Porcupines

I have no idea where the name of this recipe comes from. Nothing of it resembles a porcupine and it sure isn't made from porcupines. The flavor of this actually reminds me of the filling for stuffed cabbage. These are really easy to make and go well with mashed potatoes and corn, as pictured. This working out so lovely gives me hope for the other main dish recipes in this mess of recipes I have.

The recipe for Porcupines didn't give specific amounts for most of the ingredients, so I'll just guess at what I used. Feel free to adjust amounts to suit your tastes. You probably don't even have to measure anything to make this. I do recommend using a lean ground meat or it will end up a greasy mess (I know this from a failed attempt at meatloaf not too long ago...). You can most likely assemble the meat part of this dinner in advance and refrigerate or freeze it.

Porcupines (Printer-friendly PDF version)

1 pound lean ground beef

1/2 C long grain white rice, uncooked

1/4 C onion, chopped

1/2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

1 can Tomato puree, 29oz (the large can)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the ground meat in a bowl with the rice, onions, salt, and pepper. Mix together until well combined.

Roll the mixed up meat mixture into balls, approximately the size of golf balls.

In a casserole dish, mix the tomato puree with the salt and pepper.

Place the meat balls into the tomato mixture.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 1/2 hours.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Cake

I recently offered to test out a blueberry cake recipe for someone. The recipe that I tested comes from AllRecipes.com. I love blueberries and blueberry cake seems like a delicious idea, so why not test out a blueberry cake? I made little teddy bears since the cake, if it passes inspection, will be baked in a My Little Ponies character pan. They turned out great and delicious.

This cake is kind of dense like a coffee cake, but it is very moist. The cake part is not very sweet at all and compliments the blueberry flavor. This cake would probably go well with a vanilla, lemon, or blueberry frosting. Reading through some of the comments on the original recipe post, a few people complained about the blueberries falling to the bottom and suggested adding them last to help prevent this. The final cake batter is thick and seems too dry, but it isn't. A few of the comments also claimed it tasted like blueberry muffins, but I think it tastes like a cake and not like a muffin at all.

Melt In Your Mouth Blueberry Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1 1/2 C fresh blueberries

1 T flour

2 egg whites

1/4 C white sugar

1/2 C butter

1/2 C white sugar

1/4 t salt

1 t vanilla extract

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 C flour

1 t baking powder

1/3 C milk

Place the blueberries in a bowl and gently stir in the 1 tablespoon of flour until evenly coated. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. While still beating, slowly pour in the 1/4 cup of sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

In another bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of sugar and butter.

Mix in the salt and vanilla extract. (I doubled the amount of vanilla. It is just something I commonly do.) Beat in the egg yolks until creamy.

In another bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the sugar mixture. Be sure to mix completely between each addition. I did two additions of flour and one addition of milk.

Gently mix the blueberries into the batter (or do this after folding in the egg whites).

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Be careful not to bruise the blueberries unless you want bluish-purple streaking in your cake!

Pour the batter into a greased and floured cake pan. The original recipe says to use an 8x8inch pan.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 to 50 minutes if using the 8x8 inch pan or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you are using a different pan, the baking time will vary. For the teddy bears pan I used, the cake was done after 20 minutes of baking.

Let the cake cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. You can gently loosen the cake from the pan with a butter knife before flipping.

Enjoy!

German Coffee Cake

Here is another coffee cake recipe. You can never have too many of these. At least that seems to be the opinion of all these cook books. There are plenty more and they all seem to vary in some way. Luckily, all coffee cake seems to be very easy to make and, so far, they all have different flavors.

I'm guessing that the ingredient which made this coffee cake German was the nutmeg. I didn't use nutmeg when I made this recipe because most people around here don't like that flavor much. I just doubled the amount of cinnamon. I also didn't put nuts in it. Other than that, it is a very yummy coffee cake!

