My First Macaroons

I am so sorry it's been a while! In all honesty, I haven't really made anything fun. I've basically been living off of peanut butter sandwiches for the last couple of weeks while I got in the hang of things this semester. That's another reason I didn't have any fun. The school semester started, and I got busy.

Anyway, there's a Mexican bakery near my house in my hometown, and my family and I LOVE their macaroons. Seriously. However many they have that day, we buy them all. We're obsessed. I just love coconut period. (If ONE person comments about how coconut oil is so good for you, I swear... Do not get me started on "healthy" coconut...)

Anyway, I started to have a HUGE craving for them and decided they couldn't be too hard to make, right? Eggs and coconut and I should be set, right?

Turns out, yes!

This was my inspiration recipe. Why? Because it was the first one that popped up for me that wasn't "macaron." There's a difference, Google! Come on! Get it together!

I then had to change the recipe a bit. I didn't have cherries, nor did I want them. So I threw those out. I don't have almond extract, but I do have some kick-ass Mexican vanilla, so I subbed that. Also, I cannot find unsweetened coconut anywhere! So I had to reduce the sugar. Oh, and I didn't have a whole bag of coconut, so I halved the recipe.

So, in summary, here's what I did::

Equipment:
-Oven
-Cookie Sheet
-Moderately sized bowl (sorry for the vagueness)

Ingredients:
-2 large egg whites
-1/4 Cup sugar
-1/8 cup all-purpose flour
-tiny bit of salt
-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-2 cups shaved (sweetened, in my case) coconut

Instructions:
1. heat oven to 325.
2. grease and lightly flour cookie sheet
3. in the bowl, beat the 2 egg whites until foamy.
4. beat in sugar, flour, salt, and vanilla extract until blended.
5. stir in coconut
6. drop dough in scant tablespoon fuls 2 inches apart
7. bake 13-17 minutes until set and lightly browned
8. immediately remove from cookie shets

This is how mine looked:

I cooked mine for 14 minutes because at 13 I didn't think the coconut looked "toasted" enough. 

After I was "finished," I re-examined my macaroons, as well as my pantry, and decided that some dark chocolate would be delicious. So I dipped them in dark chocolate.

Possible Changes:
1. Egg temperature: because I decided to make these completely out of the blue, my eggs were still pretty cold when I started beating them. Next time I will PLAN on making macaroons and get the eggs out well in advance.
2. Chocolate covering: while delicious, I think they don't look very pretty with the covering on top. So next time, I would like to drizzle chocolate on them, or line them bottom of them, so it's as if they have chocolate soles. I think that would look really pretty. My problem with the "chocolate soles" is that I think they might stick to the pan then. If anyone has a way to guarantee they'll come right off, please let me know!
3. Halving the recipe: next time, I want to have 20 million bags of coconut, so I don't have to halve the recipe. I have discovered my roommates like macaroons, which means they're disappearing quickly. So my suggestion is DO NOT HALVE THE RECIPE. You will regret making so little.

Happy Birthday To Me - Double-Decker Oreo Cheesecake

For Christmas dessert, I had an absolutely disgusting cheesecake. This was the first time I met a cheesecake I didn't like, and the experience was unsettling, both in my stomach and in my life views. In order to fix the last memory of cheesecake I had, I decided I simply had to make a better one. And what better time to have cheesecake than for my birthday?

Every year for my birthday I have the same cake. Or rather, pie. My mom buys an Oreo crust from the store, and it's filled with chocolate pudding made with sour cream. It's delicious. Oreos are my all-time favorite cookie, and I only have this pie for my birthday, so I start out whatever year it is on a good note.

Lately, however, Oreo crusts have become harder and harder to locate. They sell those chocolate crusts and graham cracker, but no Oreo.

It is obviously time for a change.

In order to fix both my cheesecake and Oreo crust problem, I decided to make an Oreo cheesecake. The next problem was deciding on a recipe. I ended up mixing 3 different recipes: for the crust, for the mixed in Oreos, and for the chocolate top. Some reviews on the recipe for the mixed in Oreos said the crust was kind of strange, so I decided to look elsewhere for the crust recipe.

