Oven Baked Carrots

Week night dinners consist of a main dish and two sides at my house. I like sides that come together quickly and easily. After seeing a lot of posts on baked vegetables, I decided that this was something I wanted to try for myself.

The way we fix carrots around here is to slice them, boil them just until they are soft, drain off the water, and then toss them with a little brown sugar and butter. I had a feeling that baking them might just result in a different texture and would do a better job at bringing out their natural sweetness. So, I gave it a go....

The first thing you do is wash, peel, rinse, and slice your carrots. I like my slices to be nice and thin.

Next up, toss them with a some salt. At this point you could play around with other seasonings too.

Add some olive oil, and make sure you stir them so that they are evenly coated.

Spread your carrots out in a single layer on a foil lined cookie sheet. Make sure the foil is lightly greased. I'm using a pizza pan here, but that's because my cookie sheets are at the other house.

Bake them until they are JUST tender. I made this batch of carrots to go along with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. During the last half hour of baking, I slipped these into the oven right along with the meatloaf and everything came out perfectly!

Transfer to a serving dish and ENJOY!

This olive oil and salt version is definitely in the savory category. Baking the carrots does bring out their sweetness, but if you're used to a butter and brown sugar version you may find that this one takes some getting used to. 

I enjoyed it enough to share with you, so I think you'll enjoy it too!!!

Some other combos I've been dreaming up are: adding garlic, using coconut oil instead of olive oil, and of course, going the brown sugar route and skipping the salt. This is truly a recipe you can play with!!!

Oven Baked Carrots
serves 4

4 carrots
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt


Preheat oven to 350F .  Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with foil and lightly oiling the foil.

Wash, peel, rinse, and slice carrots into 1/4 inch thick rounds.

Toss in a medium bowl with salt and olive oil.

Spread carrots in one even layer on prepared cookie sheet.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or just until tender.

Transfer to a serving dish and ENJOY! 

What are some of your favorite weeknight side dishes?

Do you ever bake your veggies? 

Pumpkin Bread

When October rolls around, I have finally given into fall and I start craving comfort food. This fall has been no different. My oven has been on. Dinners have started to include warm vegetables and gravies and slow roasted meats. In the mornings, I find myself reaching for something warm and spicy and filling. 

After looking high and low for a pumpkin bread recipe that wasn't loaded with seeds or topped with some kind of streusel crumble or maple glaze, I gave up and decided to develop my own. With the confidence given to me by my research (aka pouring over my favorite quick bread recipes), I decided that I was ready to take the leap and give it a go. 

I wrote out a recipe. I gathered ingredients. I got out the measuring spoons and mixing bowls. When I went to take the bread pan out of the cupboard, I realized that my bread pan was at the other house. At that point, I did what every desperate baker would do. I went over to the neighbor's house and asked Don if I could borrow a bread pan. He assured me that I certainly could IF he could find one. He looked and looked and then gave up, but told me that if he found one in the next ten minutes he would bring it over.

That's when I trudged back across the street in defeat. I was going to be making the pumpkin bread, but if Don couldn't find a pan I had to decide whether I would try another neighbor or make a quick trip to the store to buy one. Thankfully, about six minutes later, Don rang the doorbell with the look of victory on his face!

Now that my bread pan saga is out of the way, let's get baking! Gather your supplies. If you don't have a bread pan, you know what to do! 

We begin by mixing all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I use a wooden spoon, but you can use whatever you prefer. Make sure that all of the clumps of brown sugar are nice and broken up, then set the mixture aside.

Once you've got your dry ingredients together, you're ready to start working on the wet stuff. Crack your egg in a small bowl and whisk it until it is smooth.

Add in the rest of the wet ingredients. This was the trickiest part of the recipe. Pumpkin is moist on its own, but when you deal with pumpkin you still need to add quite a bit of extra liquid.

Now, we add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. And...

 STIR. Remember what I said about baking with pumpkin? If your batter looks too dry, add a bit more milk. Don't be shy about it. You can handle this adjusting thing!

