Week 13: Russian - Piroshkis

It was hard to get in this week's challenges.  It was Andrew's birthday weekend and I had a few tricks up my sleeves.  Two of Andrew's dearest friends (and one amazing significant other!) and I arranged a surprise weekend visit and it went off without a hitch! He was overwhelmed by the fun, love, and kindness and we really had a blast.  One night I made dinner for us all and these Russian piroshkis soaked up the beer just perfectly. 

The recipe I found called for the ground beef filling but I wanted to mix it up a bit so I whipped up a few other fillings as well. The ground beef was added to some cooked onions and seasoned with salt and pepper and dill. 

The second filling was potatoes and cheese.  We used a mix of parmesan and mozzarella. 

Lastly, I made a sweet potato filling.  I seasoned this with butter, salt, and pepper and kept it pretty simple.

The dough was very simple and turned out beautifully.  It rose like a dream and was easy to work with.

The fantastic Cristal helped me stuff all the piroshkis while the boys played games and relived the good ol' days. 

The recipe created about 25 piroshkis and we tried a variety of dough sealing since neither of us had ever done this before.  Some were shaped more like calzone and others like mini bread loaves with the seam tucked on the bottom. 

The recipe called for them to be deep fried in 3 inches of oil and I just couldn't stomach it. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. 

My oh my.  They were fantastic.  The potato and cheese needed a bit more seasoning but the beef and sweet potato ones were total hits.  The 8 of us devoured all 25 quickly and, of course, we paired these doughy delicious buns with none other than brussel sprouts. :)  These are easy to make and just fantastic. You have GOT to try them. 

Week 12: Piping Technique - Fine tip cookie piping

Well, this challenge was a total fail. First, I don't really have good piping accouterments. Nor do I really want any.  As you may have noticed, I tend to shy away from things that take patience or precision.  It isn't that I'm incapable so much as uninterested.  So, I knew I had to pipe with my crappy plastic, leaking bag and my not very fine piping tip.  Well, we were headed to a BBQ at a friend's house and it was going to be dark out, so no one would be able to see my crappy piping anyway so I went for it. 

I made about 3 dozen sugar cookies and cooled them.

To honor the new spring season I went with yellow and blue frosting and I iced the cookies with yellow as the base. 

I tried making flowers, dots, lines, swirls, and even a really embarrassing attempt at a bird (see it in there?), but they all looked pretty awful.  My frosting was acting weird (separating oddly) so I called it quits after a handful of cookies and just brought the yellow frosted ones to the BBQ.  They tasted fine, but over all I call this challenge a bust. 

Week 12: Cheeeeeeese - Spinach & cheese stuffed chicken breasts

Cheese isn't our favorite ingredient so while I wanted to make a cheese encased grilled cheese (a la The Sporkful - see video here), I knew neither of us really wanted to eat that much cheese so I found a recipe for stuffed chicken breasts in Cooks Illustrated (recreated here).  

As usual I took several liberties with the recipe the two big ones being I only used two chicken breasts, but I thinned them out by slicing them lengthwise, and then I also swapped the ham it calls for with spinach.  Below are the two chicken breasts I started with.

Here you can see I'd sliced them lengthwise then pounded them out so they were an even thickness.

I used cheddar and havarti cheeses because I had them and more cheese means more better.

I sauteed up some onions and garlic...

 ... and added them, along with the cheddar and havarti to come whipped cream cheese to make this: 

I put spinach down then a glob of the cheesy goodness on each chicken breast.

I rolled each one, dredged it first in flour, then in an egg wash, then finally in panko crumbs.  Sadly, there are no pictures of that part of the process because my hands were covered in chicken, but here is the final product of that process:

In two tablespoons of hot oil, I browned the outsides of them, turning every minute or two to get an even crisp.

Once browned, they went onto a foil-lined baking sheet and were baked till the internal temp registered 155 degrees. While they baked, I steamed up some brussel sprouts (obviously, right?  we eat them non-stop!).

And, here we have our final product!

They were fantastic.  They could have used a bit more salt and pepper, perhaps added to the panko for some external flavor, but needless to say, we managed to choke down this dinner in record time. 

MEAT MUFFINS!!!

 I saw a picture of this a while ago and have been waiting to try it. Regular meatloaf recipe just put into muffin tins and baked! I usually make turkey meatloaf and every time it is different because I use whatever the heck needs to be gotten rid of in the fridge (mushrooms, peas, corn, bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, celery, onion... just to name a few of what I've put in meatloaf in the past!).

Once again, my picture taking skills were sub-par yesterday and I wasn't being very diligent about documenting the steps, but whip up some mashed potatoes and slice a few cherry tomatoes in half and - BAM- meat muffins! SO cute and fun to eat. 

Week 11 CC: Breakfast - Buttermilk Waffles

I wish I had time to make amazing breakfasts all the time. Breakfast is my favorite meal category. After a long wonderful night on Saturday and perhaps a bit too much Jameson, I needed a waffle. Bad. After making Irish Soda Bread the day before, I had left over buttermilk so the solution was clear. 

Joy of Cooking has a simple and easy butter milk waffle recipe (reproduced here) which basically is one bowl of dry ingredients and one bowl of the wet stuff.

I made a well in the dry and poured in the wet.

I love love love my waffle iron. It was actually a gift to my sister several years ago, but she is partial to the thin waffles and generously re-gifted this Belgin waffle maker right back to me. Andrew and I went through a crazy waffle phase after receiving it but have since slowed down. 

A little turkey bacon for the salty protien.

The waffle was fluffy on the inside with a nice crunch on the outside. It was warm and filling and it held up to my blackberry freezer jam quite well.  I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture with the jam on it. You'll just have to trust me. It was awesome - perfect Sunday breakfast.

Week 11 BC: Savory - Rosemary Butter Cookies

Baking challenge for this week was "savory".  At Halloween my friend brought over something similar and I've been wanting to try them ever since.  

It is a pretty simple butter cookie recipe with fresh rosemary added. 

The dough is easy to make and 

I cut the dough in half, and on two sheets of parchment rolled each half in into cylinders about 9 inches long and 1.5" diameter. Martha recommends paper towel tubes for shaping them but I didn't have any trouble just rolling by hand. Wrap the cylinders in the parchment paper and freeze for 1 hour. 

When you take them out of the freezer, roll the dough in sugar to coat the outside and slice!  So easy. 

I have another version that is quite similar in process but is more sugar cookie than butter cookie and although I've never been able to get them into circles (the cutting process always flattens one side!), they are always delicious and so simple. 

Catcher in the Rye Bread - Update

Ummm, it is delicious. It was all I could do to slow myself down when eating my turkey sandwich long enough to take this picture. It has a nice dense texture with a perfectly crisp crust. The cornmeal on the bottom is really fantastic. Sorry my cell phone takes such crappy pictures.