Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Snickerdoodle Rolo Cookies


Yes, that's right. Snickerdoodles, with rolos. Baked right inside.

Decadent.

Unfortunately I do not have any decent after photos. Or any after photos where the cookies are right side up and not packaged in tupperware.

Use your favorite snickerdoodle recipe (I looked up a bunch online since this was my first snickerdoodle recipe) and buy a package of mini rolos to stick in the middle. This is important.


Make sure the dough is big enough to wrap around the rolo so it's completely in the middle.


Roll 'em in cinnamon and sugar! Once you bake you'll have lovely snickerdoodles on the outside and gooey caramel and chocolate on the inside. 

They really are decadent. I made these way back for work for Christmas (along with no-fail chocolate chip cookies) and they were very well loved.

I made a lot...

10/10, would bake again. Although you do have to turn them upside down to cool if the bottom of the cookie has some of the rolo sticking out, otherwise you'll be scraping hardened caramel off your cooling rack.

Total Cost: ~$10 (should be less, if you have most of the cookie ingredients already)
Total Time: 1 hour to bake several batches

Note: In this particular post, the photos are courtesy of my phone, which, while awesome and pretty decent at playing camera, is no match for Rich's actual camera. So if the pics look like cell phone pics, it's 'cause they are.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

One Pan Irish Nachos


We love nachos. So much, in fact, that we make them every week (Nacho Sunday!). 

Today is St. Patrick's Day, and I'm 1/4 Irish (and damn proud of it! Although I'm also damn proud to celebrate Cinco de Mayo...). It's also nacho day. I felt we should honor the Irish and the potato famine that caused so many of them to come to America (probably including my ancestors) by making our nachos Irish

Oh my goodness this was a good idea. Going to be doing this a lot more often.

This is called "one pan" because other than a butcher block to chop the veggies the whole thing was made in one cast iron skillet, and then we ate directly out of it. It was glorious.


Ingredients:
Potatoes
Soyrizo
Corn
Cheese
Bell pepper
Tomatoes
Cilantro
Avocado
Sour cream
Spices


Heat the cast iron skillet for a couple of minutes, then add a small layer of olive oil. Chop the potatoes into bite sized pieces and put them in the pan. Season generously with salt and pepper and whatever other spices you want. 

If you don't have a cast iron skillet, get one. The twenty bucks you'll spend is way, way worth it. Cast iron skillets keep very even heat on the whole thing so every piece gets cooked the exact same amount, preventing overcooking some pieces while barely cooking others. Plus, you can stick them in the oven. Seriously, they're great.


While those are cooking, chop the veggies and shred the cheese. We used the same veggies we do in regular nachos, but I imagine a wider variety of toppings will be good. Green onions, specifically.

Wow, that's a terrible picture... But you get the idea.

Once the potatoes are a few minutes away from being ready, add the soyrizo to the pan. I scooped half the potatoes on top of each other to make room. Once that was just about done, I added some corn. You could also add beans to make it real nachos, but there's so much going on you don't need to.


And then some cheese.


And then put it in the oven. That's probably one of the greatest things about cast iron - goes right from the stove to the oven. Just remember that the whole skillet is hot, so you absolutely need to use an oven mitt. Cook the skillet at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese is as bubbly as you like.


Then put all the vegetables on it! So good. How good? We made this early in the evening after not having lunch, and because we're fat kids we were kind of hungry again at our normal dinner time (8-9pm), so we made a second batch. It really is amazing we don't weigh more.

LOOK AT HOW PRETTY IT IS!

Naturally, it being St. Patrick's Day and all, we paired it with Harp. And it was good.

Total Cost: less than $10, feeds two fat kids 
Total Time: ~25 minutes

Note: In this particular post, most of the photos are courtesy of my phone, which, while awesome and pretty decent at playing camera, is no match for Rich's actual camera. So if the pics look like cell phone pics, it's 'cause they are. Especially the one of the potatoes and soyrizo... it's like I didn't even look at it after. Ugh.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Egg and Spinach Casserole


Not gonna lie, totally saw this on Pinterest and just had to try it. I'm not one of those people who can skip breakfast and when I get hungry it's all I can think about (apologies to the boyfriend for putting up with me when I'm cranky and hungry).

That being said, this egg casserole is fantastic.

I went a little overboard with the garlic...

Ingredients:
Spinach (take what you think you need and double it)
Eggs
Cheese
Spices
Anything else you want!


Sauté the spinach (clean it first... and remove any stems). I pour a tad of olive oil into the pan and sprinkle salt and pepper over the leaves. Spinach wilts down to a tiny fraction of what it is fresh, so you should really pile it on. This photo shows a pittance of the amount of spinach you should use, even for a small 8x8 inch pan, but I forgot to take the photo when it was all piled on. This amount was just the leftovers of the spinach I already had (after piling it high in the pan) because there wasn't enough.

Ignore my awful tile. Lime green splatters? Really?

The really great thing about this casserole (well... any casserole) is that you can put anything you want in it. I had a jalapeño that was about to get all wrinkled so I chopped it up. Onions are great additions, as are chives and green onions. Mmmmm....

While the spinach is wilting (and make sure to turn it so each leaf gets properly wilted and no one leaf is over wilted), chop up whatever else you plan to use. Then scramble your eggs. The idea is to have just as much egg to cover the other ingredients; for an 8x8 inch pan I used 6 large eggs.




Put the sautéed spinach at the bottom of the pan (the original Pinterest recipe says to spray the pan with oil, but I've made this a few times and never have and it's been fine), then sprinkle a thick layer of cheese (again, a good opportunity to use what you have on hand - I had some leftover mozzarella and pepper jack), and top with the other ingredients.


Slowly pour the eggs over the other ingredients and use a fork to gently ease the egg into the layers. Then I sprinkled just a little bit more cheese over the top, pushed it into the egg, and generously peppered the top.


Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until it's as brown and bubbly as you like it. I didn't hear the timer go off on this one so it's slightly more brown than normal, but it was not burnt at all and tasted fantastic.


See? Look how beautiful and fluffy that is. 

Then I topped it with sour cream, Tapatio, and homemade salsa. And went back for seconds. And would have gone back for thirds if I wasn't going to be eating again soon...


You can make a big pan of these and save them in the fridge for one of the quickest and healthiest breakfasts that will keep you full until lunchtime, as long as you eat lunch at a normal hour and don't try to hold off until 2pm like some people do.

Total Time: 45 minutes
Total Cost: $5 plus the cost of whatever else you add

Note: In this particular post the photos are courtesy of my phone, which, while awesome and pretty decent at playing camera, is no match for Rich's actual camera. So if the pics look like cell phone pics, it's 'cause they are.