Ravioli...revisted...

Though the ravioli itself didn't turn out so great, I had lots of the (delicious looking) filling left over in my fridge just calling for me to do something with it...

...so I did ;-)

It's a simple recipe that I pulled together using my knowledge of a few other recipes...

Ricotta Shells
Ingredients:
Large shell pasta
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Shredded cheddar cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese
Ricotta filling mixture (1 cup ricotta cheese, 1 cup grated Parmesan, 1 tblspn Italian seasoning, 1 egg yolk: mix well)
Sauce (white or red, your choice!)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375*.
2. Cook shell pasta according to package directions. Drain the shells and rinse in cold water. (to be able to work with them faster...they're too hot to handle right out of the pan!)
3. Prepare baking pan (I used two 8" round pans because I used both red and white sauce, and didn't want them to mix!) by putting a little sauce in the bottom of the pan.
4. Stuff the shells with the ricotta mix, being sure to distribute it evenly among them. Place in the prepared pan.
5. Cover the shells with a layer of sauce, then top with both types of shredded cheese and the grated Parmesan.
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Enjoy!

Very tasty! They were warm and yummy...just like lasagna without the meat :-) And there we have it...real food ;-)

SUCCESS!! Fresh-baked BAGELS!

Oh.My.Word. These bagels are the BIGGEST success I've *ever* had with baking a bread-like substance with yeast...I'm SO excited!!

These taste SO perfect! I tried one with butter on half and cream cheese on the other...it's good with either!! And I'm sure they would be delicious with jam/jelly, cinnamon sugar spread, or anything else too!!

This recipe came from two sites. The place I originally found it was here, which shows the step-by-step instructions with pictures of the entire process. However, it was missing the measurements of the ingredients, so I also looked at the link where she had found her original recipe: which is here.

 Waiting patiently to try out a bagel!

My bagels (as seen in the pictures) didn't get as huge and puffy as theirs did, which makes me think my kitchen wasn't warm enough to have them rise as much as they did. So I'll try making them bigger next time. But the taste is PERFECT, so I'm going to be sure to stick with the recipe!!

Ingredients:

• ⅔ cups Warm Water
• ½ Tablespoons Sugar
• 1-½ teaspoon Yeast
• 2 cups All-purpose Flour
• ½ Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• ¾ teaspoons Salt

Directions:
In the bottom of your mixer bowl, combine the water, sugar, and yeast and let the yeast develop for about 5 minutes. Add in flour, vegetable oil, and salt and mix with a dough hook (or by hand) until the dough is elastic and tough. You may need to add in a bit of extra water, but do it little by little. Let the dough sit and rise in a warm place for 20-30 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead. Cut into 6 equal pieces. Roll each individual piece into a “snake” long enough to wrap around your palm. Dip each end of the dough in water and press together in your palm, forming a circle. Place the formed bagels on a floured board and allow to rise another 20-30 minutes.

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed pot. When the water is gently boiling, place 2-3 bagels into the water for 1 minute and then flip to boil on the other side for another minute.

Remove the bagels, place them on paper towels to take off excess moisture, then place on a baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining bagels.

Bake in the oven on 425ºF for 18 minutes, turning them over after 10 minutes. Enjoy! 

As I've (already) said (multiple times) above, these were sooo yummy! The insides are soft and (when I ate them) warm and delicious!

Try them!! They were super easy and yummy and they probably cost me way less than a dollar to make 6...which is WAY cheaper than buying them at the store. Indeed! ...and now I'm off to eat another...it's snack time!!

The only real failure...

"The only real failure in life is the failure to try." ~Anonymous

Well...my attempt at ravioli last night wasn't so great. Ethan thought it was good, but the dough didn't seem right to me. I'll have to try it again sometime! Maybe once I've learned to work with my dough hooks on my mixer better, and maybe when I have a pasta machine (to make the dough MUCH thinner than my rolling pin was able!) I'll try it again. Maybe with a different recipe too. We'll see. One can only learn from making food that's not such a big hit...(learn to keep cereal on hand at all times to make up for missing dinner ;-))...and try again :-)

So, today's recipe post is still pretty sweet, and happened before the summer of food officially began, but it was SO good that I have to share it!

