Thai Beef with Chiles...

I don't have a ton of experience cooking ethnic cuisine, though we are trying to incorporate it a bit more, which means I can't claim just how authentic recipes are when they fall into that realm. I do enjoy the process of trying them, if for no other reason than it pushes us and expands what we are willing to try, especially during the times we travel and are eating at restaurants. It gives us a small idea of what to expect at least!

Just like this Thai Beef with Chiles and Basil Over Coconut Rice we had for dinner tonight - I wouldn't know for certain if it was more of a technique or if the combination of ingredients is what made this recipe be labeled "Thai". It could also be overzealous labeling to make it sound fancy or complicated too... hee hee!

While the coconut rice follows the beef in the recipe title, we needed to get working on that before we started on the protein. You know how much of a fan I am of using the pasta method to cook rice (especially brown), however as this recipe calls for using coconut milk, cut with water, we went with the regular absorption method. There isn't anything to be scared about using this way to cook the rice though - the key I've found is to keep the temperature low enough that the rice has time to cook, yet not too high that the bottom dries out and burns. While the original recipe calls for cooking the aromatic jasmine rice on the heat for 25 minutes, I find we get better results, as we did tonight, by leaving the pot over the heat for 20 minutes, then turning the heat off and letting it sit, covered, for an extra ten minutes to gently steam the rice through.

A few red jalapeños, seeded and sliced into sticks, along with chopped garlic went into our trusty heated cast-iron skillet that was lined with just enough oil to cover the bottom. Just a few seconds later, their pungent aromas climbed up to my nose, letting me know it was time to slide in our protein of choice this evening, ground sirloin - however, think about using ground lamb, turkey or pork instead to look at this with a new light. Once you scatter the meat in the pan, try to resist diving right in with a spatula to break up the meat into crumbles. Since the skillet is pretty hot, give the meat a chance to actually begin to caramelize and gain that brown color, rather than smashing the juices out trying to get it into smaller pieces and end up with stewed meat with little developed flavor.

A combo of soy, fish sauce and a dash of sugar is then stirred into the mix to not only season the meat, but add some liquid to pull up any of those sought-after browned bits that stuck to the pan. We reserved a few of those jalapeño sticks and stirred them in at the end, along with a fistful of torn fresh basil. Scooped over a bed of the coconut rice, don't forget to add a wedge of lime on the side for each guest to squeeze a little tart note on top just before eating.

I wouldn't say Jeff was jumping for joy when he saw me bring out the can of coconut milk for this dish - it's not that he dislikes coconut, but for him, especially with the milk, he feels it can often overwhelm. Using it with the floral rice though seemed to strike a delicate balance and he quite enjoyed the fluffy combo! Neither of us found the juicy beef mixture overly spicy, but the flavor from the chiles was noticed and nice - however, I think we could have gotten away with leaving the seeds with one of the chiles to jack in a little extra bite!

Recipes
Thai Beef with Chiles and Basil Over Coconut Rice

Sour Cream Apple Bars...

I'm sure you can imagine after picking all those apples, this week's Wednesday Treat Day would work at least a couple of them in! I rummaged through the humongous box in the garage to figure out what two apples to use in these Sour Cream Apple Bars and ended up pulling out Honey Crisp and Golden Delicious.

To give us a firm, solid layer to hold up to the creamy filling, we started with a mass of creamed butter and rich brown sugar, into which we mixed in oats, flour, chopped walnuts, baking soda, cinnamon and just a touch of allspice for a rounded aroma. I used quick-cooking oats as I had them on hand, but you could use the thicker, old-fashioned rolled oats if you like - you may just want to blitz them once or twice in a food processor or blender to break them down a bit. Walnuts can just be tossed in naked and chopped, but do yourself a favor - toast the nutty nuggets for a few minutes. Toasting pulls the natural oils to the surface and intensifies their flavor while also crisping them up for an increased crunch.

We took about half of the crumbly mixture and placed it in the baking pan, pressing it down to create the crust. Before the filling can go on though, we needed to give the crust a head start, resulting in a golden color and building the structure of the bottom. You'll be wanting to put the filling on as soon as the crust comes out from the oven, but you may be surprised with just how simple it is. The filling is composed of 5 ingredients - sour cream, granulated sugar (use vanilla sugar if you have some stewing in the pantry!), a couple spoonfuls of flour, an egg and two shredded apples. You can peel them if you must, but you really don't need to bother wasting time with that - we left them on because the flecks of color was nice and the peel would soften enough that it would not become obtrusive texturally.

