.  Again, I didn’t want to go to the store, so I just used what I had.  I did, however, experience a massive amount of unintentional scrunching of my fabric.  This was great around step 3 of the tutorial, when I needed to gather the skirt, but really annoying when I was sewing down the side and hemming the bottom.  A zig zag stitch may have helped with this, also.  I googled it, but had a hard time finding answers.  I guess only time and more trial and error will tell!
  • Steps 4 and 5 of the tutorial are a little confusing if you’re using a fabric with obvious right and wrong sides, unlike the one pictured.  To clarify: on step 4, the waistband should be folded in half widthwise with right sides out.  Right sides are together on step 5, as you’re sewing the skirt panel onto the waistband.
  • My skirt is, as I stated earlier, based on my favorite Gap skirt.  To get this fit, your initial measurements will be something like 11″ tall for the waistband and 16″ tall for the skirt (mine has a 1″ hem).

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