Cooking Show: St. Patrick's Day Recipes

We filmed an episode of the cooking show last week.  

St. Patrick's Day is fast approaching, and given that Dan the Awesome Cameraman hails from the Emerald Isle, it seemed appropriate to feature recipes for a St. Patrick's Day celebration!

We started with a batch of Homemade Irish Cream Liqueur.  If you like Baileys® Irish Cream, you will love this recipe!

My friend, Maureen, was my co-chef for this show.  When we were setting up before the show, I poured her a shot from a batch I had already made.

I wish the cameras were running to capture the look on her face when she took that first sip!  All of a sudden her eyes popped open, like OH MY.  

No special skills are needed for this recipe!  Just pour all of the ingredients into a blender and five minutes later you will be having an OH MY moment of your own. 

Irish Soda Bread

My favorite moment came after we were done filming.  Dan the Awesome Cameraman took a bite of this bread, closed his eyes and said, "Ahhh, lovely!" in his lilting Irish brogue.

Click here for the printable recipe.

 And finally, Chocolate Guinness Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting .

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

These photos simply do not do this cake justice.  It is so chocolatey, so deep, dark and delicious.  And the frosting is the perfect combo of whipped and creamy.

If you make this cake, I promise that you will not be disappointed!

Cooking Show: Fall Recipes!

Last week, we filmed a cooking show featuring fall-inspired recipes.

If you've been searching for a recipe or two that will take the chill out of these crisp, autumn days then you need not look any further!

We started off with Pumpkin Martinis.  If ever there was a martini that qualifies as comfort food, this is it.

Dan the Awesome Camera Man proclaimed, "When you get to the bottom, the marshmallows are delightful!"

Here is the printable recipe.

 We then prepared Chicken Orzo Soup with Fennel & Kale.  Bonafide comfort food!  Click here for the printable.

Then we moved on to Oven-Roasted Spiced Sweet Potatoes.  This picture simply does not do them justice.

How's this picture?  

I had made a batch before we started taping the show, I also made a double batch on camera and guess what?

They all disappeared by the end of the night.  Yes, they are that good!! Just peel and dice a sweet potato, mix it with olive oil and spices, pop it into your oven and that's it.

Here's the printable recipe.

And finally, our tasty finale, Pumpkin Gingerbread!

Click here for the printable recipe.

Pumpkin Gingerbread

Happy first day of fall!  How should we celebrate?

With another pumpkin recipe, of course!!

This Pumpkin Gingerbread is so good.  The flavor-- though still predominantly ginger-- isn't quite as intense as typical gingerbread.  The addition of pumpkin tones the ginger flavor down a bit while adding lots of substance and body.

Add a drizzle of maple glaze...it's a perfect celebration of fall.


Today's Playlist

• "Rebel Rebel"...David Bowie
• "Troublemaker"...Weezer
• "I'm Yours"...Jason Mraz
• "Dani California"...Red Hot Chili Peppers
• "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"...Green Day
• "Love Interruption"...Jack White
• "In One Ear"...Cage the Elephant
• "What A Wonderful World"...Joey Ramone
• "Story of My Life"...Social Distortion
• "All Day and All of the Night"...The Kinks

Pumpkin Gingerbread with Maple Glaze (makes one loaf)

Printable Recipe

Gingerbread ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 10 tablespoons melted butter (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

note: additional butter and flour needed for greasing the pan (or use non-stick cooking spray)

Maple Glaze ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup confectioners sugar
• pinch of salt

Gather your ingredients.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.

Butter and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, or use nonstick cooking spray.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, ginger, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl until combined.

In a large bowl, stir the melted butter, sugar, brown sugar, pumpkin, eggs and vanilla together until thoroughly combined.

It will be very liquidy and runny.

Stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture just until incorporated.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan.  Bake for one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (or with only a few moist crumbs).

I can say from experience that this gingerbread takes about an hour and ten minutes in my oven, but I usually set the timer for one hour just in case.

And then I stick a toothpick into it, which comes out completely coated in wet batter, so I put it back into the oven for an additional 10 minutes.  

