The Best of Brown Sugar

Brown Sugar, the sweet molasses-y concoction that is creditable for heaps of flavor in many of the desserts we all love. For example; Bananas Foster, the New Orleans creation most people have trouble getting enough of. The dessert famous for the beautiful flambe action that happens when the rum hits the pan consists of mainly brown sugar (butter too, but this post is about brown sugar). The soft and warm bananas coated in the sweet-syrup like sauce is delectable, especially when served with vanilla ice cream. Though vanilla ice cream does not have brown sugar in it, it goes great with something else that usually does... cookies! The first cookie that usually comes to mind is chocolate chip but that's not the kind of cooking I'm thinking of. The cookie on my brain makes brown sugar a star, Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies, the recipe courteous of the Pioneer Woman blog.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this so I'll explain with a math equation.

Bananas Foster+Vanilla Ice Cream+Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies= The Best Ice Cream Sandwich You've Ever Had In Your Life

Mind blown, right?
Yeah, me too.

The inspiration came from:

1. Seeing the Pioneer Woman make the cookies on her fabulous show
2. A bunch of bananas at the grocery store
3. The hankering for some good ole' fashion ooey-gooey Bananas Foster after seeing a bunch of bananas at the grocery store

Here's how I made 'em:

First, we have to make the cookies.
The  Pioneer Woman's recipe seemed a little on the large side for me so I halved it, you may do what you please. I ended up with around 16 average sized cookies so if that info does anything for you, good.
While the cookies cooled I got to work on the Bananas Foster. The recipe I use is adapted from Emeril Lagasse's, it only has a few differences but it turns out a whole different dessert (mine is better in my opinion, no offense Emeril). I came up with my version after multiple different variations but this version is the one that I like best.
*A good rule of thumb when making it, depending on how much you want to make, is one tablespoon of butter and around three tablespoons of brown sugar per banana. It's super healthy, I know.

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (you can use light or dark, I like light)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
Juice of 1/4 of an orange
4 ripe bananas, sliced into rounds
1/3 to 1/2 cup dark rum (depends on how boozy you like it)

Directions:
Take out some vanilla ice cream and let it get nice and soft. Then, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and orange juice. Once all incorporated, turn the heat to high and add the bananas, cook till soft. Have a lighter on standby if you're not comfortable dipping the pan into the flame (watch this video from the 1:47 mark to see what I mean). When the sauce is very bubbly you know it's hot enough to flambe. Heat is a very important aspect for a perfect flame. When you think the pan is hot enough, quickly add rum and remove from heat, then ignite either with lighter or stove top. Return pan to stove, keep pan moving until the flames die out. Congratulations, you've successfully made Bananas Foster! Hopefully without burning anyone's eyebrows off.

Now back to the ice cream sandwiches.


Take your cookies and throw a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream on there. Don't be cheap with the good stuff.

Now comes the magic, take your warm Bananas Foster and spoon it over the top of the ice cream. Watch as the sauce drips down and coats the cookie. Try to contain yourself and grab a second cookie and sandwich the whole thing together.

Now this is the hardest step, ready? Take a minute and just look at it. Make yourself admire what you've just made. Enjoy the moment, it won't last long before your instincts take over and you dive into the glorious piece of food art.

Please ignore the paper plate. I got so many dishes dirty today, I didn't want to use another one.

Don't deprive yourself of this treat. Enjoy every indulgent bite of it and thank Brown Sugar for it's wonderfulness.

-Madison

The Ups and Downs of Key Lime Pie

Oh Key Lime Pie, how adored you are by many. Your graham cracker crust, tart lime filling, all finished with a mountain of whipped cream is to die for. The best part about you, Key Lime Pie, is that you are so incredibly easy to make, once you get past the whole actually juicing the key limes part. That part sucks.
Pardon my choice of words, but have you ever laid your eyes upon a key lime? They are TINY. Like smaller than a golf ball tiny.

See?

 

It actually took an entire two pound bag of key limes to get 1 cup of key lime juice (I made two pies, don't be freaked out when you see the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of juice). Thank the Lord for my mother who had the patience to juice 99% of them. Granted, they sell bottles of key lime juice, unfortunately HEB did not have any. If your grocery store does, buy the bottled juice. While slicing and juicing two pounds of key limes was a great way to waste a whole lot of time, I would gladly buy the juice in the bottle had I been given the choice.
Once I got past the biggest downside of Key Lime Pie, the rest was a breeze. I did everything from scratch, especially the crust (the best part).

Graham Cracker Crust:
Brace yourselves for a crazy delicious and fattening recipe.