This was our Easter Sunday breakfast, and the boys gobbled them up! Cinnamon roll PANCAKES! I found the recipe here, and followed all the instructions with one exception. Rather than having the butter "almost melty," I would suggest making it pretty melty. The cinnamon filling was somewhat stiff with the butter not melted, and it made it harder to squeeze into the pancakes.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
For the Cinnamon Filling...
In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, mix until smooth:
1 stick softened butter, almost melty
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 T. cinnamon

Using a rubber spatula to scrape the sides, pour this mixture into a large pastry bag that had been opened and stood up in a tall tumbler. A large ziptop bag with the edges folded over the tumbler would work too.

For the Cream Cheese Icing...
In the same bowl that you used for the cinnamon filling, mix together, using the hand mixer again:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 ounces cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
4 T. milk

Mix until smooth and pour into a second pastry bag just like you did with the cinnamon mixture above.

For the Pancakes...
In the same bowl that you used for the filling and the icing- no need to be using or washing too many bowls now- mix together:
2 cups pancake mix- I used Bisquick's Heart Healthy
3 eggs
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 T. powdered sugar
1 1/4 cups milk

Using the hand mixer, blend until smooth. In a large non-stick skillet, over medium to medium-low heat, and using a 1/4 cup dry measuring cup, ladle 2 pancakes. Snip the tip off the pastry bag containing the cinnamon filling so that the opening is a scant 1/2 inch wide, swirl over cooking pancakes in a circular motion- 3 go-a-rounds should do. Continue to cook the pancakes until bubbles form evenly through each cake. Gently flip each pancake over and cook another 30-45 seconds, remove to a serving platter and serve immediately or keep warm covered in a warm oven. Continue with the rest of the batter. Place 2-3 pancakes side by side (too pretty to stack!) on each person's plate and drizzle each one with icing. Serve maple syrup, bacon or sausage, and fruit on the side. Makes 18 pancakes.

Note- Using a damp paper towel, wipe your skillet after each pancake is made. This will keep the next pancake from sticking to any of the cinnamon filling that has leaked onto your skillet or griddle.
After I swirled each pancake with the cinnamon filling, I returned the pastry bag, tip down in the tumbler. This kept it from leaking all over.
Store any leftover icing in the refrigerator for future use. (I put the icing into an old syrup bottle and it has kept in the fridge great!)

Yesterday's catch up...vanilla cookies!

I seem to be wanting lots of sweets...yay for pregnancy cravings! Today I promise to make some real food so that we can be healthier than cookie monster...
...but for yesterday's second catch up post, we're still on the sugar...Vanilla cookies!

The original recipe called these "Vanilla Wafers," but they were much more cake like than the actual 'Nilla Wafer cookies. The original recipe said to chill the dough and then roll it out (to be cut with cookie cutters), but even after a couple hours in the fridge, the dough was too soft/sticky for me to cut it with cutters. So I did drop cookies instead (some of the comments on the original site said they did the same with pastry bags right after mixing rather than waiting, so I figured it would work out alright!). Because my oven seems to cook over-hot, I turned the temperature down to 350* and kept an eye on the cookies until the bottoms looked golden.

These cookies are very light and vanilla-y...I left them plain, but they would be great with frosting too! The recipe below is my variation (see the link above for the original!).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs and beat well. Sift together flour and baking powder; add to creamed mixture. Add milk and vanilla; mix well.
2. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F until the bottoms are golden brown.
   
   The recipe says it will make 24 cookies, but I ended up with 42 (3 and a half dozen!)!

A double day...

Since I didn't make it to posting in the last couple days, I will be posting more than one recipe today! I've still been trying things, just forgot to get around to posting them for you to enjoy too!

The first recipe to share comes from my mother-in-law, Anita. She makes delicious homemade croutons that my husband loves to eat (and not just on salad/soup, but just as a snack!!). Since we do not live close enough to just eat hers, I figured I should learn to make them too! And, they turned out easy and DELICIOUS!

