Crock Pot Turkey Breast

I'm not going to tell you this is earth shattering or amazing or the best thing in the world.  I'm also not going to tell you that my crock pot saved my life and I use it every day in gratitude to it's convenience and ability to make things delicious without my help.  In fact, I probably use my crock pot four times a year... tops.  The fact that I have 3 crock pots in light of what I've just said is a mystery.

I am going to tell you this this is an easy way to cook a giant turkey breast and eat it for four days.

CA and I have both been pretty nutty at work lately so this turkey came in pretty darn handy.  On a Sunday night I put everything in the crock pot... sliced onions on the bottom of the pot, topped with the turkey breast, a bunch of sliced garlic, salt pepper and vegetable broth.  I stuck that in the fridge and on Monday morning all I had to do was plug it in and go to work. 

When I came home from work, my house smelled like Thanksgiving and we had a ton of turkey.

The first night we ate it lonely with some jus and veggies.  The next day I made turkey quesadillas out of it.  The next day CA made turkey curry.  The next day I made turkey salad.  The way this week went if we hadn't had this turkey we would have eaten cereal for dinner.  Every day.  I'm not kidding.

So, if you're looking for something to make your week a little bit easier, pop this puppy in a crock pot and eat it.  Every day.  It's guaranteed to save you from the cereal for dinner experience, at least for a few days.

You can find the recipe here - I left out the garlic powder and substituted vegetable stock for the chicken broth (just because that's what I had on hand).

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon: Recipe 42 - Apricot Flan Tart

Apparently, I am easily misled.  Put something in a bin with a sign on it and I'll believe that whatever is in the bin matches what's on the sign.

I have no idea what an apricot looks like.  It seems that I think apricots look like nectarines.  I did think they looked pretty similar to the nectarines in the next bin that were labeled nectarines but I didn't think that meant that what I saw in the bin labeled apricots were nectarines.  That would be silly.  Who would mislabel fruit bins?

CA knows exactly what apricots look like - he looked at the nectarines, asked what they were for, and proceeded to tell me that apricots have fuzz on them... like peaches.

No wonder I didn't need 18 pieces of fruit.  I guess apricots are small.

Despite my fruit mix-up, this tart came out fine... yes, just fine.  Not amazing or fantastical or spectacular... just fine.

The tart starts with pate brisee (pie crust).  I was supposed to bake it in a cake ring... whatever the heck that is.  I looked at the photo and decided that baking it in a springform pan (like you use for cheesecake) would yield the right shape and height and I was right.  That small victory made me feel better about mixing up my fruits.

The crust gets baked and ready for all the filling.

The filling is basically pastry cream... Thomas calls it custard but I don't know difference.  I guess it's a little different but not enough for me to understand why I couldn't just make pastry cream...

I don't know what else to say about it, I feel like we talk about pastry cream every week here.

I guess the one difference here is that the custard gets baked again for a very long time so it firms up enough that you can slice the tart and is stays together.

To assemble this tart, you take your baked pie crust and layer in the apricots nectarines.  On top of that goes the custard (a lot of custard... this joker is tall).

All that goes in the oven forever... like 90 minutes.  I was really worried the crust would get fried from baking that long but it is totally covered by the cream so it was well insulated and didn't burn one bit.

The verdict?  Meh.  It was fine, but really just fine.

It definitely baked and sliced nicely which was good.  However, the custard was a little flavorless as were the nectarines.  Maybe apricots would have tasted better but that wouldn't have changed the custard.

Because this was called a flan tart, I expected it to have the soft caramel on top but there was no caramel.

CA didn't care for this too much either.  Let's just say that we didn't eat the leftovers and I took it to work and no one else ate it either.

It's too bad because now I have 14 nectarines and no yummy tart to put them in.  Maybe I'll make a crisp... I love a good crisp.

Julie

Salted Caramel Frosting

I've been teasing you for days about this frosting but I promise you it's worth the wait.  This is absolutely my favorite frosting I've ever made.  It's the kind of frosting where you want whatever the frosting is frosting to be neutral so as not to distract you from the deliciousness that is salted caramel frosting.  Today I spread these on some vanilla cupcakes and served them at a baby shower.  They flew off the platters like hot cakes.

Oh wait - didn't I tell you?  This is not just salted caramel frosting, it's salted caramel cream cheese frosting.   I know.