• 1 package graham crackers (not one box, one package from a box)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 stick salted butter, melted

Break up the graham crackers into a food processor. Add the sugar and pulse until fine crumbs.
Once the graham crackers have been pulverized, keep pulsing the mixture and slowly drizzle in the melted butter.
Yes, you did read the ingredients correctly. Yes, I did say an entire stick of butter. You're welcome.
Now, once the butter is all incorporated the mixture should be moist and hold together when pressed.

Key Lime Filling:

• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon key lime zest
• 1/2 cup key lime juice (ugh)

I recommend zesting and then juicing your limes before you do anything. Once you have that done, preheat your oven to 350°. Then in a medium bowl, whisk the sweetened condensed milk with the egg yolks. Once combined, stir in the zest and juice.
Remember that beautifully fattening graham cracker crust? Press it into a GREASED nine-inch pie dish, then pour the key lime filling on top of it.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the pie is set (when it doesn't jiggle in the center).

While the pie is baking you can make the...

WHIPPED CREAM:
This is honestly the easiest thing ever. Don't buy the pre-made stuff.

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons (or more) powdered sugar, I prefer mine sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon key lime zest (optional)

Ready for the super hard instructions? Throw everything in a bowl and mix it either by hand with a whisk (I don't recommend this), an electric hand mixer, or a stand mixer. Mix till stiff peaks form.

Once the pie has completely cooled, get the whipped cream and start forming that whipped cream mountain I mentioned at the beginning. Garnish your pie with either key lime slices or zest for an extra pretty touch. Then devour your pie. You can even do it in style and eat it for breakfast like I have the past two days in a row.

No this is not the prettiest slice or the prettiest picture, but regardless it still looks darn tasty.

Side Note: If you can't find anything key lime at your grocery store, normal limes will work just fine. They'll be a lot easier to juice too.

Enjoy!
-Madison

 

Ode to Peaches

As you can tell it's been a while since I last posted. It's really been a while since I actually cooked. My schedule with school, graduating, going to Europe as my graduation present, and going to my college orientation have really kept me away from my home, the kitchen. Now that most of the excitement in my summer is over, I have loads of time to spend getting my hands busy with food. Since it is summertime and the living's  easy "peachy" (get the pun?), I decided to celebrate the season's sweetest fruit and create a menu, with a little help from my favorite food magazines of course, (almost) entirely dedicated to peaches. I give you,

Ode to Peaches

 Appetizer

 Grilled Bacon Wrapped Peaches with Scallions

Entrée  

Citrus-Brined Pork Chops with Peach Mustard

Peachy-Keen Salad

Boston Lettuce, Peach Vinaigrette, Fresh Peaches, Red Onion, Blue Cheese

 Smashed Fingerling Potatoes with Jalapeños

Dessert

Blackberry-Peach Cobbler 

with Vanilla Ice Cream

The nice thing about this menu is it is simple and parts of it can be made a few days in advance. Things such as the brine for the pork chops (actual brine- two days, pork in brine- 24 hours), the peach mustard (two days), and the peach vinaigrette (one week). Plus the menu is loaded with peaches and since we only have them for a couple months, enjoy them as much as you can while you can! 

I have good news and bad news about the outcome of the meal. Good news, it was DELICIOUS. The absolute best pork chop I have ever had. The bad news? The only thing I got a picture of was the cobbler, which I'll save for the end.

Starting with the first course, the Grilled Bacon Wrapped Peaches with Scallions. These were a savory sweet delight that my dad and I thoroughly enjoyed. They were stuffed with scallions that had also been grilled prior to being stuffed in the pit of the peach, giving the appetizer a wholesome savory feel. I highly suggest these at your next BBQ.

Next came the highlight of the meal, my Citrus-Brined Pork Chops with Peach Mustard. The infused flavors of cardamom and fennel seeds working with the brown sugar and citrus notes that the pork absorbed while being brined was just fantastic. So much flavor came through in every bite, especially with the peach mustard which also gave a nice tang.

More mustard notes were introduced in the Smashed Fingerling Potatoes with Jalapeños. The potatoes are roasted and then after cooling slightly, are smashed, tossed in a mustard dressing, and then finally fresh parsley and sliced jalapeños. No jalapeños for me though, I wimped out on that option. Regardless, not only were these potatoes delicious, they were incredibly easy to make. They were also the only thing on the menu without peaches! Sad, I know.

The thing that highlighted peaches the most and was loved by all (surprisingly), was my "Peachy-Keen" Salad. This salad composed of Boston leaf lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, diced peaches, and crumbled blue cheese was tossed with my homemade peach vinaigrette. I came up with this recipe after being inspired by a bottle of Peach Balsamic Vinegar, which I got from the Lakeline Farmer's Market. I used the vinegar to dissolve some peach preserves, whisked in some veggie oil, threw in some minced shallots, a little salt and pepper seasoning, and that became a delicious new staple in my refrigerator. Isn't it amazing how one ingredient can inspire an entire dish?

