Honeyboat Squash with Chile Honey Glaze

Squash is something I've only recently discovered.  And it's fantastic.  I bought this one at the farmers' market because it was pretty.  I asked the guy selling it what it was called, and he mumbled it at me twice; all I could tell was it started with "honey".  If you type "squash honey" into Google, it'll suggest the right name: honeyboat squash (which is a pretty sweet name for a squash), aka delicata squash.  It's stripey & delicious.  I also learned (from the Googs) that squash will keep for 1.5-3 months at room temperature, and 3-6 months in the fridge, so now I won't feel like I have to use up all my squashes right away.

I only made one squash, and I certainly didn't have the ingredients suggested lying around, and I completely forgot to add the cumin, so here's what I ended up with (based on this recipe).

Sauce (part 1):
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup water
less than 1/4 of a purple onion (which was leftover in the fridge)
1 garlic clove
a dash of salt

Put the water & red pepper flakes on the stove; bring to a boil/simmer.  Chop up the onion & garlic in the food processor.  Add everything to the boiling red pepper flakes.  Let all/most of the water boil off (oops, but it worked out) so that everything is softened, then set aside.

While that's going on, cut the stem off of one honey boat squash, and slice it longways to make two little squash boats.  Scoop out all the seeds & stringy stuff.

Sauce (part 2):
1 tsp honey
1 1/2 tsp oil
a dash of salt

Mix a heaping teaspoon of sauce part 1 with everything in sauce part 2 & mix.  Split it between your two squash halves.  Brush it all over the exposed squash insides (I used my fingers); leave the remainder in the boat.

Bake on a foil-lined cookie sheet at 400 for 40 minutes, or until squash is soft but not really dark or anything.  Enjoy everything but the (still pretty) peel; the squash should come off from the peel really easily.

Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

These tasted basically like Oreos, but with the texture of a normal cookie.  Pretty tasty, very easy, and a great way to use up the stale Oreos that were in my cabinet from my last Oreo baking adventure.  I didn't have any mini chocolate chips, so I skipped them.  The cookies still turned out.  I have no idea what makes them rise, but they don't fall flat like I was expecting them to.

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/03/22/oreo-cheesecake-cookies/


½ cup butter (or margarine), softened
3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (or straight out of the fridge & tossed in with your slightly-too-melted butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup Oreo cookie crumbs

Mix together everything but the Oreo bits.  Make little cookie dough balls, roll them in the Oreo bits, put them on a baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for about 12 minutes.  I could tell they were done because when I took one off the tray, the bottom was golden brownish.

The first batch before baking.  They don't change size or appearance much after baking.

The second batch after baking.  I had a little less than a cup of Oreo crumbs, so I ran out before the end of the dough, but they still turned out well!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin Cupcakes

I love pumpkin.  Pumpkin flavored things are the best.  And now it's close enough to fall (even if it is nearly 90 degrees here) that I don't have to feel bad about using it!

I saw these on reddit & thought they looked fantastic; I thought right.  I ended up putting off making them for almost a week because I kept forgetting to create the little cream cheese filling bites in the freezer early enough that I could do the whole process.  I'd call them closer to cupcakes than muffins; they're ridiculously sweet & too squishy to be a muffin.

http://www.annies-eats.com/2010/10/08/pumpkin-cream-cheese-muffins/

I only filled 5/8 of the muffins, and I only made half as much topping as suggested (so that I could leave some of them plain), but other than that I basically followed the recipe.

For the filling:
5 oz. neufchatel cheese (the lower fat version of cream cheese)
5/8 cup powdered sugar

For the muffins:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (heaping)
1 tsp. ground nutmeg (heaping)
1 tsp. ground cloves (a little less, because it turns out grinding cloves with a mortar & pestle is really difficult)
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cinnamon + nutmeg (because I didn't have pumpkin pie spice & it's close enough)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 egg substitutes
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:
1/4 cup sugar
2.5 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2tbsp. cold(ish) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Make the filling by mashing the two ingredients together.  Shape into 15 roughly equally sized piles/balls on wax paper (the piles should be small enough around to fit well inside the muffin cups).  Stick it in the freezer for an hour or two.