So, obviously to make salted caramel frosting you have to make caramel.  I have hit or miss success with making caramel.  Generally I miss and then make it again and hit.  It's a trend... that continued today.  More on that later.

This caramel is pretty standard... sugar and water get cooked until it turns a nice amber color.  Add butter, add cream, vanilla and salt.   The caramel sauce is super tasty and I know it would be amazing just by itself or on ice cream.  Definitely on ice cream.

The first time I attempted to make this caramel that thing over there happened.  The whole thing crystallized and practically turned into rock candy.  It was the weirdest thing.

The only thing I can think of is that I stirred it too much which pushed the  crystals from the side of the pot into the sugar and made that thing.

So just in case I'm right, don't stir it too much.  The 2nd time I made it I barely stirred it at all and that didn't happen.  Not that that proves anything.

Also make sure you have enough ingredients to make this again just in case that thing happens to you too.

The cooled caramel gets blended into butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar.  I know.  Just go make it now whether you have something to spread it on or not.  Put it on a cookie or a graham cracker or a spoon or your finger.  I'm not kidding this stuff is so good.

PS - I'm not alone, CA likes this stuff as much as I do. 

Salted Caramel Frosting
Adapted from Barefeet in the Kitchen
Yields 3 cups of frosting (enough for 24 cupcakes)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Sugar
2 T Water
3/4 cup Butter, at room temperature (divided)
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Salt
8 oz. Cream Cheese, at room temperature
4 cups Powdered Sugar

Instructions:

In a heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and the water. Stir to combine and then cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves; about 4-5 minutes. There is no need to stir, simply swirl the pan over the burner occasionally as the sugar dissolves.

Raise the heat to medium high and cook the sauce, swirling the pan occasionally, until it is amber colored; about 7-8 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of butter, be prepared for it to bubble and sputter, lightly stir with a wooden spatula, do not scrape the sides of the pan or splash sauce up the sides of the pan. (This will cause crystallization, if you scrape the uncooked sugars back into the sauce.)

Once the butter is melted, remove from the heat and add the vanilla, heavy cream and salt. It will bubble again, but will calm quickly. Stir to combine (again, not scraping sides of the pan) and then let it cool before transferring.

Beat the butter and cream cheese together at medium speed until smooth and creamy.  Add the powdered sugar and beat to combine.  A the caramel sauce and beat again to combine.

Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry (and Blueberry) Filling

The poor lemon cupcake.  I feel bad for it.  It gets no love.

I served these along with the chocolate peanut butter cupcakes we talked about yesterday and some vanilla cupcakes with salted caramel frosting that we'll talk about on Monday and no one wanted to eat the lemon cupcakes.  It's too bad because these are pretty darn good.  I don't know why but the lemons were the last to go.  (Fine, I admit it, if I had to pick, I wouldn't have pick these either but only because very little can compete with salted caramel.  Everything is relative.)

These guys consist of a fluffy lemon cake, a berry filling and lemon buttercream frosting.

The cake itself is a pretty traditional white cake recipe using egg whites that are whipped and folded into the batter.  The batter gets a hefty dose of lemon flavor from the zest of two lemons.  I could have gone for more lemon flavor myself, but since these also get topped with lemon frosting some restraint may not be a bad idea.

I had the most difficulty with the berry filling which is a combination of berries, butter, egg yolks and sugar that is cooked up to thicken it and mixed with lemon juice.

Issue #1:  The recipe calls for raspberry filling and I was all set with my raspberries until I realized that one of those little containers of raspberries is NOT a pint.  It's a half a pint.  I sighed and thought about what to do.  I almost just made a half a batch of the filling until I remembered that I had blueberries and added some of those to the mix.

Issue #2:  I had to cook it freaking forever to get it to thicken up.  It was weird because it should have thickened up pretty fast due to all the egg yolks in it.

Issue #3: The butter.  My goodness the butter was so odd.  First of all the butter was put into the curd at the beginning of the cooking process which is different than other curds I've made where everything else is cooked and then the butter is whisked in at the end.  When I was straining mixture the butter separated and totally grossed me out.  Can you see it over there?  It's nasty.  I couldn't stand looking at it so I drained it off.  However, once I whisked in the lemon juice, it all came together and held up just fine.

In the end, I really wish I'd just used raspberry jam.  I think it would have had the same effect and saved me a bunch of time and trouble.






