Blueberry Banana Snack Cakes

The line between snack cake and muffin is one that is so fine that I choose not to walk it. The main difference here is that often with muffins you use the well method and add the wet ingredients to the dry whereas with this snack cake you do the opposite. Either way, these make a tasty treat. I think you could make these in a mini-loaf pan and have them come out nicely as well. They might even make a good gift.

Blueberry Banana Snack Cakes

1 1/4 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 medium bananas)
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
powdered sugar

1- Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin pan with paper cup liners.
2- In large mixer bowl, combine sugar, butter, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Add bananas and beat until well mixed. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Beat at low speed until moistened (do not overmix at this point or snack cakes will get tough). By hand, stir/fold in the blueberries.
3- Spoon batter into paper-lined cups to about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and let cool. Just before serving, sprinkle cakes with powdered sugar (this is optional if you want to keep them less messy).

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

If you've looked over old entries, then you may have become aware of my affection for shortbread and my various attempts at making it. This recipe came out rather nicely. The major downside is in appearance. If you bake these long enough to get a light brown color then they get a bit dry. Perhaps if the dough was rolled out and cut into shapes instead of done as drop cookies then you could fix this problem. Fortunately, the taste is undiminished by the outside color. You could also make these as plain shortbread by leaving out the chocolate chips.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used mini chips.)
granulated sugar for topping

1- Preheat oven to 350.
2- Whisk together flour and salt. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Stir in flour mixture until dough forms. Stir in chocolate chips. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
3- Form dough into 1" balls and place on ungreased baking sheet. Dip the bottom of a glass in granulated sugar and lightly press each ball into a disc shape. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Mint Chocolate Cookies

There really aren't many better combinations than mint and chocolate. There's little you can do when blending these flavors that won't come out at least edible if not delicious. These cookies fell into the delicious category. I thought they reminded me of Andes mints. My mom said she thought they tasted like Thin Mints. Either way, delicious. These are basically the cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels bag, but hey, they've got a well-paid, well-trained staff coming up with recipes. Who am I not to steal them?

Mint Chocolate Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup baking cocoa (I'd avoid the super dark versions of baking cocoa out there right now for this recipe since the chips themselves are dark chocolate.)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups (10 oz. pkg) Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels

1- Preheat oven to 325.
2- Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
3- Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs. Slowly add flour mixture. Stir in morsels.
4- Drop by well-rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until cookies are puffed and centers are set. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Chewy Gingersnaps

I've been baking up a storm recently. So now I'm going to get as many of the recipes posted as I can over the next few days. Some of them have photos and some don't. Mostly this is due to my camera's batteries running out, but also, I've come to accept that I am just not a very good food photographer. I may not be a very good photographer in general, but I'll leave that question for another day.

I'm not big on gingersnaps, though I love the smell. I was making holiday gift bags for my mom to give out with gift certificates to a coffeehouse and gingersnaps seemed both thematically and seasonally appropriate. Unfortunately my cookbooks and most of my recipes are in transit from my move, so I had to go out and find a new gingersnap recipe. This one is different from my regular one in that the cookies end up much bigger, flatter and chewier than my normal gingersnaps. I suppose these should really be called ginger-chews, but that just sounds gross. Overall, these are a nice alternative to the typical gingersnap.

Chewy Gingersnaps

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup dark molasses (come on, what's the point of mild molasses anyway?)
1/3 cup cinnamon sugar (you can use your favorite blend here... or eyeball it till it's the right color like I did)

1- Preheat oven to 350.
2- Sift together flour, ground ginger, ground cloves, baking soda, ground cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
3- Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in egg and molasses. Add 1/3 of flour mixture and stir until incorporated. Add remaining flour mixture and stir/mix until a soft dough forms (it will still be quite sticky).
4- Roll into 1" diameter balls and roll in cinnamon sugar (I used a cookie scoop to put the right amount of dough into the cinnamon sugar then once coated formed it into a ball. Less messy on your hands this way.).
5- Bake on ungreased cookie sheet until tops are rounded and slightly cracked, about 10 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes on the sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Matzah Ball Soup

I'm behind in posting and have quite a backlog of recipes to add. I had hoped to put them in chronologically based on when I tried them out, but alas, that is not to be. There was a specific request for this recipe, so it comes first. And no, asking for the Cheesy Corn recipe will not hasten its appearance here. You know the rules.