Pour your batter into your your neighbor's greased bread pan that he so kindly let you borrow and pop the bread into the oven for about 55 - 60 minutes.

When a knife comes out of the bread clean, your loaf is ready to come out of the oven! Place your bread onto a cooling rack. Or, in the case of my current hodge podge kitchen, an upside down muffin tin (which I did NOT borrow from Don). Let your loaf rest for about 10 minutes, then run a knife along the edges before removing the bread from the pan. Once it is completely cool, wrap it in plastic.

I was going to keep this bread stored on the counter, but decided that it might be better off in the fridge. When I want a slice of pumpkiny goodness, I cut a piece off of the loaf, put it under the broiler for about five minutes and then give it a nice bit of butter.

If you happen to be into putting nuts or raisins (or even chocolate chips) into your quick breads, I would tell you to GO FOR IT! This recipe has all kinds of room for adaptations!

I really should have called this bread "You Can't Stop Me Pumpkin Bread", because despite countless obstacles, it came together exactly as I hoped it would! Let this be a lesson to all of us. No recipe? No problem. No bread pan? Borrow one. No cooling rack? Improvise.

Happy Baking!!!

Pumpkin Bread

DRY
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
pinch nutmeg (less than an 1/8 tsp.)

WET
1 egg
1/4 c. cooking oil (peanut, vegetable, melted coconut, it's up to you)
1 c. pumpkin puree
3 Tbsp. buttermilk + 1/2 c. milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease loaf pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, making sure all the clumps of brown sugar are broken up. Set aside.

Whisk egg in a small bowl. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and stir until smooth.

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients, stirring until combined. Adding more milk if necessary (it doesn't need to be buttermilk).

Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Allow to cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before running a knife along the edges and then removing the loaf from the pan.

Once completely cool, store the bread wrapped in plastic. Whether you leave it on the counter or pop it into the fridge is up to you!

Enjoy!!! 

Do you have a favorite quick bread recipe?

Do you have any funny baking stories? I'd love to hear about them. 

 

Strawberry Shortcake: A Memory And A Recipe

When I was growing up, an older couple befriended our family. Years went by and all of a sudden, we realized that they were just like grandparents to us. You've heard them referred to here as Ron and Julie. They mean more to me than I ever could have guessed when Ron replaced Vickie on my bus route or when Julie would scoot the pencil cup I was stretching to reach over to me at the library.

I loved (and still do) going to Ron and Julie's house for dinners, birthdays, and camp outs. I always looked forward to whatever Julie had dreamed up for dessert. Julie is the kind of entertainer I strive to be. She goes all out and makes it appear as though it took exactly no effort at all. One summer Julie got hooked on Schwans' shortcakes. That summer, I got hooked on them too! I tasted them and took note of them in my mind hoping to recreate a homemade version someday.

I recently came across a recipe for shortcakes at King Arthur Flour. During a big grocery shopping trip, my Mom declared that she was craving strawberry shortcake. Just like that, someday came!

This shortcake recipe is PERFECTION. It turns out shortcakes that are not quite cake and not quite biscuit. They have a smidgen of sweetness to them.

The strawberries are on right now and you've just got to make them!


Strawberry Shortcake
slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour
  
SHORTCAKES

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter, COLD
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk (Or my trusty substitute: 1Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 1 cup.)


Pre-heat oven to 425F.

Mix dry ingredients, cut in cold butter. Whisk together wet ingredients and then add them to the dry ingredients, stirring just until the dough begins to come together. You may add a little extra milk if your dough seems too dry. Don't add too much or you'll turn your shortcakes into biscuits.

Turn the dough out onto a pastry mat or floured counter, kneading just until the dough looks ready to press out. About 4 or 5 times.

Gently pat the dough out until it's about 1/2 inch thick. Cut dough into shortcakes with a biscuit cutter. Place shortcakes onto an ungreased cookie sheet (I like to use a pizza pan), so that the edges are touching. Brush the tops with a little milk and sprinkle with a little extra sugar.