Mash together the topping ingredients until the butter's in tiny pieces & the color is mostly uniform.  Set it aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients (except sugar), in another bowl mix together the wet ingredients (plus sugar).  I couldn't get the wet ingredients to combine very well (oil + water-based egg replacer = no mix), so I just dumped them all together and mixed them there & it worked out fine.  This is a big recipe.  It was almost too big for my biggest bowl, so keep that in mind if your bowls are smallish.

Put paper cupcake cup liners into your cupcake pan.  Put a little bit of batter in the cup (it's ok if you almost totally fill it, you'll just have to press the cream cheese bit down into it), put in the cream cheese piece, then cover it with more batter.  If you follow the recipe above you'll get 15 +cream cheese, 9 -cream cheese.  Cover the cupcakes with the topping (be generous enough to cover the whole thing, but you don't need to heap it on.  One forkful was enough for each of mine) -- the recipe above will give you 18 +topping, 6 -topping.

Stick them into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so.  If your oven cooks unevenly like mine does, turn them 180 degrees after 15 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool (the filling is pretty warm), then avoid eating too many in one sitting.

My picture ended up a little discolored -- believe me when I say they're as delicious looking as they were on the website, with gorgeous streuselly topping on top.

Not Waffles

I have tried so many times to make waffles on my own.  It has never quite worked out.  I have a theory that it's a combination of not knowing what I'm doing and having a hard to use waffle iron.  Here's the recipe I used this time (based off this one with some modifications from the comments):

• 1 egg substitute
• 1 cup flour (a dash of whole wheat, the rest white)
• a little less than 1 cup milk
• 1/8 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tsp white sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• a dash of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• a healthy dash of cinnamon

After the last time I tried to make waffles (and spent roughly an hour and a half later trying to get burnt on pieces off the waffle plates, which don't come out of the iron so I have to clean them in place), I decided to use a ridiculous amount of cooking spray on the waffle iron, reapplying between every waffle.  It did succeed in keeping little burnt bits from getting stuck in it, but didn't manage to cause the waffles to come off cleanly, and resulted in me getting cooking spray all over the stuff within a one-foot radius of the waffle iron.  I think the waffle iron is meant to make really thin (but adorably animal shaped) waffles, and I always put too much batter in, so that when I open up the iron, one half of the waffle sticks to one side and the other half to the other side, and each side then peels off and bends because it isn't thick enough to support itself.  I'm not sure how to remedy this; suggestions are very welcome.  The batter itself wasn't bad, but wasn't anything spectacular.  I'll probably try a different recipe again next time.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have you ever been eating a chocolate chip cookie and thought to yourself, "You know what would go really well with this?  An Oreo!"?  Well, you should've.  It's fantastic.  Putting Oreos into other things is often delicious: cookies 'n' cream milkshakes/candy bars, deep fried Oreos, and, as it turns out, chocolate chip cookies with Oreos in the middle of them.  These are delicious and ridiculously decadent.  Each cookie has between 2 & 3 normal chocolate chip cookies' worth of dough around it, with an Oreo in the middle.  I ate half of one and now I have a sugar high.

picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

As usual, I halved the recipe; I only got 9 cookies out of it.  I also ran out of brown sugar, so I substituted white sugar + molasses.  I used half real Oreo cookies and half Simple Truth brand chocolate sandwich cookies (which are like Oreos but with an ingredient list that contains mostly things I'm familiar with).  The real Oreos got softer & squishier, while the Simple Truth cookies kept their shape a little more; if I hadn't eaten them side-by-side, I probably wouldn't have known the difference.  It's also possible that these differences are what happens when you eat one fresh out of the oven and one 15 minutes later (despite the knowledge that you'll probably feel sick after eating the second one -- to be fair, I only ate 1/2 of each).


