New Kitchen

I had to patiently wait nearly a week before I could bake after moving. The oven wasn't lighting, so it couldn't heat up. Can't really do much with a cold oven. So these are the first cookies in my new kitchen. The first thing I have baked here, actually. Peanut butter cookies! 

I need to work on the lighting for pictures. The lighting right now is awful, but I don't care too much. I can use the oven! 

I have a decent amount of counter space, which is nice. And a shiny new mixer.

The mixer mixes quite well.

The dough is also nice.

I need some cookie sheets, but this worked out okay with the parchment paper.

I hope to update more often now that I should have more time to bake! 

Chex Muddy Buddies

Chex muddy buddies are something we used to make a lot. I would always stray from the directions a bit and add a lot more vanilla and powdered sugar than the recipe called for. You can find this recipe on pretty much any box of Chex cereal. I prefer to make it with the rice Chex.

Chex Muddy Buddies

1/4 C butter

1/2 C peanut butter

1 C chocolate chips

1 t vanilla

9 C Chex cereal

1 1/2 to 3 C powdered sugar

Place the Chex cereal into a large enough bowl. I used a 1.5 quart storage bowl (with a lid!). A lid is important.

Place the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips into a small sauce pan. Melt them together over medium heat, stirring frequently at first and constantly near the end. Don't burn the chocolate! 

Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla. I usually add double the amount of vanilla, but I rarely measure vanilla. Too much hasn't been a bad thing yet.

Pour this mixture onto the the cereal.

Stir it up a bit. Eventually get frustrated that you are breaking the cereal too much. Place the lid on the container and shake it for a bit. It is nearly impossible to get the cereal evenly coated, so don't worry about it. 

Remove the lid and pour the recommended 1 1/2 C powdered sugar on top of the coated cereal.

Replace the lid and shake for a bit. Flip the container upside-down in an attempt to evenly distribute the powdered sugar. This won't be coated enough. See? You can still see the chocolate coating; it's ridiculous.

Add some more powdered sugar and repeat the shaking process. Now it looks better.

Occasionally shake the container as the coated cereal cools to room temperature. You can eat this immediately after coating and continuously over the next few days. Everyone will be aware that you consumed some of this delicious mess, because spots of powdered sugar will be all over your shirt. 

Pumpkin Bread

Instead of pumpkin pie, I present you with pumpkin bread. And just in time for Thanksgiving! This bread is pretty amazing. It tastes just like pumpkin pie, but has a bread texture instead. The texture is similar to banana bread. So if you enjoy that sort of thing, you should absolutely try this.

I made this pumpkin bread a few weeks ago as a single loaf, but the middle remained a gooey mess. I made another attempt the following week, but split the batter between two bread pans, and it was a wonderful success. I can't remember where I found this recipe, I just remember that when I went back to check it, the website was down. If I find it again, I'll share the source.

Pumpkin Bread
2 1/2 C flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
3t cinnamon
2 t ginger
1/2 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
1 t salt
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter, melted and cooled
15 oz can of pumpkin
3 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prep the bread pans

Place the first seven ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, salt) into a bowl and whisk together. Set aside.

In another bowl, stir together the brown sugar, white sugar, and butter. Mix in the pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla.

Combine the contents of the two bowls together until just blended.

Split the batter between the two bread pans. You can put it all in one, but I didn't have success with that method. Don't let that stop you, though.

Bake for 45 minutes (2 pans) to 1 hour (1 pan). Test with a toothpick to determine doneness. (The toothpick test can lie, just so you know.)

Let cool for 15 minutes before removing from the bread pan.

Optional: Drizzle the bread with a simple glaze made from 1 cup powdered sugar, a bit of vanilla, and almost 2 tablespoons of milk. Be sure to place a paper towel under the cooling rack unless you want to scrub a sugary mess off your table/counter.

Chocolate sugar cookies with mint chips

I made these cookies again, but I changed the recipe a bit. I think they are a lot better now! I increased the amount of flour, swapped the butter for shortening, added a bit more salt, and completely neglected to measure the vanilla when I added it. (You can never have too much vanilla.) I will include the new recipe below.

Did you know that teaching is a very time consuming occupation? I have to write out lecture notes, create exams, and then, the most time consuming part, grade the exams and homeworks. And quizzes! So much grading. So much.

And that is why I haven't been updating too often. I haven't even really had time to bake lately. Until this past weekend, that is. I baked these delicious cookies again and both of the posted recipes of banana bread. I will let you know which version of banana bread is better, if I can figure that out.

Chocolate sugar cookies with mint chips (updated!)
1 C sugar
1/2 C shortening
1.5ish t vanilla
1 egg
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 to 1t salt
1 1/4 C flour
1 C Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips
Some sugar for pressing

The method follows the same as before (can be found here). It still only makes about 3 dozen cookies, which is probably plenty for most people.

Chicken & Rice Soup

Now that I've survived grading nearly 100 exams plus homeworks during the first exam week of the semester, I can get back to cooking and baking. I'm lucky that my phone has a super awesome camera or there would be no pictures. Technology isn't always my friend, but everything is working out fine so far.

Today was the first day of fall, so I wanted what I made to reflect that in some way. It was a rainy, cloudy, and cool day: a perfect day for soup. I've recently discovered that I enjoy chicken and wild rice soup, so I attempted to make some. I looked for a recipe online, but ended up combining bits and pieces of different recipes into my own version. It is essentially just chicken noodle soup with rice instead of  noodles. This makes a lot of soup, so feel free to cut the recipe in half!

The only problem I had with making this soup had to do with the rice. First, I had no idea they only sold itty-bitty boxes of wild rice and that each box was $5. I discovered this lovely fact at the grocery store. I decided to buy brown rice instead. And... then I burned the brown rice because I forgot to turn down the heat. I finally gave up and used minute rice.

Chicken & Rice Soup
6 C chicken broth
2 chicken breasts (more or less depending on how much meat you want)
1 C carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 T butter
1 C long grain rice, uncooked
Salt & pepper to taste

When you cook the rice depends on what type of rice you are using. Cook the rice according to package directions and add to the chicken broth after everything else.

Boil the chicken breasts in the chicken broth until fully cooked. The length of time will vary depending on if the chicken has bone in or not.

Meanwhile, cut up the carrots, celery, onion, and garlic.

Melt the butter in a pan and saute the carrots, celery, onion, and garlic until the onion is tender. This will take about 10 minutes.

When the chicken is fully cooked, remove it from the chicken broth and cut or pull it to pieces. Return the pieces of chicken to the broth.

When the onion is tender from being sauteed, and the chicken is fully cooked and pulled apart, add the veggies to the chicken broth as well.

Add the fully cooked rice. Bring the soup to a low simmer to continue cooking the carrots. As you can see, I added way too much rice to my soup (1.5 cups instead of 1). It is more of a casserole now, but still delicious!

Eat while warm and enjoy!