Sugar Cookie Cutouts

I was trying to think of something to do with my friends (I live somewhere where there is never anything to do) and came up with cookie decorating. For this, I use a recipe I've used before (to make pokeball cookies) and baked a variety of shapes, and then one of my friends brought over frosting and we mixed colors and decorated. The best thing about these cookies was how they were decorated--the recipe itself was okay, but personally I prefer my mom's christmas sugar cookies, which are a little crispier. The frosting was store-bought. Below, the 3rd picture (first of the decorated ones) were decorated by me. The last picture (the one below that) are cookies decorated by my friend Kristin.

Sugar Cookie Cutouts
Recipe from Allrecipes

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

New York Style Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce

Lastly for my mom's bookgroup retreat, I made a New York Style Cheesecake with a strawberry sauce. They were reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel, by Jonathan Safran Foer, and since that's based in New York it seemed appropriate. This cheesecake is based off a recipe my mom used to make, so I don't know where it's from originally, but she has adapted it over the years. The strawberry sauce is just made by letting strawberries sit (either defrosted strawberries or fresh strawberries) and cut them up together and then mixing them with sugar to taste. It turned out great!!

Because I'm no longer home, I don't know the recipe...so if you want it, I'll post it later, so comment if you want it & keep checking back!

Nutella Marbled Banana Bread

The second thing I made for my mom's bookgroup retreat is this Nutella Marbled Banana Bread. It was really good and pretty easy--though I'm not very good at marbling. If you like nutella, I still very much reccommend these Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies, which I've made 3 or 4 times already and everyone always loooves. I go back to the East Coast in less than a week, and school shortly after that, and that'll probably be the first thing I bake in my new kitchen for my friends back at school!

Nutella Marbled Banana Bread
Recipe from Sugar Plum
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups mashed ripe banana
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup Nutella
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together banana, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy and well combined - about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs until well combined - about 2 minutes. Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour mixture until just combined. Divide 1/2 of of the batter into a medium bowl; stir in Nutella until combined.

Alternate spoonfuls of batter into loaf pan until all of the batter is used up. Swirl batter gently with a knife (not too much!). Bake 1 hour or until well risen, deep golden brown, and a toothpick inserted into bread comes out with moist crumbs attached.
Makes 1 loaf

Mushroom Onion Quiche

This year my mom had another book group retreat. Last year, I made Lemon Cake with Chocolate Buttercream and Vanilla Yogurt Cake with Orange Glaze. This year, I made 3 different dishes. The first one is this Mushroom Onion Quiche, a quiche that my mom used to make back when she went to college. It's super easy and you can easily use a frozen crust (which I did, and then baked it and let it cool ahead of time) to cut down the time even more.

My Mom's College Mushroom-Onion Quiche

1 prebaked, 9-inch pie crust
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup grated swiss cheese plus 1 tsp flour
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Saute onions and mushrooms. Remove when onions are soft and transparent. Cool and spread on bottom of prebaked pie shell.

Toss cheese with flour and sprinkle over mushrooms and onions. Beat eggs with remaining ingredients until well mixed, and pour over mixture.

Bake at 375F for 30-35 minutes, or until a knife inserted at center and edge comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Chinese Pork and Egg Stir Fry

I got this recipe from Chinese One Dish Meals, a book my mom had at home, and it turned out really great. I think adding more egg and maybe some broccoli would have been good too. I'm not sure if the version you can buy at amazon (linked above) is the same that my mom has, but basically you marinate pork with soy sauce, cooking wine, and cornstarch; stir fry that, scramble some eggs, stir fry some spinach, and then some veggies (I followed the recipe and added onions, mushrooms, and carrots), and gradually add them all together with water, salt, sugar, cornstarch, sesame oil, and pepper. The exact recipe you can look for in the book, or you can probably whip up something similar yourself. I just thought everything went together well and it tasted great!

Oatmeal Craisin Cookies

My mom tore this recipe out of her Penzey's magazine and said she was going to try to have time to make them. So I made them for her. They were okay straight out of the oven, but I think I like them better after having cooled, maybe best a few days after they are baked.

Oatmeal Craisin Cookies
Recipe from Penzeys Spices

1 Cup butter, softened
3/4 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. PURE VANILLA EXTRACT
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1to 2 tsp CINNAMON (we used CHINA)
3 Cups cooking oats
1 6 oz pkg Craisins
1/2 Cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cream the butter and sugars until well blended.
Add the eggs and PURE VANILLA EXTRACT and blend well.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and CINNAMON. Add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
Add the oats, craisins, and chocolate chips if you opt for them. Stir until mixed well.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This bread was great! I made it along with the quiche I posted last week, for father's day this year. Yes, regular banana bread is great, too, but I think that the chocolate chips in this one make it so that the bread tastes good even at room temperature. Sure, regular banana bread is fine, but in my opinion it tastes better warm or heated up...this one does, too, but you can enjoy it either way!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Recipe from The Family Kitchen

1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a standard 9×5 loaf pan*.

Mix together butter and sugar until fully combined. Add eggs and vanilla extract, mix well. Add mashed bananas, mix again until completely combined.

In a separate bowl mix flour, soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and chocolate chips. Stir this mixture a few times and make sure the chips are fully coated with flour.

Working slowly, stir flour mixture into egg mixture. Keep stirring until all flour is fully incorporated. The batter may still be a little lumpy from the bananas, this is normal.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until top is golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then, carefully remove it from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack before serving.

*You can also divide the batter into smaller loaf pans, or mini loaf pans if you want to make smaller breads.

Freezer Tips: This bread freezes well. If you want to save it for later simply wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Then wrap it again with an outer layer of aluminum foil. Make sure none of the bread is exposed to air. It will last in the freezer for 2-4 months.

Quiche

I made this quiche for father's day this year, so...a while ago. It was really good and very simple! For father's day breakfast I also made another recipe which I will post next week.

Quiche
Recipe from Allrecipes

8 slices bacon
4 ounces shredded Swiss cheese
2 tablespoons butter, melted
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan.

Line bottom of pie plate with cheese and crumbled bacon. Combine eggs, butter, onion, salt, flour and milk; whisk together until smooth; pour into pie pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, until set. Serve hot or cold.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

For the 4th of July, my parents and I went to my mom's friend's party. My mom made a couple appetizers to bring, and I made the Nutella Cookies I made before, and these cupcakes. By the way, if you haven't seen those nutella cookies, MAKE THEM. Everybody LOVES them. These cupcakes were also a big hit. The FROSTING was the best cream cheese frosting I have ever made. I made a few changes to the original recipe for the frosting, which I show adapted below. This recipe made about 30 cupcakes for me. They were so cute!

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Recipe adapted by Saveur from Apple a Day, found at Annie's Eats

2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (1 oz.) liquid red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes. Let cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe adapted by me, after being adapted by Annie's Eats from Confections of a Foodie Bride

12 oz. cream cheese
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
3 tsp. vanilla extract
3 ¾ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.

Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes.

Mix in the vanilla extract.

Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.

Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Deep Dish Pizza with Mushrooms

Okay, so I'm still a little delayed on the father's day recipes, but I'll get those up soon enough. For now here's some new pictures of another attempt at the Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza (recipe found clicking this link). I should probably have kept it in the oven longer for the crust to get a little crispier, and I probably should have let it sit out longer than 5-10 minutes after the oven so that the cheese would settle, but overall it was delicious! This time I chopped up 2 mushrooms to spread on top. It got a little liquidy. My mom suggests quickly stirfrying the mushrooms before putting them on the pizza, to remove the extra moisture, but it was still fine: the water wasn't too bad.