1 stick butter, softened (half melted)
1/8 cup brown sugar
7/8 cup white sugar
1 tsp molasses
1 egg (or 1 egg substitute)
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
5 oz chocolate chips
9 Oreos (give or take a few)

Mix everything but the Oreos together as if you were making normal chocolate chip cookies.  Take each Oreo and completely cover it with cookie dough.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Italian Herb Bread

I love baking bread.  I get to squish dough.  It makes the whole apartment smell delicious.  It makes me feel like a real baker, and I can multitask while it's in progress.  My bread usually doesn't turn out spectacularly, but it's not bad.  This recipe turned out ridiculously well though; we ate half the loaf before it had even cooled.  It's soft, fluffy, with just enough herbs to be tasty but not overwhelming.  The crust is thin and not too crusty.  I think I'm getting the hang of the steps of making bread.

First, the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/italian-herb-bread-i/

Which I halved and tweaked into:

1 packet active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (the dusty kind)
3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour (I find this sometimes dries recipes out, so I didn't want to use too much)
2 cups bleached all purpose flour

I basically followed the instructions on the page, with a few tips I've learned from other bread attempts.  First, fill the bowl up with warm water then dump it out, so that when you pour the water + sugar + yeast into it, the bowl doesn't make it too cold.  Add the flour slowly -- after the first 2 cups or so, add it about 1/4 cup at a time, so you don't end up with too much.  As you knead it, you'll end up putting more into it to keep it from sticking to your hands.  I have a habit of pacing around the apartment while squishing the ball of dough, rather than kneading it on a counter top, which means I only have to worry about it sticking to my hands and not the counter.  Make sure you actually do roll the dough in the oil when you're leaving it to rise, or it'll get a gross dried-out outside that doesn't squish nicely back into the rest of the dough; same about remembering to dampen the towel.  I found that this bread flattened out a little after I shaped it into a loaf; I'd recommend making it into a ridiculous looking tall-and-skinny loaf so it ends up a little taller than mine did.  Super tasty bread!

Cinnamon rolls

Found this gem while browsing the baking subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Baking/comments/1ig2fl/mini_cinnamon_rolls_not_all_perfect_but_delicious/

I halved the recipe & it made 8 totally delicious cinnamon rolls.  They weren't hard at all to make.  I skipped the glaze -- I like icing better, and these were plenty decadent without it.  They also only needed about 8 minutes in the oven.  They were perfect when they were hot & fresh out of the oven; the filling gets a little crumbly once they cool, but it's still delicious.

Here's the recipe with instructions.

Dough:
2 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, softened/melted
3/4 cup milk (I used almond milk and it was fine)

Filling:
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tsp cinnamon (+ a dash extra because it's delicious)

Combine all the dough ingredients in a bowl.  Spread the dough out in a rectangle-ish shape on a not sticky surface (I used a plastic cutting board).  If you're making the full recipe, you may want to make 2 rectangles instead.  Make the filling.  Spread it all over the dough, getting it as close to the edges as possible (especially the long edges -- you can leave a little bit of dough exposed on the short edges).  Roll up the dough into a tube (put the long edges with all the goo on them at the ends of the tube).  Slice the tube into whatever thickness you want your rolls to be (mine were about 3/4 inch, & I got 8 from the half recipe).  Bake at 400 for 8 minutes or until done looking.

Edit: If you're going to eat these after they cooled (I had 2 for breakfast and am snacking on the other 2 now), you could definitely get away with less filling, since it just crumbles all over the place and is super sugary.

Vegan Cauliflower Pizza Bites

So here's a recipe I wouldn't recommend:

http://www.damyhealth.com/2012/06/vegan-cauliflower-pizza-bites/

Firstly, 2 cups of super-fine cauliflower is closer to 1/3 a head than a full head.  I followed the recipe pretty closely -- I substituted Italian seasoning for the oregano + parsley, I used butter instead of coconut oil, I used a different brand of hot sauce, and I used egg substitute instead of a "flax egg", but otherwise I followed it exactly.  This is what I ended up with:

You might notice that it's not even vaguely muffin shaped once it comes out of the pan, but I'm not big on presentation so I don't mind (yes, I did wait to take them out of the pan like the directions said to).  The bigger issue is that it tastes like slightly burnt cauliflower and a little bit of oregano and nothing else.  It would've been better to just bake & eat the cauliflower, tofu, and chickpeas separately, with or without the hot sauce + spices.  So don't make this.  It's gross.