Before you begin making the cheesecake, I recommend this website. Whether you're a cheesecake pro or a newbie, I found this website very helpful. Even if you are a pro, you could still learn something!

In combined form, here's what I did:

Supplies:
-1 large bowl
-1 smaller bowl
-hand mixer or stand mixer
-Spring-form pan

Ingredients:
For the crust
-2 cups of Oreo cookie "dust" with the cream removed - it was very finely chopped
-1/2 stick of butter, melted
-2 tbsp white sugar

For the bottom (white) layer
-4 packages of cream cheese
-3/4 cup sugar
-1 cup sour cream
-1 tsp vanilla
-4 eggs
-some Oreo "chunks" to mix in to batter - as many or as few as you see fit (with or without cream)

For the top (chocolate) layer
-1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or darker, if you wish)

Instructions:
First, get the eggs and cream cheese out of the refrigerator, as they both need to get to room temperature.

I went ahead and put the cream cheese and the sugar into a bowl to warm up. 

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and fill an oven safe bowl with water to put in the oven. Cheesecakes, like bacteria, like warm, moist environments (science in every day life!). 

While everything is warming up, start chopping cookies for the crust and for the actual cheesey part. I ended up using about 12 oz. of cookies in order to reach 2 cups of cookie crumbs. When I said dust above, it literally was dust. It got EVERYWHERE. Do not make this in nice clothes. 

Oh hey Oreo, you lookin' fiiiiiiiiiiiine. (pun intended)

After your Oreo dust is all cut up, go ahead and put it in a bowl with the melted butter and 2 tbsp of sugar, and stir together. When mixed, press it into a well-greased spring form pan. I like for the crust to go up the sides a little bit. 

When the crust is done, now you get to do the filling. Beat up the 4 packages of now softened cream cheese with 3/4 cup of sugar, until smooth. Then add in the 1 cup of sour cream and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Add in the room temperature eggs, one at a time. Do not add the next egg until the other is all blended in. 

When everything is all smoothed out, pour in some coarsely chopped Oreos into the batter, and stir around with a spoon. I took the cream out of my Oreos because I prefer the cream of the cheesecake to the cream of the Oreo, but it's your call. 

When the batter is all mixed, and it is a homogeneous mixture, as my science books would say, pour about half of the batter into the Oreo-lined spring-form pan. At this point, heat up that cup of chocolate chips in the microwave for about a minute. 

When you're done adding in half of the batter to the spring form pan, your chocolate should be ready. Give it a stir, and put it in for another minute.  Pour this melted chocolate into the remaining batter, and stir until it is all combined. Then pour this chocolately mixture on top of the white layer. 

Bake at 350 F for 45 mins. When done, the middle should still be a little jiggly, but the edges should be nice and poofy. 

Going Bananas for Banana Bread

The story of how I decided to make banana bread is truly inspirational. You ready? Get that hankie ready. Here it comes.

I had a lot of bananas and a lot milk.

What a tearjerker! So moving!

No but really, that is truly how I decided to make banana bread. My roommates are out of town for winter break, and I have taken it upon myself to clean out our food supplies. Throughout the semester, my roommates decided on multiple occasions that they were going to be healthy and eat breakfast every morning in the form of a banana. Days passed, breakfasts were not eaten, bananas became overly ripe. Rather than throw away perfectly good bananas, they were thrown into the freezer. Somewhere over the first semester, we somehow decided our freezer was our unofficial alternate trash can.

Anyway, I have already gone through our pantry and eaten SO MANY ONIONS, so my next task was to tackle the freezer. You know that phrase "she's built like a refrigerator?" Well let me tell you. Refrigerators don't have anything on freezers. I needed an ice pick to get some of the things in there out. After one of my hacks, I found 6 frozen ripe bananas.

To Pinterest!

So because I have bananas and an entire gallon of milk (I got it for free), I decided on a buttermilk recipe.

What supplies you need: 
-8x4 loaf pan
-hand mixer/mixer

Ingredients
-1.5 cups white sugar
-1 stick butter
-3 bananas
-2 eggs
-2 cups all-purpose flour
-0.5 tsp baking soda
-1/3 cup sour milk***
-0.25 tsp salt
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-optional: nuts

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease your loaf pan.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it all up.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 60 minutes.

