Apple Muffins

I was really in the mood for a muffin yesterday but never got around to getting one… so, of course I made some today. I don’t know about you, but whenever I make muffins they come out kind of wimpy. I decided I really wanted to try to go for that bakery-like dome shape. I tried googling a bit to see what I could come up with. Here are my thoughts…

The most prevalent comment I could find was that it’s important to fill the muffin tins, like really fill them, maybe even over-fill them. Why do recipes always say to fill the tins two-thirds of the way? Silly. Go for it. Fill those babies up.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

If you know me at all, you know I love any excuse for baked goods… Valentine’s day was no excuse. And red velvet screams valentine’s day to me. I had never had a red velvet cupcake until I moved to Manhattan and for some reason, maybe all the cupcake chains, red velvet seemed to be everywhere. I fell in love… but I must admit, having it again recently I decided it’s really just an excuse for delicious cream cheese frosting. The cake is kind of mediocre. It has a good texture but the flavor is average. I think I might prefer a really good chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting instead…. There’s always next time.

Until then, happy belated valentine’s day!

Homemade Oreos

I have had my eye on a homemade oreo recipe on Smitten Kitchen for months. Deb, the author of Smitten Kitchen, suggests that this recipe falls into the “you’ve been warned” category because once you make these you will have to make them a million times as everyone will love them and request them. I’m okay with that!

I grew up with an actual cookie jar that was almost always filled with oreos. We had a two cookie rule in our house so sometimes the oreos would even get stale – tragic. These days I don’t have oreos in my house unless they come in a 100-calorie pack and we all know those aren’t even close to the real thing. I have the feeling this version will get shared, and devoured before they get stale…

Happy dunking!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I think it’s true you never know how much you love something until you let it go… in this case I’m not talking about some sappy love story, I’m talking about my oven! A month or so ago I was baking muffins when the second batch just wouldn’t bake. I kept adding another 3 minutes to the baking time since it didn’t dawn on me that the oven would just stop working mid-baking. Just my luck – my brand new GE oven that had plastic wrap on it when I moved in was already busted. Needless to say, I finally got it fixed. And, of course I felt compelled to put it to good use.

This summer one of my mom’s friends baked some cookies for her. They were so good she refused to bring them to a family BBQ and froze them to enjoy on her own terms. Now, for anyone who knows my mom, that is saying a LOT, because she could sit with a humongous bag of candy, or a big batch of brownies in front of her and have one little nibble. The woman has amazing will power and is not tempted by sweets. Sadly, I did not inherit that from her.

Anyway, I was told these delicious chocolate cookies were from a Williams-Sonoma recipe so I did some digging and here is what I found… Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. The best part is these are so easy… so if your oven hasn’t been used in a while, I recommend a chocolatey reunion.

Happy crinkling!

Lentil Soup

Every Friday my co-teachers and I buy lunch (instead of being frugal and bringing something from home). With the weather getting colder, one of the only things I get excited about is having soup for lunch on Fridays. Devon and Blakely has a million soup options, but some how I always get vegetarian lentil. Despite the warm, sunny day, I felt inspired to make my own today. I began my search for a recipe by looking on Epicurious. It was overwhelming - so many recipes with so many different spices and ingredients. So I called my dad who didn’t have a recipe for me. Mom was my next call, a lentil soup recipe from Moosewood Restaurant. In the end, I used the reviews from Epicurious, the recipe from my mom, and came up with my very own lentil soup recipe. The experiment was deliciously successful.

Happy soup-ing!

Grilled Peaches

Having a barbecue to use inspired grilled pizza and peaches. Admittedly, my mom does not have a lot of baking ingredients on hand, so grilled peaches was also inspired by the fact that we had butter, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla in the house. Our peaches could have been grilled a little longer, but I was getting impatient, and eaten alive… even under-grilled they were still quite good. The brown sugar topping was like the topping on a cinnabon – don’t waste any of it. Be sure to drizzle any extra on top of the peaches and ice cream.

Happy grilling!

Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans

I just spent 3 weeks in Truro. With so much free time on my hands, I certainly had to do some cooking. It’s always fun to play in non-nyc kitchens. It’s also nice to cook with such fresh ingredients and it doesn’t hurt when your family is impressed no matter what you do! Here is recipe number one…

Summer barbecues often seem synonymous with boring potato salad. Yuck. I hate mayo and therefore most potato salads. When I came across this recipe for Pesto Potato Salad on Smitten Kitchen described as “just perfect for the mayo-phobic” it was very intriguing. Pesto, green beans, scallions, pine nut, cheese… what could be bad? Now, if you really want the potato salad to be delicious bring it to the beach for dinner like we did… eating dinner while the sun sets over the water makes any meal better.

Happy summer cooking!