Luckily, I didn't have any issues with the lemon buttercream frosting.  It was pretty straight forward... butter, lemon zest, powdered sugar, cream and lemon juice.

No drama.

Thank goodness.

The frosting is a very traditional American buttercream and has a great, tart lemon flavor.

Putting these guys together was fun because I got to use my cupcake corer.   I love using my random baking tools, it helps me justify buying all this stuff when I can tell CA I've used it more than once.

If you like lemon, these cupcakes are pretty delicious.  I liked them a lot.  CA didn't try them because he was too busy eating the Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache and Peanut Butter Frosting... just like everybody else.

I got this recipe from Smells Like Home and followed the instructions exactly (except for the blueberry/raspberry business) so hop on over there if you want to make these too.

Enjoy!
Julie

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Peanut Butter Frosting

What is it about people having babies that makes other people want to eat cupcakes?  I can't remember a baby shower, or a bridal shower for that matter, that didn't come with cupcakes.  Not that I'm complaining.  I love a good cupcake and I love being able to eat three kinds of cupcakes in one day and not feel the least bit guilty about it.  (Yes, that means that you get to hear about cupcakes today, tomorrow and Monday too.  Lucky you.)

We had a baby shower at work for two ladies who will be welcoming their first little ones very shortly and I was in charge of dessert.  I know you're surprised.

I've been wanting to try this chocolate cake recipe for a while because Pinterest said it's the best chocolate cake ever... ever... and I have to say the cake is pretty darn good.  It was moist and light with good chocolatey flavor.  It also held up really nicely in the cupcake liners and looked pretty.

I'm a big fan of chocolate cake that has coffee in it, it really brings out the chocolate flavor and this recipe is no exception.

That yummy chocolate cake got topped with ganache.

I wish I could record and play for you what comes out of CA's mouth every time I say the word ganache.  He likes to repeat it back to me multiple times in a voice that sounds kind of like a parrot.  It's weird and I always know it's coming but it still makes me laugh.

Ganache is actually super easy to make.  Chop up some chocolate, pour hot cream over it and let it sit.  The hot cream melts the chocolate so after a few minutes you just stir it up to make a pretty, smooth ganache.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take a picture of the finished product for you.  Sorry about that.

I also apologize for the pictures of the peanut butter frosting.  I don't know what was going on my with my camera but they all look weird and orange.  I promise it doesn't look like this in real life.  It looks like it would taste good, not like an oompa loompa.

Anyway... once the cupcakes get topped with ganache, they then get a good dose of peanut butter frosting.  The frosting is super delicious but it's THICK.  It's thick because it's supposed to look like a peanut butter cookie on top complete with fork thine marks.  This did NOT work for me.  I struggled with it, I yelled at it, I was super grumpy.  CA tried to help but I just got grumpier the more I messed with it.  At first the frosting was too soft and stuck to everything so I couldn't get it in the right shape. Then I chilled it, thinking that would help, and then it just cracked anytime I pressed on it with the fork.  So I gave up and just piped it on the cupcake and even that wasn't easy.  The frosting is thick and dense and didn't want to be piped.  I think I have arthritis in my hand now from squeezing it out of the piping bag.

Even though the frosting tested my patience, these cupcakes are delicious.  CA says they taste like a Reese's peanut butter cup.  I agree.  The guests at the baby shower loved these.  They were the 2nd most popular of the available options (and it's really not fair to ask anyone to compete with salted caramel which we'll talk about in a couple of days.  I know, it's not nice to tease).

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Peanut Butter Frosting
makes 24 cupcakes
Cake adapted from Lulu the Baker
Ganache and Frosting adapted from Tide and Thyme 

For the Cake

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour

2 cups Sugar

3/4 cups Cocoa Powder

2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup Buttermilk

1/2 cup Canola Oil

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 cup Hot Coffee

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.   Line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners.

Combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until combined. In a small bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Pour buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients and beat just until smooth. Add coffee and mix just until incorporated.

Pour the batter (which will look really runny) into the prepared muffin cups.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick stuck in the center of each cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the Ganache

Ingredients:
6 oz. Bittersweet Chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup Heavy Cream

Instructions:

Place the chocolate in a small bowl.  Heat the cream to a simmer (I did this by heating it in the microwave).  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let it sit for about 2 minutes.  Whisk the chocolate and cream together until smooth.