***If you aren't aware of how to sour milk, don't worry! I wasn't either. So basically, it's 1 tbsp of lemon juice to 1 cup of milk. Put the lemon juice in your measuring cup, then fill to the 1 cup line with milk. In this case, since you only need 1/3 cup of milk, it's one teaspoon of lemon juice, and then fill it up to the 1/3 line with milk. Do this about 5 minutes before you're ready to start blending, to give the milk time to sour.

I liked this recipe because it only requires you to make 1 loaf. I had 6 bananas, so I personally made 2. But, if you're one of those people who remembers to half the first couple of ingredients or so and then you forget the rest (speaking from experience here), then this recipe is perfect.

This loaf turned out very moist and the crumb structure is very consistent. I had some with Nutella for a quick snack, and it was delicious.

Ratatouille - More like Ratatou- OUI!

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to write a post about what I made for Christmas dinner this year. I know, I'm totally late. But you know how when you get on Pinterest after any holiday and see all the great things you could have done had you seen it before the holiday? Yeah, this is kind of like that. But it's ok! Rataouille is not strictly Christmas - it's any time of the year. 

If you haven't seen the movie Rataouille, go get it. It's such an adorable movie, and it's very clever and well done. So, from the movie Ratatouille, they make this version of ratatouille. Some clever person out there already put together a recipe for it here. My brother emailed the link to me before Christmas and he said we simply had to make it. We ended up making it for Christmas dinner simply because that was the only night that we were both home that didn't already have a meal planned. 

Have you ever seen a blue heron? They are gorgeous, huge, majestic animals. And then they open their mouths. (Just in case you don't believe me: here's some evidence). Herons look pretty, but sound ugly. Ratatouille is just the same. Sounds ugly, (I believe the movie calls it "rat patootie" at one point), but looks absolutely beautiful. 

As beautiful and sophisticated as it looks, it was so easy to put together! The original recipe uses a mandolin, which would have made it even easier. I didn't have one, so I just had to use a knife and cut finely. 

Here's what I did:

1 cup tomato puree

6 garlic cloves (because we had 6 people, and my rule is 1 clove per person)

1/2 onion, chopped very finely

2 tablespoons of olive oil, divided

2 zucchini

1 eggplant

2 yellow squash

2 red bell pepper

pepper

rosemary

herbes de provence 

goat cheese, for garnish if you want

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Pour tomato puree, garlic cloves, and onion onto bottom of dish, then stir in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. At this point, I added in some black pepper and herbes de provence (add as much or as little as you like). 

Cut all of the veggies into very thin slices. If you're not sure if you're cutting thin enough, cut thinner. 

Arrange the veggies in any sort of pattern you like in the dish on top of the tomato sauce. I arranged my dish in a circle pattern (the one on the right), whereas my brother did two rows (the dish on the left). Both turned out delicious, so it doesn't really matter. Keep in mind, ratatouille is a peasant dish. You think peasants had time to sit around arranging veggies in a pretty manner? No. If you don't even want to arrange the veggies, I'm sure it would even taste good with just throwing everything in the pot and cooking it. 

When you're done arranging (or not), add in the herbs and spices you like, and then drizzle with the remaining olive oil. Cover with parchment paper. Bonus points to whomever can tell me what parchment paper actually does.

Bake for 45-55 minutes. It will be done when the tomato sauce is bubbling around the veggies. 

I served mine with some herbed chevre (from Trader Joe's!). 

This was a perfect Christmas dinner for my family because we often eat so much at the holidays that it was kind of nice to have a healthy meal. This followed an antipasti, and was followed by cookies and brandy alexanders. Don't worry, my family and I did not starve. This recipe was also perfect because clean-up was pretty simple, and it cooked long enough for me to run upstairs, grab a shower, and look presentable for dinner by the time it came out of the oven.

I hope you enjoy making this dish as much as I did. It's a lot of slicing, but the product is so pretty and fancy that I think it's worth it. 

Bon appetit!