The final peach dish of the night came in dessert form. I sliced up some peaches and tossed them with blackberries and a touch of sugar. I let the fruit mixture sit for a while so the natural sugar and juices in them could be released . While doing so I made the crust, most people's favorite part. My crust is one that goes well with any fruit and is simply equal parts flour, sugar, and melted butter. With some fruits I might suggest you throw a little cinnamon in there, I did so with this particular cobbler. Dollop the crust on top of the fruit and throw it in the oven. Then put an ever bigger "dollop" of vanilla ice cream on there and devour.

I hope my ode to peaches inspires you to have your own. This picture of cobbler might help you out with that.
 -Madison

Memorial Day and Lemon Bars

Memorial Day weekend is a time when the men and women who have died in battle fighting for our country are meant to be honored. How do we as Americans honor them? By calling up friends for BBQ and stuffing our faces with delicious food, naturally. Not that this is a bad thing, I mean I'm sure the people who have died in battle are pleased that we celebrate their bravery with food. Food is one of the few things people easily bond over and it certainly makes people happy (a little fat too, but hey who cares, right?). The three day weekend lifts people's spirits and the gathering of friends is also a delight. So for the Memorial Day BBQ I was invited to I decided to make dessert. Which sweet treat do I happen to have up my sleeve?
Lemon Bars. Wonderful, sweet, tart, devour-able lemon bars. Lemon is clean and lemon is sour, lemon is my favorite thing for a near-summer time dessert and Ina Garten happens to have the perfect recipe for lemon bars.
Now I have made these lemon bars before but instead of using normal lemons, I used ones of the meyer variety. What is a meyer lemon? It is a citrus fruit that originated in China and is thought to be a cross between either a normal or mandarin orange. It is not tart and has a mellower flavor that is quite enjoyable. While I loved my meyer lemon bars, today I felt a typical lemon was the way to go.
I would love to say I stopped there,  but I couldn't help myself.
I turned the lemon bars into lemon-raspberry bars.
I know, I know, I should have just kept it simple but I mean, lemon-raspberry bars, can you say "YUM"? Unless you don't like raspberry... or lemon bars... in that case though, you're just not human.
 Seriously though, if you don't like raspberry you can use any kind of berry you want. I think blackberry, strawberry, or blueberry would work beautifully but if you want to branch out the berry field, try cherries! Cherry lemon bars would be delicious now that I think about. Maybe I'll try them. I'll keep you posted.
Okay, back on track here, back to my lemon-raspberry bars. I started off by making a raspberry sauce on the stove that I let cool in the fridge while I made the dough for the crust. I used raspberries because they are the frozen fruit I had in my freezer. If wondering how I made the sauce, here's my guidelines from when I made customizable cheesecake. Once the sauce was made and the crust was par-baking in the oven, I began the lemon filling; which I may or may not have added way more than two tablespoons of lemon zest to. It won't hurt them, zest to your liking. I followed the lemon bar recipe exactly (minus the whole extra zest thing, "whoops") because Ina knows what she's talking about and I didn't need to doctor it. Once the filling was ready to be baked, I grabbed my raspberry sauce and dotted it all around in the filling. I took my spoon, though in hindsight a knife would have made it prettier, and marbled it throughout all the lemon filling and then into the oven they went.
Ina says to let them cool and serve at room temperature but I disagree. Lemon bars are at their best when their cold so I let my sit in the fridge for a couple hours before serving. Once nice and cold, dust with powdered sugar and cut into whatever shape your heart desires if wish to.

I had planned to make them prettier but even though I thoroughly greased my pan, the crust still stuck a little bit. Luckily, they still taste fantastic. 