Bake 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool before serving. If you like your shortcakes warm, just wait about 15 minutes. We like ours at room temperature, so I waited a lot longer.

(KAF says you'll get about 9 shortcakes. I think I got about 12.)


TOPPINGS

1/2 pound fresh strawberries
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 to 2 Tbsp sugar

1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar


Wash strawberries, remove stems, and cut them into bite sized pieces.

Mix strawberries with about 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Just before serving, place heavy whipping cream into a glass bowl. Beat with a hand blender on high speed until it begins to thicken. At this point, add about 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, continuing to beat until it reaches the thickness you desire.

What foods hold a special memory for you?

Do you have a favorite strawberry recipe?

I'm linking up with The Quiet Place for their Around The Table Link Up!

Around the Table: Classic Lemon Bars

Today I'm excited to team up with The Quiet Place to bring you this month's Around the Table link up! Around the Table is a monthly link up dedicated to recipe swapping. Each month there is some kind of theme to give everyone some help in decided what they might choose to share!

Our theme this time around is Desserts. You've got until next Thursday to link up with us. Bonus points if your recipe includes LEMON. 

So...I'm sharing my recipe for Lemon Bars which happens to be one of the desserts that is most popular at my house! It's super simple, fun to make with kids, and perfect for spring

Ingredient gathering. If that's not a sign of the ease that's in store, I don't know what is!

The first step involves making a lovely shortbread to serve as the base of your bars. You'll begin by creaming your butter and powdered sugar.

Here's a tip...I almost never remember to give my butter time to come to room temperature. If you're making cookies or a frosting or a shortbread (or something else that calls for soft butter), unwrap the butter and pop into the microwave on a plate for roughly 15 to 20 seconds.

Next you'll beat in the flour and salt just until the shortbread dough comes together.

Now it's time for my favorite part. Use your fingers to gently work this airy dough all around the bottom of a greased 8x8 inch baking pan. Make sure it's in a pretty even layer.

Pop into your oven and bake it for 18-20 minutes until the edges are just golden brown. Let it cool on a wire rack while you work on the filling.

Your filling begins with one cup of regular sugar and two eggs. Beat them until smooth. After this, you'll be swapping the beaters with a spatula, so make sure it's nice and smooth!

Stir in your lemon juice.

Another tip - I love using fresh lemons, but I also love the short cut that ReaLemon lemon juice provides! Sometimes I go to the store and buy the lemons, but usually, I reach for the big green bottle that's already in my fridge!

Very gently fold in your flour. It might clump up a bit, but work quickly and stay gentle. The texture of the filling is going to blow you away! It's like you're mixing up a cloud in your kitchen.

Pour your filling over your slightly cooled shortbread and pop it back into the oven for 17 to 20 more minutes. This time around, the filling is going to cook and set up.

You can remove it from the oven as soon as the filling doesn't really jiggle when you give the pan a slight shake.

This is the ugliest batch of lemon bars that I've ever removed from the oven. I'm convinced it knew it was going to be on here and was throwing a fit about it. Okay...Maybe not. BUT, I wanted you to see that dark spots and all, this dessert is super forgiving.

If yours comes out of the oven looking like mine did, don't even sweat it. There's powdered sugar going on top and it will take care of it ALL. Trust me.

This is the hardest and most important step. Once the bars have COMPLETELY cooled, cut them into squares (I do 9, because if I'm going to eat dessert, I want dessert. You can do more, or less, if you want!) and remove them from the pan. Sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.

Prepare to watch them disappear off of the cooling rack or be ready to swat the hands trying to get at them. They're really that good!

See how easy that was?

Classic Lemon Bars
slightly adapted from Joy of Baking

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt

1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup ReaLemon juice
2 Tbsp all purpose flour

extra powdered sugar for dusting


Preheat oven to 350 degrees, place oven rack into the middle of the oven, and grease an 8x8 in glass baking pan.

