Natalie's Molasses Crinkles

In high school my friend made the best soft ginger cookies. They were always a favorite of mine. I was so excited when my mom gave me a copy of their ward cook book a couple of years ago and I saw that Natalie's mom had put the recipe in it. Yea! They are so gingery and yummy, and they stay soft for forever. The recipe makes around 6-7 dozen cookies, so I usually half or third it, depending on how many cookies I want.

Molasses Crinkles

1 1/2 cup oil
3 cups white sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup molasses
6 cups flour
1 T. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1 1/2 t. ginger

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing in molasses last. Form into one inch balls and roll in sugar. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.

*My Notes
I usually make these with whole wheat flour. The flavor of the molasses and ginger makes it nearly impossible for anyone to tell that they are whole wheat. Also, I usually make 1.5 inch balls and cook them for closer to 11 minutes. I like my cookies to be a little bit larger.

Butternut Squash Soup

This post if for my friend Amee. We had her and her husband over for dinner tonight and we made one of our favorite fall recipes, Squash Soup. She requested that I post the recipe on my blog, so here goes. The picture is not technically of my soup, but mine looked pretty dang similar.

Butternut Squash Soup

2 T. butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 (2 lb.) butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 c. chicken broth
1/2 t. marjoram leaves
1/4 t. ground black pepper
1/8 t. ground cayenne pepper
1/4 t. garam masala (or to taste)
1/8 t. curry powder (or to taste)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. sour cream (optional)
*optional garnish-balsamic vinegar

Melt butter in skillet. Saute onion until tender. Mix onion/butter mixture with remaining ingredients (except sour cream) in saucepan. Simmer until squash is tender (about 15 minutes). Blend mixture in blender of food processor ( I use one of those hand held blenders right in the pan. It is so much easier than transfering everything back and forth.). Return to saucepan. Heat until hot, not quite boiling. Stir in sour cream if desired with wire whisk until smooth. Garnish each bowl with approximately 1.5 t. balsamic vinegar, if desired.

Anniversary Menu

Recently my friend brought me a couple of her old Food and Wine magazines. Holy hannah those things had good recipes in them. Immediately I went through and starred some of the recipes that I knew I needed to try. For our anniversary on Friday night, we decided to give a couple new recipes a go. We had a blast making them. Spencer and I both love to cook and enjoy a good excuse to try new recipes. Here was the menu and the recipes for them are hyperlinked.

Homemade Gnocchi with creamy tomato sauce
Steamed asparagus with lemon and pepper
Salad de Maison
Lemon-Blueberry Cheesecake Parfaits

*My notes
Gnocchi-Use normal, smaller size potatoes for the Gnocchi. We used really large baking potatoes and the ratio of flour and egg to potatoes was off. We cooked the first batch and they were little soggy clumps of mashed potatoes. After adding some more egg and flour to the rest of the dough, they came out perfect.

Creamy tomato sauce-the picture for this recipe was less than appetizing, but the reviews were all really good. We gave it a shot and both declared it to be a winner. Ours looked a lot more appetizing than the recipe picture. I wish a would have taken a picture. Also, it says to simmer for 45-50 minutes. We both agreed that the full 50 minutes would not be necessary. 30 min. would be plenty to have a flavorful sauce.

Lemon-Blueberry Cheesecake Parfaits- These were really good, but took a whole lot of time to make. Spencer did most of the work for these while I was at school. While I think you could take some shortcuts (store bought shortbread cookies or blueberry pie filling) the result would not be as good. The orange zest added the perfect hint of citrus that you would not get with store bought cookies and the compote was not as sweet as pie filling. Probably something I would only make for a really special occasion because of all of the time it takes.

Chickpea Pasta With Almonds and Parmesan

Serves 4
Hands-On Time: 20m
Total Time: 20m

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
7 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
kosher salt
1 pound angel hair pasta
1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted roasted almonds, chopped
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Directions
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the broth, red pepper, and 3/4 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil.
Add the pasta and cook, stirring, until the broth is nearly absorbed and the pasta is al dente, about 6 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas and parsley.
Divide among individual bowls and top with the almonds and Parmesan.