Zesty Sweet Chili Tofu

The cafeteria at work has a very limited selection of things I like.  But one of the few things I was really impressed with was their sweet chili tofu.  It was bright orange, sitting on a heating coil for the 3 hours that lunch was available, and had a slightly weird texture... but it was delicious.  I haven't seen it in a while though, so I decided I had to find a recipe that was like it; this recipe is just like work used to make!

I found this sauce recipe, but naturally I didn't have peppers or garlic in the apartment, so I substituted.  I also only made half the recipe; I find that gooey asian-style sauces like this that have cornstarch in them get gross if you put them in the fridge, so I didn't want too much left over.  My recipe looked something like this:

• 1/4 tsp garlic powder (probably plus a little extra)
• 1/2 tsp (very heaping -- probably closer to 3/4 tsp) red pepper flakes
• 1/8 c white vinegar
• 1/4 c sugar
• 3/8 c water
• 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp water

For the first boiling part, I left it on for way longer than 3 minutes -- it never really thickened up, but I did notice that I'd lost some liquid.  The cornstarch worked really quickly once I added it, and I ended up with this much sauce:

It all fit into the big spoon I had been stirring with, which was about how much I wanted anyway.  This ended up being very spicy; I'd probably use less red pepper if I made it again.

For the tofu, I just chopped up & pressed a block of tofu, oiled the pan & the tofu, then baked it for a little over 30 minutes at 350 then 375 (because the sauce was done and I was hungry), flipping every 10 minutes or so.  It stuck to the pan relentlessly; maybe parchment paper would've helped.  Then I tossed it with the sauce.  It was just the right amount of both, and turned out fantastic (albeit a bit spicier than I'd've hoped).  It would've been perfect with some rice, which I had meant to make while the tofu was cooking but totally forgot.  Will definitely be making this again!

Coconut Cookies

Coconut was on sale at the grocery store this week, and I haven't made cookies in a while.  These are tasty little things.  I took the comments' advice and doubled the vanilla.  They're very soft with a slightly crunchy outside.  I also made a few with dried berries added to them, which were good.  These seem like cookies that would be easy to throw other random stuff into, too.  Nothing to write home about, but still a good, simple cookie.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chewy-coconut-cookies/

The lighter ones are better & chewier.

Broccoli Cheese Biscuits

These were an experiment.  As I went through the process of making them, I substituted basically every ingredient.  First I wanted to use more broccoli.  And I didn't have the usual kind of cheese.  Then I didn't have any milk.  Then I ran out of Bisquick.  But they came out super moist & pretty delicious; could've used more cheesy flavor, and maybe some spices, but were overall quite good.  Here's the original recipe:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/broccoli-cheese-muffins/cc0c4834-4062-44d5-841e-9e3a36564e62

And here's what I made:

1 cup Bisquick
1/2 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp half-and-half
5 tbsp water
1 egg's worth of egg substitute
1.5 cups broccoli, chopped, steamed (included the stems but not their tough outside parts)
1/2 cup shredded colby jack
1/2 cup shredded Sonoma Jack Garlic cheese

Follow the normal instructions.  I tried putting vegetarian pepperonis on & in some of them; the ones on top came out crusty and gross, and the ones inside didn't really add anything (I liked the pepperoni-less ones better).  Also, if you want them to keep their biscuit shape, you have to let them cool for a little while after you take them out.  They're more delicious if you eat them immediately as hot little balls of flavor, though.

Before...

...and After

Lemon Tofu

After discovering that birthday cake shots are better without the lemon, I found myself with 1.5 extra lemons in my fridge.  This recipe was made in an attempt to use up 1 of them.  I'm not a huge fan of lemon, so I'm not a huge fan, but the idea here was good and if I liked lemon I'd definitely like this.  It's tasty in its own way.  And the fried tofus aren't bad on their own either.  You could probably swap out the lemon bits for something else.  The one change I'd make is, for the love of god, don't put the broth into the pan with the hot oil.  Just make the sauce in the pot you made the broth in.  Note that they get less crispy really quickly (in the time it took me to write this, they went from being goo-covered & crispy awesome to cold & squishy).

http://www.omgveg.com/lemon-tofu/