To prepare shortbread crust: Beat butter and powdered sugar in a bowl until creamy and smooth. Add flour and salt and beat just until combined.

Press into bottom of pan in an even layer and bake for 18-20 minutes, or just until edges begin to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool while you prepare the filling.

To prepare filling: Beat eggs and granulated sugar until smooth. Add lemon juice and stir to combine. Fold in flour.

Pour filing over shortbread and bake for 17-20 minutes, or just until filling has set. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Cool completely, cut into squares, and dust with a generous amount of powdered sugar.

If you have any bars leftover they keep for several days covered in the refrigerator. (We store ours on the counter, but the original recipe says to put them in the refrigerator...I don't want to make anyone sick, so we'll go with that. We've never had a problem, but I'll let you make the call!)

   

    http://new.inlinkz.com/luwpview.php?id=507411" title="click to view in an external page.">An InLinkz Link-up

   

ps - It's already been a month since our last round of Ask & Answer! I'm taking questions for this month's post, so please be sure to leave some in the comments. Remember, questions can be serious or silly. This series is a fun way for us to learn more about each other better! 

   

Let's Bake Breakfast Muffins

When I read books, I tend to mark them up. I underline things, write notes in the margins, and use the blank pages at the front of books to make indexes of my notes. Sometimes I even mark up the introduction and the footnotes.

Tyler Florence's new cookbook, "Inside the Test Kitchen", taught me that cookbooks even call for this kind of interaction! His unique style really came through with this book that is bound like a moleskine journal and features pictures that were only taken with an iPad.

The book begins with a brief summary of Tyler's kitchen history as well as an introduction that featured some words that took me right back to the wisdom my Mom shared with me all the way through elementary school.

I have another habit...Whenever I eat food that I didn't make, I immediately start trying to figure out what flavors I'm tasting. If I love the food, I start making mental notes about what it will take to recreate it in my own kitchen.

Tyler's recipe for "5-in-1 Baking Mix" was the push that I needed to finally give my friend Julie's breakfast muffins a try. I'm excited to be able to tell you that the muffins were a complete success!

"Inside the Test Kitchen" is loaded with pictures that are super helpful. Before I started messing with things, I poured over the whole section related to the "5-in-1 Baking Mix" recipe. Tyler explained why it works and added extra notes in the margin, which happen to be written with a sharpie. Grab a copy for your kitchen HERE.

I combined my adaption of Tyler's "5-in-1 Baking Mix" with grated cheddar cheese, breakfast sausage, butter, milk, and egg. I gave it a stir and spooned it into muffin tins...20 minutes later, I had 20 of these gorgeous muffins! I have to mention that it also happened to be January 20th. I'm so tempted to call these things "20-20-20 Muffins" or "20 in 20 on 20 Muffins".

Enough about me and my strange habits...Here's the muffin recipe!

Breakfast Muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 lb. breakfast sausage, browned and cooled
8 ounces medium cheddar cheese, grated

Steps:
After you've got your sausage browned and cooled and your cheese grated, make sure your oven rack is in the middle of your oven. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your muffin tins.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the butter, egg, and milk.

Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, and stir until combined.

Mix in your cooled sausage and grated cheddar cheese. If the mixture is especially difficult to stir, feel free to add a touch more milk.

Spoon batter into muffin tins. Fill any empty slots with some water (about halfway will do).

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Remove muffins from tins and let rest on a rack until ready to serve or until completely cool. Store in the refrigerator in a ziplock bag. Makes 20 muffins.

I should mention that these muffins started flying off the cooling rack as soon as I removed them from the muffin tins! I have a feeling that I'll be making quite a lot of these in the years to come and I hope you will too.

Do you mark up your books?

Do you try to recreate recipes?

What was your latest kitchen success?

* I was provided with a review copy of this book by Blogging for Books. All thoughts are my own honest opinion.