For the Frosting

Ingredients:
9 T Butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups Cream Peanut Butter
3 cups Powdered Sugar

Instructions:

Combine the butter and peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on medium-high speed for one minute until creamy.  Turn off the mixer and add the powdered sugar.  Mix on low speed until combined, then turn up the speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes until smooth.

Assembly
Use an offset spatula to spread a layer of ganache on top of each cupcake.  Pipe or spread peanut butter frosting on top of the ganache layer.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 41: Bacon Cheddar Scones

It's just not possible that these scones could be anything but delicious.  I mean, bacon, cheese and chives inside a scone.  Done and done.

The logical first step in making bacon cheddar scones is to cook bacon.

I've officially stopped cooking bacon on the stove top.  Baking your bacon is easier and SOOOO much less messy.  No grease flying around that you have to clean up.  You don't even have to flip bacon when you bake it in the oven.  Plus the bacon stays flat and doesn't curl up on the ends which I find annoying.

To cook bacon in the oven, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Place the bacon on a baking rack set over a sheet pan and bake for 20-30 minutes depending on how crispy you like your bacon.

The baking rack is not required.  You can do this right on the baking sheet but I like having the grease drain away.  That way I can pretend like it's healthier.

Bake your bacon!!!

The scone making process is the same as the other scones in this book and every other scone I've ever made.

The dry ingredients get mixed with cold butter until it's nice and crumbly.

Heavy cream and creme fraiche are added and barely mixed together to form a dough.

Then the goodness arrives... crumbled bacon, shredded white cheddar and minced chives.

Seriously people.

The hardest part about these scones is that you have to wait to bake them.  The dough gets chilled, cut into rectangles and then frozen overnight.  Patience...

What I love is that they get MORE CHEESE and black pepper sprinkled on top before you pop them in the oven.  Mmmm.

Look at those beauties!  They are gorgeous and they taste so darn good.  I know you won't believe me when I tell you that they are light... not as in healthy but as in not dense... which makes me want to eat more of them.  They are also nice and salty which is a great change up to a sweet breakfast pastry.

CA doesn't usually like savory scones.  He also doesn't usually eat sweet stuff for breakfast.  He's quite an enigma.  He did, however, love these scones.  I had him take the leftovers to work, but I don't have much confidence that he got an "S" in sharing.  I have a feeling he deserves a big fat "U" because he hid them in his desk drawer and ate them all himself.

Enjoy!
Julie

Chicken Chorizo Enchiladas (with a secret)

I love a good secret.  I'm sometimes good at keeping them but not today.  These enchiladas have a secret ingredient that caused CA to ask "How much cheese did you put in here?"  In fact, there's only cheese on the top of these guys - no cheese inside or in the sauce.  The sauce however, does have zucchini in it.  I had no idea that putting zucchini in the sauce would make it creamier, I just had zucchini to get rid of and thought it would make the enchiladas a little healthier.  Double bonus... creamier/fake cheesier and more veggies.

This recipe is actually a collection of accidents.  I intended to make chicken enchiladas, but once I cooked the chicken I realized it wasn't enough so I quickly dug through my freezer and found 2 frozen links of chorizo and added those to the mix.

spotted... a margarita... yummy!

So, how do you make these guys?  Start with the sauce...

Sauteed onions, garlic, jalapeno and zucchini are pureed with tomatoes, chilis in adobo and spices.  The recipe I was loosely following then cooks the sauce to tighten it up.  I, however chose not to do that...

OK fine, I forgot to cook it.

I don't know if it would have tasted better if I cooked it.  It was delicious so I'm cool with skipping the cooking.

Making the sauce is really the hardest part of this whole business.  Otherwise it's just cooking meat, rolling up the enchiladas and topping them with cheese.  Not hard.

So, these are pretty delicious.  However, they look disgusting in photos.  They look like dog food.  However, if dog food tasted like this, Sconnie and I would be fighting over his bowl.  I'm pretty sure he'd win.

Chicken Chorizo Enchiladas
Adapted from Food Network

Ingredients
1 T Olive Oil
1 small Zucchini, roughly chopped
1/2 White Onion, roughly chopped
1 Jalapenos, seeded and chopped (use only 1/2 jalapeno if you don't want it too spicy)
2 cloves Garlic, roughly chopped
12 oz (3/4 lb) Boneless Chicken Thighs (breasts would work too)
1 1/2 tsp Salt, divided
2 links Chorizo, browned and drained
2 Tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 Chilis in Adobo and 2 T of Adobo Sauce

1/2 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Allspice
1/2 tsp Oregano

8-10 corn tortillas
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium/high heat.  Saute zucchini, onion, jalapeno and garlic until soft (about 4 minutes).  Add the chicken, 1 tsp of salt and 3/4 cup water.  Bring to a boil and cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.  Remove the chicken from the pot, shred it and combine it with the cooked chorizo in a small bowl.