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

-Madison

Mother's Day Dinner

High school has been a crazy series of events lately and my time has been consumed by school, sorry for the lack of posts.
Finally, I got a chance to cook. The occasion? Mother's Day.
I told my mom I was going to get her a gift and I was sorry I had not had a chance to get one yet, she stopped me there and told me the perfect gift would be for me to cook her dinner. All she wanted was a home cooked meal, how simple was that? After all, food tastes the best when made with love. This is how my mom's favorite foods became the perfect gift.
The menu she requested consisted of chicken picatta and a salad coated in a homemade poppy seed dressing. I added in some fresh green beans on the side that were cooked with merely some shallots and garlic. Did I forget to blanch them before sauteing them in butter like I meant to do? Possibly. Were they a little extra crunchy? Yes, but they did taste good.
The chicken picatta however was fantastic, per usual. The recipe for this chicken picatta is courtesy of Giada de Laurentiis but I make a couple changes to the recipe. Giada does not serve her chicken picatta with pasta, but what is Italian food without pasta? That is why I double the recipe for the pan sauce that is made after pan frying the lightly dredged chicken. I toss the pasta in the sauce and serve the chicken on the bed of deliciousness. I also make another change to the sauce other than doubling it, I sub a little bit of the chicken stock the recipe calls for with white wine. Why? White wine and chicken work beautifully together and the flavor you get when cooking wine down is outstanding. I also use nearly half a cup of capers instead of the quarter cup the recipe says to use since capers are the secret star of the dish. These little changes to the recipe make the chicken picatta what my mom says is the best chicken picatta she's ever had and that is saying a lot. I won't mention the number of times I had to make the dish before I could even get her to say it was good.
The salad requires (yes, requires) boston leaf lettuce. The velvet texture of the leaves is addicting and simply cannot be left out. The salad dressing the lettuce is tossed in is homemade and can easily be sipped with a straw (kidding, slightly). I got the recipe courtesy of my boyfriend's mom and I can say my mom is forever grateful to her for it. I am too but no one loves this poppy seed dressing like my mom does. The recipe, posted at the bottom, is super easy and is made in a blender. Homemade salad dressing is no where near difficult, don't be afraid to make it. It is actually one of the simplest things to make in the kitchen, in most cases. It's even a little healthier than the bottled stuff if you choose for it be since you have control over what and how much of everything goes in it.
The last few touches to the salad are segments of grapefruit and diced avocado. It sounds weird but it is so good. Don't doubt it. Eat it.
My mom's mother's day gift ended up looking a little like this...

Was it the prettiest plate ever? No. Was it the tastiest gift ever? My mom would say so. 

Happy Mother's Day!

-Madison

Poppy Seed Dressing Recipe
Ingredients:

• 1 garlic clove
• 1 small shallot
• 1/4 cup champagne vinegar
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup honey 
• 1/8 cup poppy seeds
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Blend garlic, shallot, and champagne vinegar together. Add mayonnaise, buttermilk, and honey and blend.
• Stir in poppy seeds. 
• Season with salt and pepper.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Sunday mornings call for pancakes. I myself am not even a huge breakfast fan but pancakes have a special place reserved for them in my stomach. My craving for pancakes today was different than usual, I knew I wanted something with extra flavor instead of plain-old classic buttermilk pancakes. When I stumbled upon Bobby Flay's recipe for Cinnamon Mascarpone Pancakes with Warm Morello Cherries and Hazelnuts, two words stuck out; cinnamon and mascarpone. Now don't get me wrong, the cherries and hazelnuts sounded wonderful but seeing as I had neither on hand, I needed to improvise. After all, part of being a good cook is knowing how to improvise.
I ended up not having to improvise too much for this recipe as I have for some in the past. The only changes I really made was subbing lemon zest for the orange zest it called for, amping up the cinnamon, and using maple syrup instead of making my own cherry syrup with hazelnuts. The results?

Absolutely delicious.

The interesting thing about these pancakes is not only do they have mascarpone in the batter, but mascarpone is the finishing touch to these little beauties. The mascarpone is sweetened with a little powdered sugar and makes a wonderful substitute for whipped cream, I actually prefer it. The mascarpone is creamy like whipped cream but smooth and rich so it melts over the top just like butter. I would almost say the dollop of sweetened mascarpone on top is actually my favorite part.

The recipe for my take on the pancakes can be found on my allrecipes page. I hope you enjoy these bright and spicy pancakes as much as I do!

-Madison

Customizable Cheesecake

New York Style Cheesecake, the epitome of a simplistically wonderful dessert. It is one that I love to make and one that I most certainly love to devour. Don't we all?

So yesterday when we had people over for dinner I decided to surprise them with dessert. My dessert of choice was of course cheesecake. Now this recipe is not good, it is the best. Lucky for you I am willing to share this wonderful New York Style Cheesecake recipe on my allrecipes page. I will note that is important to serve this cheesecake really cold otherwise it just doesn't taste as good. Making it several hours in advance, even the day before would be a rather smart choice.

Back to my story, cheesecake can go a million different ways. Since not everyone likes the same things, I made this cheesecake "customizable" by making a cheesecake toppings bar. I bought an array of candies, some dessert syrup toppings, and made a raspberry sauce. 

Like this cheesecake needs to be cold, this cheesecake also needs raspberry sauce. It is so easy to make too, there is no point in leaving it off the menu. Merely throw some frozen raspberries, let's say a cup, in a pot over medium heat, with about a teaspoon of lemon zest, a couple tablespoons of sugar (sweeten it to your liking), and a teaspoon or two of water. Bring it to boil and let it get nice and syrupy, let it cool, and then store it in the fridge so it gets beautifully cold too.

The cheesecake was lovely and everyone thought being able to throw whatever they wanted on it was great. I have to admit it was a pretty darn good looking dessert too. 

-Madison