Orange Kissed Coconut Cream Pie

Once again, I meant to take a picture of this before taking it to our Sunday BBQ. I totally forgot to though. So, for those who actually had a piece, comment and let everyone know how delicious it was. This pie is so tangy, light and refreshing. I have to give credit to my mom for passing the recipe on to me though. She has a very good eye for recipes.

Orange Kissed Coconut Cream Pie

1 pre-made pie crust

Filling
1 c. sugar
3 T. corn starch
1 c. water
1/4 c. orange juice
1 T. orange peel
1/4 c. butter
3 egg yolks
1/2 c. coconut toasted
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 c. whipping cream

Toppings
1/2 c. whipping cream
2 T. powdered sugar
1/4 c. coconut toasted
2 T. sliced almonds toasted


Instructions
Filling
Prepare oven to 450. Prepare pie crust for unfilled, one crust pie according to box. Bake @ 450 for 9-11 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool crust completely. In medium saucepan-combine sugar and cornstarch, blend well. Stir in water, O.J., butter, orange peel and egg yolks. Cook over med. heat until mixture thickens and boils-about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. refrigerate 1 hour (I do not do this. I run really cold water into the sink and place the pan in it to cool. It only takes about 10 minutes for the mixture to cool enough to proceed to the next step.). Once cool, stir in 1/2 c. coconut and sour cream. Whip cream and fold into rest of filling. Spoon mixture into pie crust.

Topping
Whip cream and sugar until stiff peaks form. spread whipping cream over filling. garnish with almonds and coconut.

Refrigerate 1-2 hours before serving (I put mine in the freezer for 15-20 minutes). Store in fridge.

*If you have any other questions, email me or post them in the comment section.

Other flavors of Melona

I finally got to try the other flavors of Melona ice cream bars. At the H mart they are having a big sale on these ice cream bars. When I stopped by last night to buy a box, I was delighted to find that not only are they $2 off right now, but they had samples of every flavor. The cute little Korean woman who was doing the samples insisted that I try every flavor. She then dug down to the bottom of the freezer for the most frozen boxes so that it would not melt it the Philadelphia heat on my way home. And last but not least, if you bought 3 boxes they gave you this mini cooler thing to be able to keep them cold. I only bought 2 boxes but the girl loved me so much that she gave me the cooler thing anyway. The whole experience just made me laugh. It was so different from the typically Philly customer service.

As for the flavors, the melon is still my favorite. The mango comes in second. The banana and strawberry were definitely at the bottom of the list. The banana tasted too fake to me. Don't get me wrong, I love banana flavored Runts candies. I just don't want my ice cream to taste like them. The strawberry was similar in its fakeness. I would suggest sticking with the melon flavor.

Chicken Souvlaki

This recipe was delicious. If you like tzatziki, the combination of the cucumbers, dill, yogurt, lemon juice, and olive oil is essentially just unmixed tzatziki. The whole thing was so simple to make and tasted so good. If the chicken was grilled ahead of time, it would be the ultimate of a simple meal for a weeknight.

* I altered this just a little to work with things I had. I only made a 3rd of the dressing (I was cooking only for me). I used chicken I had grilled rather than a rotisserie chicken. I left out the onion but added tomato instead. And last but not least, I didn't use fresh dill. I wish I had fresh dill in my garden, but I don't. I just wasn't willing to go to the store for it.


Chicken and Dill Souvlaki
Ingredients

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
kosher salt and pepper
1 2 1/2- to 3-pound rotisserie chicken, meat sliced
2 Kirby cucumbers, sliced into thin half-moons
1/2 small sweet onion (such as Vidalia), thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
4 flat breads
1/2 cup plain yogurt, preferably Greek-style
Directions

In a large bowl, combine the oil, lemon juice, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Fold in the chicken, cucumbers, onion, and dill. Divide the chicken mixture evenly among the flat breads and serve with the yogurt.


* this recipe is from this Real Simple Magazine