Take the onion mixture and put it in a blender.  Add the tomatoes, chilis, chili sauce, cumin oregano, allspice and remaining 1/2 tsp of salt.  Blend until smooth.

Take 1/2 cup of the sauce and mix it with the chicken and chorizo mixture.  Place 1/2 cup of sauce in the bottom of a medium casserole dish.  Place 1/4 cup of the chicken and chorizo mixture in the center of each tortilla and roll up.  Place the tortillas seam side down in the casserole dish.

Note: if the tortillas are dry or cracking you can microwave them in a damp paper towel for 30 seconds and/or dip them in a bit of the enchilada sauce to moisten them.

Top the tortillas with the remaining sauce and then the shredded cheese.  Bake for 20 minutes until heated through.  Turn the broiler on in the oven and broil until the cheese is lightly browned, about 2 minutes.

Enjoy!
Julie

Roasted Poblano Slaw

Did you miss me?  I missed me too.

A girl is at liberty to change her mind.  Heck, everyone's allowed to change their mind.  Remember when I told you about my favorite southwestern slaw recipe?  I changed my mind.  So there.

Now I'm crushing on this recipe and I owe it to the roasted poblano peppers.

I, unfortunately, took exactly zero photos of me roasting the pepper.  Which is too bad because it's a handy little technique.  There are a bunch of tutorials online on how to do this but it's pretty darn easy.  (You do need a GAS stove though, electric will not work.  If you don't have gas, you could use the oven or the grill.)  I'll tell you all about it in the instructions.


There aren't a ton of differences between this recipe and the original... I really just added the roasted poblano and subbed a red pepper for the green pepper.  The red pepper adds some nice color but you can stick with the green or go wild and use yellow or orange.  Scandalous.  Oh yeah, and I used a bag of shredded slaw instead of cutting up my own cabbage.  Scandalous/Lazy.

The roasted poblano pepper is not hot.  They really add no heat to the slaw... you've got the jalapenos for that.  They do add some depth of flavor and a little smokiness which I'm digging right now.

Roasted Poblano Slaw

Ingredients:
1 bag Shredded Slaw or 7 cups of Shredded Cabbage
1 Red Pepper, sliced
1 Jalapeno, diced
1 Poblano Pepper, roasted and sliced
1/4 cup chopped Cilantro
1 T Olive Oil
3 T Apple Cider Vinegar
1 T Tequila
1 T Agave
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
3/4 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Chili Powder

Instructions:
To roast the poblano, turn a burner on the stove to high and put the pepper on the grate over the flame, turning as the outside turns good and black.  Once all the sides are black and fully charred, wrap the hot pepper in plastic wrap and let it cool for 15 minutes.  Once cool, unwrap the pepper and rub off the charred black exterior.  The pepper can then be seeded and sliced.

Combine the cabbage, pepper, jalapeno, poblano and cilantro in a large bowl.   Add the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined.  Let the slaw sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to meld.

Enjoy!
Julie

Sorry People

I must apologize because I didn't bake anything for you today.  In fact, I haven't been baking much at all.  Instead I've been traveling.

First I did this...

I love drinking beer in airports.  It tastes better.  Also please note that you can see CA's arm in this picture.  That's the most you'll ever see of him because he refuses to be on the Internet.

Then I went here...

 That's the old Pabst brewery in Milwaukee where I did more of what you see in the first photo.

Then I went here...

Which is supposed to be the beach but is actually the monsoon that sat over Florida for four days while I was there. Somehow CA managed to get sunburned in the five minutes we made it to the beach.  I got nothing.

Instead I did this...

I drank a lot of Sangria.  It had bourbon in it which made it better.  Here's the recipe (note that you should only put half the amount of bitters in it that the recipe calls for and add some simple syrup... trust me... I made it twice... I drank it both times but liked it much better the 2nd time).

So, at least you got some delicious Sangria out of this post.  I'm no longer sorry.

Enjoy!
Julie