I just can't bring myself to bake it for one hour and ten minutes right from the get-go!  

While the gingerbread is baking, prepare your maple glaze.

Gather your ingredients.  You can see that there is some crystallized ginger in the photo. 

 I was thinking that I would chop the ginger and sprinkle it over the glaze, but a lot of thoughts went through my head as the gingerbread baked and by the time it came out of the oven I wasn't in the mood for crystallized ginger anymore.

Feel free to sprinkle your gingerbread with crystallized ginger if you have it. Or chopped pecans.

To prepare the glaze, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium/high heat until it's bubbly.  This will take about a minute.

Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the maple syrup and vanilla until combined.  It will bubble at first, but as you whisk it will calm down.

Whisk in the confectioners sugar and a pinch of salt until smooth.  Set aside until your gingerbread is finished baking.

Ta-da!  It finally passed the toothpick test.

I let the gingerbread cool down for about 10 minutes and then place it onto a serving platter.  Serve it while it's still warm, or after it's cooled.  Either way, it's out-of-this-world delicious!

You can either drizzle the glaze on top of the loaf (like the photo at the top of this post), or drizzle it over the slices as you serve them.

Enjoy.

Caprese Garlic Bread with Heirloom Tomatoes

I feel so unimaginative...this is only my second blogpost this month, and once again it's a Caprese/Heirloom Tomato recipe.

I went to our local Farmers Market yesterday.  I took one look at the heirloom tomatoes, and decided that being stuck in a Caprese/Heirloom tomato rut isn't such a bad thing!

Today's Playlist

• "Sixteen Saltines"...Jack White
• "Push"...Matchbox Twenty
• "No Rain"...Blind Melon
• "It Goes On and On"...The Avett Brothers
• "Sick Boys"...Social Distortion
• "Walk Away"...The Dropkick Murphys

Caprese Garlic Bread with Heirloom Tomatoes (4 servings)

Printable Recipe

• 1 mini-baguette (about 10" long), split horizontally
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 large (or 2 small) garlic clove
• 5 oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced
• 3 medium-sized heirloom tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons balsamic reduction
• 1/4 cup fresh shredded basil leaves
• salt & pepper, to taste

Gather your ingredients.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

You can either buy the balsamic reduction or make your own.  (To make your own, bring 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce to a simmer; stir occasionally until reduced by half {about 6 to 8 minutes}).

To make the garlic butter:  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in your microwave for 30 seconds on HIGH.  Crush the garlic directly into the melted butter and stir.

Slice the baguette in half lengthwise.  Place cut side up on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Brush with the garlic butter.

Arrange the mozzarella slices on top of the bread.  Bake for about 15 minutes in your preheated 400-degree oven, until the cheese is melted.

While the bread bakes, slice your tomatoes and basil.

Remove the bread from the oven and immediately top with the sliced tomatoes.  Drizzle the balsamic reduction over the tomatoes.  Season with salt and pepper.

 Sprinkle with the basil.  Slice and serve.

I wish I had remembered to take a picture after I sliced this, but it disappeared before I had a chance!

 Enjoy.

Irish Soda Bread

First things first: I am not Irish.  I had never tasted, nor even heard of Irish soda bread until I started dating my husband, who is 100% of Irish descent.

Every spring, around St. Patrick's Day or Easter, my husband's great-aunt would bake an Irish soda bread and give it to my father-in-law, who would divide it and give a really large, foil-wrapped chunk to my husband.   If you read yesterday's post, you know that my anniversary is on March 14, so my first encounter with Irish bread occurred fairly soon after we were married.

My husband was all excited over a chunk of bread that to me looked like a lump of sawdust with raisins in it.  At his insistence, I tried a bite and found it so dry I couldn't even swallow it, so I choked it down with a gallon of milk.. Okay, that's an exaggeration, it wasn't a gallon but it was way more milk than you should have to drink in one sitting.  I will tell you that I enjoyed the flavor of the bread, but the texture was unbelievably dry.