Anyway, I made this soup for my Passover seder. I hadn't done my own matzah balls in a very long time or possibly ever. If I have, I think they were from a mix. Not that a mix is much of anything other than matzah meal. Regardless, I went all out on this one and did my own broth and matzah balls. It went over smashingly and I even made a second batch a few days later to use up leftover ingredients.

The glory of this recipe is that it can be tailored very easily to your specific tastes. Don't like celery but love carrots? Leave the celery out and add more carrots instead. Can't find a parsnip but have a turnip? Switch it out. Also, you can make this chicken broth and use it for all sorts of other soups or cook it down and use it as chicken stock.

Matzah Ball Soup

For the Chicken Broth:

Ingredients:

1 whole (3-4 pounds) fresh chicken
1 large parsnip quartered
2 leeks (white part only) cleaned thoroughly and quartered
1 small rutabaga quartered
3 ribs of celery with leaves halved
10 parsley stems
2 large carrots quartered
2 large onions quartered
8 peppercorns crushed
½ tsp dried thyme
Kosher or coarse salt
Salt and pepper to taste

1- Clean the chicken and discard giblets or other items in the cavity. Salt the entire chicken inside and out liberally with kosher or coarse salt. Let chicken stand for 35 minutes.
2- Wash salt from chicken and place in a large stockpot. Cover chicken with parsnip, leeks, rutabaga, celery, parsley, carrots, onions, peppercorns and thyme. Cover with 4 or 5 quarts of cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to simmer. Simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hours, occasionally skimming the foam from the top.
3- Remove the chicken to a large platter when it is still firm and not falling apart. Remove the meat from the chicken and save for other use or to put back in the soup later. Return the bones to the pot and simmer for one more hour.
4- Strain the soup into a large bowl and discard everything in the strainer. Refrigerate long enough to allow hardened fat to form on surface, then simply remove the fat setting it aside. Bring back up to heat with salt and pepper to taste.
5- For deeper flavor, you can repeat the process with another round of vegetables. If additional broth is needed, you may add more water and then the vegetables. Simmer for 2 hours or until the broth has the desired taste.

For the Matzah Balls:

Ingredients:

4 eggs
½ cup club soda
3 Tbsp vegetable oil or reserved chicken fat from broth
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup matzah meal

1- Whisk the eggs until blended. Add the club soda, vegetable oil or fat, salt and pepper. Blend in the parsley and matzah meal. Cover and refrigerate this mixture for about 1 hour.
2- Bring about 5 quarts of water to boil. Rub vegetable oil on hands and form matzah balls with about 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons of mixture (makes about 12-15). Drop in boiling water and simmer covered about 35 to 45 minutes depending on desired consistency.
3- Serve in chicken broth. You can cook the matzah balls in the chicken broth for either the last 15 minutes of cooking or for an additional 15 minutes depending on the size of the matzah balls and preferred texture.

Roasted Cauliflower and Tofu Curry

I've started to realize that there are a ton of recipes that I've tried that haven't made it in here yet. So I'm going to make a concerted effort over the next few weeks to get some of them posted. The best time to start is now.

I made this for Rachel at one point as a thank you for letting me use her car or driving me around or taking care of Gloucester... I dunno, something. Anyway, I can't eat it so I can't speak to the taste personally, but she indicated that it was good. It's also fairly decent for you, so that's an added bonus. It's also a good vegetarian dish. I served this up over brown rice, but you can used whatever kind you like or even some other grain.

Roasted Cauliflower and Tofu Curry

1 lb extra firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tsp olive oil
2 Tbsp curry powder (whatever kind you like will work but I used a madras variety)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp table salt
1 large onion, sliced into 1/4-inch half moons
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (Don't use frozen. It'll end up too mushy.)

1- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Gently press tofu between several layers of paper towels to remove excess water.
2- Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil, spices and salt. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until onions are very wilted and browned (about 8 to 9 minutes or possibly longer depending on how precisely they are sliced).
3- Combine cauliflower and tofu in a large bowl. Pour onion mixture into bowl and coat with cooking spray; mix with a spoon to thoroughly coat. Spread mixture onto a baking sheet in an even layer.
4- Roast, stirring 3 times, until cauliflower and tofu are golden brown and smell very fragrant, about 25 to 35 minutes.