eggs, mexican style!

photo progression of huevos rancheros i made a while ago...corn tortillas layered with homemade guacamole (avocado, tomatoes, onions, lime juice, slivers of lettuce), black beans, a poached egg (instructions here) and "ranchero sauce" (quotes because it was totally improvised--just tomatoes and onions cooked with garlic, cumin, corriendar, chili power)...delicious!!! not quite as good as the fresh version at the sunnyvale farmer's market, but it'll do if it's not saturday morning :)

ps, something else i did with the ranchero sauce and avocado and beans...fajita pumpkin crepes...made some simple pumpkin crepes, filled with sauteed onions and bell peppers and cojita cheese, and topped with ranchero sauce and mashed avocado...yum!

Cookie Dough Truffles (vegan!)

My boyfriend LOVES raw cookie dough, but I don't like to eat it, because I am very paranoid about raw and undercooked eggs and poultry. Also, while I like it, its not SO good that it really tempts me to stray from my no-raw egg policy (brownie batter, on the other hand...). Anyway, when I saw this recipe for chocolate cookie dough truffles, I absolutely had to make them. I knew my boyfriend would love them, they're egg-free, and the added chocolate coating made them really exciting to me. They definitely did not disappoint...the recipe made at least 40 truffles and we gobbled them up in...oh, I don't know...three or four days?

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk (I used regular skim milk)
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 12-oz package chocolate chips or dark candy coating (for dipping).

Directions:
Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and stir until incorporated. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour. (I think I actually omitted this step when I did it...oops)

When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in the fridge and let chill for 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate candy coating or chips in a double boiler or in microwave (I used the microwave - I zapped about half the chips at a time, for 30 seconds or until glossy and then stirred for awhile until they were completely melted.) Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. (I actually used my hands because the cookie dough kept falling off the fork. Hands was VERY messy, but seemed to work well for the truffles). Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container. MMMMMM so good!

Coconut Chocolate Cookie

I like chocolate. I like coconut. I like cookies. So I combined them, and the result was very well-received. I mostly just modified a standard cookie recipe by adding flaked coconut and chocolate chips. I made some cookies without the chocolate chips because I thought there was too much chocolate, but my roommate's boyfriend convinced me that there's really no such things as too much chocolate. Sorry about the coldness of the picture though; I haven't quite worked out how to take good food pictures with my new camera.

Ingredients
1.25 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup minus 1 Tbsp white sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease baking sheet(s).

2. In a small bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until well blended. Beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients until well mixed. With a wooden spoon, mix in the coconut and chocolate chips last.

4. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake for 10-12min. Cool on wire rack.

PIstachio PIneapple cream PIe

I made a couple pi-stachio pi-neapple cream pi-es last weekend for pi day.
As usual the recipe is super simple and quick, and the fun was in the decorating.
I took these to a pi day party and my dance class.

Ingredients (makes 2 pies):
2 ready made crusts (graham or oreo)
1.5 packets of instant pistachio pudding powder (5.1oz)
1 can of unsweetened pineapple chunks (20oz)
2 cups of milk
8oz vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup of chocolate shavings
1/4 cup of very finely chopped almonds
chocolate frosting (optional)

Directions:
Mix the pudding powder, ice cream, and milk and refrigerate for 5 mins to set.
Then mix in the chocolate, almonds, and pineapples.
Pour into crusts. Keep refrigerated or frozen until serving time.
Use frosting to decorate (optional) or top with the chocolate shavings and almonds.

My Mom's Blueberry Crumb Cake

This cake has been a hit with anyone I have ever made it for.

Ingredients:
3/4 C Sugar
1/4 C Soft Shortening (butter ok)
1 egg
1/2 C Milk
2 C Flour
1 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C Blueberries (use wild Maine blueberries, because, lets face it...all other blueberries are wannabes)

Topping
1/2 C Sugar
1/3 C Flour
1/4 C Butter (out of refrigerator for awhile but not really soft yet)
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
Blend with pastry blender

Grease and flour a 9x9 or 7x11 pan. Mix sugar, shortening and egg thoroughly. Stir in milk. Blend dry ingredients. Stir in. Carefully blend in blueberries. Spread batter in pan. Sprinkle with topping. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. Enjoy!!

Avocado Corn Quesadillas

This barely even counts as a recipe, but I love to make quesadillas - they are quick, easy, tasty and involve almost no clean-up. However just using cheese and some kind of meat gets boring quickly. The other day I had some frozen corn and an avocado on hand and I decided to make an avocado-corn quesadilla.

Ingredients:
about 1/3 cup of corn (I used frozen corn but I'm sure fresh would be even yummier)
1 avocado
handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 flour tortilla
olive oil

Directions:
Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Chop up avocado and prepare corn according to package directions. Cook the tortilla until it is brown and crispy on one side. Top half of it with mozzarella cheese. As cheese is starting to melt, add the avocado and corn on top of the cheese. Fold over the half without filling and serve!

Pecan Sandies

My grandpa liked the chocolate chip cookies I once made, so I thought for Chinese New Years, I could make him some other cookies he liked. Looking around, I stumbled across some very yummy looking recipes for pecan sandies, and finally settled on using the one from Smitten Kitchen. Let's just say, the result was melt-in-your mouth delicious, and made the whole house smell amazing while baking, to boot. As part of my standard operating procedure, I reduced the amount of sugar - for this recipe, I'm not sure that was the best of ideas. At least if something's not sweet enough, you can always sweeten it by dipping it in chocolate, or spreading some Nutella on before eating! :)

Ingredients

slightly over 1 cup pecans
2 cups flour
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake the pecans for about 12min, until they are browned and nutty. They will be delicious at this point, so feel free to bake a few extra to munch on. After they cool, grind the nuts with 1/4 cup of flour in the food processor (depending on the seal of your food processor, it might make a mess, so clear the area around it). Set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Stir in the vanilla. Sift together the remaining flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the nut mixture. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about 2hrs.

3. Preheat the oven to 325F. I cut the dough into four quarters, then rolled each quarter between two sheets of wax paper until they were the thickness I wanted my cookies (it doesn't rise much in the oven). Cut into squares of desired size. The recipe said to not reroll scraps - I'm not sure why, but I just baked them as was and munched on them myself. Maybe that's why?

4. Put on baking sheet with a little space in between (they don't spread, so you don't need that much space in between). Bake at 325F until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Cool on wire rack; repeat for remaining dough.