At this point I feel the need to say that I mean no disrespect to anyone of Irish descent, I am not making fun of you or your bread.  I happily embrace so many things from your culture:  I love the color green almost as much as I like pink, the Boomtown Rats totally rock, and having named my children Caitlin, Sean and Erin you can be assured that I think Irish names are the bees knees.   I also feel the need to tell you that I am of Italian descent (with a name like Frances, what else could I be?  Did you ever watch the Sopranos?  Do you remember that episode when Paulie's mom invited her girlfriends over to play cards?  At the end of that episode, when the credits were rolling, suddenly there was a glut of characters played by actresses named Frances.  Like, practically every one of those little old Italian ladies was played by an actress named Frances!).  If my descriptions of Irish soda bread are insulting your Irish sensibilities and you feel the need to fire back at me that Italian panettone is blah and overrated, let me tell you right now that I agree with you.  Now that I've cleared the air, let me continue....

So, after we had been married a couple of years, I saw a recipe in the newspaper for Irish soda bread (this was the 1980's, folks, before there was internet access we actually read newspapers to get our daily fix of what's going on in the world) and I thought to myself, why should Mr. Terrific have to wait for his great-aunt's yearly baking? Why not bake it myself?  So I followed the recipe for "My Best Irish Soda Bread" (or some other similar, folksy name) and man, was it good!  It was not dry, it was perfect. 

I was so excited, I couldn't wait for Mr. Terrific to come home so that I could show him the bread and tell him that he would be able to have homemade Irish Soda Bread more often than once a year.  He took a bite of the bread, and promptly told me that his aunt's was better.  At that moment, I was wishing that it was as dry as his aunt's bread so that he would just go ahead and choke on it.

I don't know what happened to that recipe that I made all those years ago, because Mr. Terrific said "my aunt's is better" one time too many and in a hissy fit I chucked the recipe and went on strike for a few years.  The recipe that I use now is a combination of several recipes; I left out things I didn't like and added things I thought should be there.  Hope you enjoy it, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Chocolate-Raspberry French Toast

Okay, you know it's coming, so let's just get this out of the way:

 Clyde trying on his Santa hat.....

and naptime.  As usual, Clyde is cuddling with a sneaker.  Gus momentarily woke up as I slithered across the floor on my belly to get this shot.

Gus went right back to sleep and then it was Clyde's turn to wonder why I was flat out with a camera pointed in his face.

Okay, thank you all for being such good sports and putting up with my puppy pictures.

Today's recipe is fabulous, if I do say so myself.  I'm experimenting with recipes, trying to figure out what I might want to make for breakfast on Christmas morning.  This morning I cooked up some chocolate French toast, with raspberry syrup and whipped cream and it's a keeper.  Definitely making this on Christmas morning!

I clipped and saved this recipe for chocolate bread, "Pane Alla Cioccolata," from Country Living Magazine in February 2001.  

 I knew it would come in handy someday.  It took almost twelve years, but I have finally found a use for that recipe!

Make it easy on yourself and bake the bread the day before.  Better yet, bake two loaves (like I did), so you can freeze one for next time.

Time Sure Does Fly...........

I can't believe how quickly this summer has been flying by!

In two weeks, Caitie and Sean will be gone, off to college.  I really enjoy having everyone under one roof, so my focus this summer has been on enjoying every moment and trying not to think about how lonely it's going to be when they're gone.

I've  secretly been making lists of things I want to pack into their care packages.  Shhhh, don't tell.  It will be Sean's first year at school, he has no idea what a care package is.  His care packages will involve lots of home-baked treats.  He especially likes cookies.

Too bad he doesn't like banana bread--but Caitie does.  I've been baking lots of banana bread this summer. The summer heat has been ripening the bananas so quickly, I've had lots of overripe bananas to bake with.

    I put chocolate chips and raspberries in this loaf.

 In less than 24 hours, it was gone.

I added chocolate chips and raspberries to this loaf as well, and then made it chocolaty by switching out 1/2 cup of flour for cocoa powder instead.