As we only used half of the oat crumble on the bottom, after we scooped the filling onto the hot base, we sprinkled the rest of the fragrant crust mixture over the top to create these layered bars. Since you can't really use a toothpick to check for doneness, the best way to tell when to take them out is by sight - the top should be evenly golden and the center should feel and look set.

Sandwiched between two oat-y cookie layers, the filling of these bars is tangy, with a gentle sweetness, which we found to be somewhat akin to soft cheesecake. Because of those toasted nuts and warm spices in the crust, the mixture comes across more than just a buttery encasement - it had depth and crunch, yet wasn't tough or overpowering - meaning it did its job without overs-shadowing the more delicate apple filling!

Recipes
Sour Cream Apple Bars

Baked Rigatoni Cake

Tonight's dinner happened to be made in a springform pan and does have cake in the title, but let me assure you it is far from dessert! Even though this wasn't a sweet treat, I'd still label this Baked Rigatoni Cake as a show stopper and makes for one dramatic presentation!

You'll need a pound of ground meat to get the sauce started - be it beef, pork, chicken or turkey... even a mix of those would be good. Because this is going to be fairly heavy with the pasta and cheeses, I went the lighter route by using turkey, but I decided on a combo of ground turkey and hot Italian turkey sausage to juice up the mix. Browned in a slick of oil, we tossed in a couple cloves of garlic and a mess of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. Brought up to boil to get the process started, the heat was then lowered to a bare simmer and we let the pot bubble away until the sauce had thickened.

While that was happening, I used the downtime to drizzle a pound of rigatoni, that we cooked and cooled down, with olive oil, then tossed it around with a generous shower of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Those coated tubes were then packed into the mentioned springform as tightly as possible, standing each on their flat side, taking care not to collapse any of them.

You want the tubes open and waiting because we're about to take a couple cups worth of the meat sauce we prepared and slather it all over the top, using lots of pressure to fill up the centers of the rigatoni! You don't need to try and push all of sauce in, just use the amount called for - yes, you'll have some leftover, but don't worry, we'll be using it later! About halfway through the total time needed to bake this pasta cake, we took out the springform pan and concealed the sauce on top by scattering over coarse shreds of mozzarella cheese. Bake again to melt and brown the cheese. Plan on giving this at least 15 minutes to cool down before you try and serve - this will give the dish time to set, allowing you to remove the sides of the pan and pull out tidy pieces that don't fall apart.

Besides the fact that this won us over on taste alone, taking the entire piece to the table and having the "wow" factor of cutting it to serve, with that layer of gooey cheese on top, was worth making this dish by itself! I do have a couple notes on the sauce - it is fairly mild and did end up being fine as the hot Italian turkey sausage did wonders for the background. However, I do think it could easily be tinkered with - crushed red pepper, a little red wine and throwing in basil, oregano or your favorite marinara seasonings would help to add a little pizazz. I didn't forget about that leftover sauce either... warm that sucker right back up and serve it over the top!

Recipes
Baked Rigatoni Cake

Cinnamon-Swirl Pumpkin Rolls...

When we travel down to pick apples with my family, I try to bring along a treat to share when we are off driving around trying to get to our next destination. One year it was those Lemony Almond bars and another time we brought a batch of those Chocolate Malted M&M Cookies. With this trip, I decided on these Cinnamon-Swirl Pumpkin Rolls!

I was actually planning on doing just your ordinary cinnamon rolls, but when I saw PJ post about these pumpkin rolls, they were was too tempting to pass up! While you can certainly prepare this dough by hand as you would any other bread dough, I put our stand-mixer to work as I was busy working on another project at the same time.

The best part about that was all of the dough ingredients were just dumped into the bowl and brought together using the paddle attachment. You should note we used white whole-wheat flour as a part of the dry ingredients for its nutrition boost - if you don't want to buy that, you can either use completely all-purpose or even regular whole wheat flour. If you use the latter, expect the rolls to be a little more dense. As soon as the dough started to come together, I swapped the paddle for the dough hook and let it go until the dough was soft, supple and smooth. It is (and should be) on the sticker side, another bonus for using the stand mixer, and the dough will cling to the bottom of the bowl - however, it shouldn't be so wet that the dough doesn't hold its shape. Don't be afraid to adjust with water or flour as needed.