Here is her recipe (my small changes follow):

Homemade Croutons

Ingredients:

1-2 loaves of French Bread

3 Tbls dried parsley

3 Tbls dried, minced garlic

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 Tbls onion powder

2 Tbls seasoned salt

2 tsp garlic powder

1/4-1/3 cup oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375*

Combine all spices in a small bowl and set aside. Measure out oil and set aside.

“Skin” the French bread. Cut the loaf in half and stand with the flat side on the cutting board. Slice the bread into several 1/2-3/4” slices. Stack the slices and cut crossways into 1/2-3/4” cubes. Repeat for all half loaves.

Layer the cubes on a baking sheet and bake (plain) for about 40 minutes, stirring them every 15 minutes to brown evenly. (May take 2 batches, depending on the amount of cubes) Remove cubes from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes.

Put the cubes into a large bowl and slowly stir in the oil, coating all the cubes lightly. Then, add the spices and coat evenly.

Store the croutons in large bags or jars.

One loaf makes approx. 5-6 cups

I didn't really change the recipe much when I made these. I didn't have any onion powder, or minced garlic, so I used a little Italian Seasoning to fill in that gap. If you want lightly seasoned croutons, you can use less of the spices, the amounts here were enough for two large loaves of french bread. Also, (due to my oven or the altitude or something) my bread cubes were crispy within 10 minutes. Be sure to keep a close eye on them while they're cooking in order to not have burnt croutons! One pan at a time is best, I tried to do two (one on top of the other), and the bottom ones got too brown too fast and I was only able to use half of that batch. :-(

These were so easy and are SO yummy, that I don't think I'll buy croutons again! And though I used store-bought French bread this time, once I get brave enough to try some homemade french bread I'll try that for these croutons!

Thanks for the recipe Grandma Honey! (Ethan thinks they're pretty awesome too, I was surprised he didn't eat them all before Lane got home!)

May 1st: Snickerdoodle Sunday

And so it begins!!

With my schoolwork officially finished for the summer, and a little extra free time on my hands, I started right in on the stack of printed recipes I have waiting for me to try out...

Today's concoction: Snickerdoodles!

I found the recipe here, and followed it exactly! Though my cookies did not turn out quite as uniform and pretty as the original site, they are DELICIOUS! They taste just like my Grandma Melba used to make them! (Hers were always pretty and uniform too, though....must be a secret I have yet to master!)


Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups sugar
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar

Cream the butter and the sugar.  Mix in the rest of the ingredients and roll the cookie dough into balls.  Roll the balls in the following sugar mixture:
4 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
Place the rolled balls on a greased baking sheet.  Leave as balls; they will flatten as they bake.  Bake the cookies at 325-350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.  The bottoms should be golden.  They will set a little as they cool.

My batch made 2 dozen rather large cookies...I could have probably gotten another dozen or so of a more "regular" sized cookie, but what fun is that??

The beginning of the food parade...

I thought I would start things off with a bang...even though my summer doesn't officially start for a couple of days yet...(I'm finishing my last projects today, so hopefully I'll be on summer break by this evening!) So, for my first new recipe, I tried Parmesan Knots as a side to some macaroni and cheese (with strawberry lemonade!).

I found the original recipe here. The only difference with my batch was that I used homemade bread dough rather than the store-bought biscuits that the recipe calls for. It is actually a dough recipe made for a no-yeast pizza crust, but it works great for bread too! It is so easy and inexpensive that I will probably use it for most of the bread recipes I try! ((You can find the recipe here.))

I'm sorry that there are no pictures to go along with my recipe, but the original site has pictures that look just like the ones I made (for once my recipe turned out just like the original! This is a good sign!!)

Easy Parmesan Knots (my revision)

• 1 batch no-yeast dough (see above for recipe)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

1. Roll each biscuit into a 12-in. rope* and tie into a knot; tuck ends under. Place 2 in. apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. (*I tried to get the ropes all the same length, to make uniform knots, but the exact length isn't really important.)
2. In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients; brush the warm knots with the mixture.
   
   Yield:10 knots.
   
   ENJOY!