You can find my recipe for banana bread by clicking here .  To make the chocolate chip-raspberry banana bread, just add a cup of chocolate chips and a cup of halved fresh raspberries (tossed with a tablespoon of flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your loaf) to the basic recipe.   Because of the extra moisture that the raspberries add, you will need to increase the cooking time, at least ten minutes more than the original recipe calls for.   I baked mine for an hour and 10 minutes.

It's been extra-hot around here this summer.  I can't keep up with the water demands of my container plants,   and most of them are very sad-looking.  I won't even show you a picture, that's how bad they look!

But the flowers in my garden are holding on, especially the zinnias and dahlias.

I've been filling vases with them (and an occasional late-blooming gladiolus), hoping that these bright blooms will make the dead flowers in the deck boxes less noticeable!

Chocolate Banana Bread

Lots of baking going on around here in the last couple of days.

Erin's been busy.  First she whipped up a batch of Easter-themed Honey Nut Chex Mix.

Her Easter baking continued, with marshmallow peeps sitting on speckled M&M eggs in their Rice Krispie treat nests.

All of these Easter treats are gone, devoured.

We're not out of baked goods, though..........thanks to a few over-ripe bananas that inspired me to make Chocolate Banana Bread tonight.

Cranberry-Pistachio Bread

I'm surrounded by red and green, everywhere I look.

The last of my amaryllis bulbs has finally started to sprout.  Overnight, it just shot up.  Two shoots from one bulb........I don't always get that lucky, so when it happens it's a pleasant surprise.

This last bulb grew so fast, it's already passed the three bulbs that were beginning to sprout last week.

Remember earlier this week when I transferred these bulbs?  The good news is, two of them have started to sprout, and they also have two shoots coming from each bulb.  

The not-so-good news is the third one has barely budged, and they are all growing so slowly that I can't imagine they will bloom before springtime.

At least the red and green ornaments in the planters are pretty to look at.

Speaking of red and green........

Chock-full of cranberries and pistachios, this bread is such a festive display of red-and-green that it begs to be part of your Christmas baking line-up.

It's so extraordinarily good, however, that I'd bet you'll be baking it year-round!

Put on your favorite Christmas CD and play it loud while you do your baking.

Sweet Potato Bread

Poor Gus.  Turning back the clocks for Daylight Saving Time leaves him so disoriented.  He thinks it's dinnertime, so he's taking up post near his bowl.  And staring at me while I putter around the kitchen.  With those big, accusing eyes. 

I caved and fed him his dinner fifteen minutes early, I just couldn't stand his oh-woe-is-me pose any longer.

Remember when I blogged about the fabric that Caitie picked out for  the pillowcases I was going to sew?  I'm not surprised if you can't remember, it was so.......long..........ago.

I sewed them in a timely manner.  I just didn't get around to trimming them until this week.

Done.   Finally.  I had to go upstairs and switch out one of the pillowcases on Erin's bed.

Mix and match.

Emphasis on mix.  Not-so-matchy.

It's Erin's turn to pick out the fabric for the next batch.  As long as my girls like these pillowcases, I'm happy to make them for them. 

Today's recipe, Sweet Potato Bread, is perfect when you're looking for a way to use up any leftover mashed sweet potatoes after Thanksgiving.  Or, if you don't want to wait until after Thanksgiving, you can use canned sweet potatoes.

My daughter describes this bread as "a combination of coffee cake and banana bread.  Cinnamon taste like coffee cake, moist texture like banana bread."

In other words, it's really good!

Zucchini Bread! And Erin and Abby were at it again.........

I love it when Erin and her friend, Abby, take over my kitchen.  You may remember their cheeseburger cake from a previous post.  This was their latest creation:

Totally yummy.

Happily devoured by the two families!

They are already planning their next masterpiece.

I'm not sure that the recipe for zucchini bread that I'm about to give you qualifies as a masterpiece.  But it sure will come in handy when those zucchini in your garden start multiplying so quickly that you run out of people to give them to.

Bake zucchini bread instead!    Moist and bursting with the flavor of cinnamon,  this zucchini bread is a big hit in my house.