German Coffee Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Recipe)

2 C flour

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t cinnamon

1 t salt

4 t baking powder

3/4 C sugar

1/4 C shortening

2 eggs

1 C milk

1/4 C butter, softened or melted

1 C brown sugar, packed

1 C nuts

1/2 t cinnamon

4 T flour

In a bowl, stir together the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

Mix together the sugar and shortening until well combined.

Beat in the eggs for about 30 seconds.

Alternate mixing in the flour and milk. I did three additions of flour and two additions of milk. Pour this batter into a 9x13inch greased pan.

Stir together the butter, brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon, and flour.

Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture over the batter in the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting. The cake is very soft and crumbly!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Mint Chips

Chocolate is one of the best foods ever. It is improved only by the addition of mint. When I saw these Andes Mint chips in the baking aisle a few weeks ago, I knew exactly what I was going to use them for. I just had to find a chocolate sugar cookie recipe in my mess of recipes first.

Luckily, there was a Chocolate-Mint Cookie recipe that had a chocolate sugar cookie as a base! I may make these cookies in the future, but for now I'm just using the cookie dough base. These cookies are very simple to make and delicious. The cookie stays mostly soft but hardens around the edges. The slightly crunchy edges combined with the mint chips give these cookies a great texture. The mint chips are, of course, optional.

I'm aware that strange people exist who don't like the combination of mint and chocolate. I only accept this fact because that leaves more cookies for me. Since this recipe only makes about 30 cookies, I have less motivation to find someone to share these with. I typically don't eat a lot of what I bake, but I have consumed nearly half of these cookies already.


Note: I made these recently (6/26/11) and I forgot how sticky and soft the dough is. That is normal. If it bothers you, add a few tablespoons of flour.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Mint Chips (Printer-friendly PDF Recipe)

1 C sugar

1/2 C butter, softened and unsalted

1 t vanilla

1 egg

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

1/2 t salt

1 C flour

1 C Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips

Some sugar for pressing

Cream together the sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg.

Add the unsweetened chocolate and salt. 

Mix well.

Slowly stir in the flour until well combined. Add the mint chips and mix them in.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet. Press down the cookie dough balls with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-9 minutes. Remove from oven and remove the cookies from the cookie sheets. Cool the cookies completely on a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Lava Cake

I made Joe dinner and dessert for his birthday. The dinner was a nice lasagna and the dessert was a failed attempt at chocolate lava cake. I only put one egg in the batter instead of two. The result was a really mushy brownie. It still tasted good and went well with vanilla ice cream.

I tried to make the lava cake again and, of course, I failed. I didn't coat the glass cup with enough cooking spray so only half of the lava cake came out of the cup. It baked correctly and everything, it just broke in two after baking. Maybe next time I will do everything properly!

I acquired this recipe from about.com's dessert/baking section. Here is the recipe tailored down to make just one lava cake which is enough to share. It will fill one 8 oz custard cup or two 4 oz custard cups. Simply adjust the cook time according to the size of cup you use. The dark chocolate I used was 65% cocoa. Different strengths of chocolate will affect the flavor of the cake, so try a variety until you find the perfect one for you.

Chocolate Lava Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Recipe)

3 oz dark chocolate

3 T butter

1/4 C sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 C flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If your custard cups are oven safe to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, you can use that temperature instead. Coat the custard cup(s) with a generous amount of cooking spray or butter.

In a small sauce pan, melt the chocolate and butter together over low heat. Do this until just melted.

Remove from heat and stir in the sugar.

Slowly stir in the egg. Be sure to mix this in completely.

Mix in the flour.

Pour the batter into the custard cup(s).

Place the custard cups on a cookie sheet. Bake the lava cakes for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the oven temperature and size of the custard cup. Once the top of the cake has firmed up, bake it for a few more minutes.

Let cool for 2 minutes and then place a plate upside down on top of the custard cup. Carefully flip the cup with the plate. Since the cup was coated so well, the cake will fall out easily (or should!), so be careful.

Add some ice cream or whipped cream. Or just eat it plain.

Enjoy!