Left to rise until it had doubled in bulk, we turned the dough out onto our work surface and let it rest briefly before rolling it out into a large rectangle. You can dust the surface with flour to keep it from sticking if you wish, but because we didn't want to keep the rolls light and not add any more flour, we simply sprayed our counter with cooking spray - try it, it works well! The original recipe did call for a purchased filling mix, but it wasn't needed as a combo of granulated sugar and a liberal amount of fragrant cinnamon did the trick. To give the filling a unique twist, on top of that sweet bed of sugar, we scattered over chopped dried cranberries, along with a handful of minced crystallized ginger for zing.

Back to the original recipe, PJ rolled the log starting at the short end to end up with just a few big, fat cinnamon rolls. I wanted to stretch a few extra rolls out a bit, so we rolled the log up using the long side of the rectangle as our starting point. You can use a serrated knife to divvy the log up, but plain, unflavored dental floss works like a dream... just like a hot knife through butter! If you've never used it before, slide the floss under the log, crisscross the thread over the dough and pull the ends firmly to cut through - easy and no squishing of the dough!

I still ended up with twelve rolls that were plenty large - instead of baking them all together in a baking dish, I placed the rolls snugly in the wells of a muffin tin. They do need to rest once more before being baked, but the good news it it doesn't take quite as long as the first rise! Baked until the rolls pop up and brown, we took them out and let them cool off completely before drizzling on a smashing glaze made from confectioners' sugar, butter and milk. I waited for these spiral gems to cool because I wanted the striking contrast between the rolls and the glaze, but if you like, drizzle the rolls while they are still warm and it will slowly melt in.

Besides adding a subtle pumpkin flavor, that orange mash gave these rolls a moist, tender quality that we noticed right off the bat. I didn't mention it in the beginning, but the dough did flirt with a few spices in the dry ingredients to add to the richness - cinnamon, ginger and a touch of ground cloves were the ones we went with. You don't have to add the cranberries and crystallized ginger, but we thought the tangy, sweet heat those two wiggled in were just the right notes to play off the pumpkin essence in these rolls. Now, I'm one who unravels cinnamon rolls and eats them from the outside in, while Jeff decimates them by taking out big bites - how do you eat yours?

Recipes
Cinnamon-Swirl Pumpkin Rolls

Deep-Dish Pizza...

Today brings us to yet another weekly Friday Pizza night and guess what? I didn't bust out our snazzy whole-wheat pizza dough! Yeah, yeah... I know I almost always fall back to it regardless of the recipe, but this time we stuck with what was called for because we needed a greater volume of dough and this one included a special ingredient!

With this Deep-Dish Pizza we were making, the dough is actually very straightforward to prepare with just flour, yeast, a dash of sugar, salt, water and a bit of oil as the ingredients . However, what made this dough a little different was the inclusion of cornmeal to try and recreate texture without the need of excessive amounts of oil later on. You could probably use your food processor, just like our other favorite dough, but I didn't feel like cleaning the machine up and just went with my hands.

When the dough had risen sufficiently, we punched it down, gave it a quick respite to relax and then rolled it out to a size a bit larger than the baking dish we were using. Now, normally with deep-dish pizza, one would oil the pan the dough was going to be heading in generously, giving it flavor and a crackly crispness to the outside. As this is a lighter recipe, the recipe calls for using that cornmeal in the crust to give you a little crunch, then only used cooking spray on the baking dish to keep things moving. You could still do that, but what we ended up doing was drizzling in a rough tablespoon of oil into the dish and smeared it around - this way we aimed to get the best of both worlds, yet not add too many extra calories.

Once we fitted the dough snugly in the dish, paying careful attention to ensure the dough was plenty high up on the sides, we seasoned the bottom with dried basil and oregano, then scattered with plenty of shredded mozzarella cheese. No sauce first? Nope, not on this type of pizza - you want most of the cheese underneath because of the length of time it takes to bake the crust through. This way you'll end up with a gooey layer of cheese underneath that slowly oozes as you slice into it. Then, on top of that mess of cheese, we scattered over chunky cubes of chicken sausage.

While we set that aside to rest and rise a bit, we chopped up a can of drained whole tomatoes and mixed into them fresh basil and oregano to echo what we put on top of the dough. This mixture is then left to continue draining (we don't want a soggy top!) while the oven was busy preheating and we softened the red bell peppers we were going to add. The original recipe called for mushrooms, but once again, Jeff saw me try and hide them in the shopping buggy and snatched them out when I wasn't looking. Sigh. See what I have to put up with? If you don't have that problem, sauté up a couple cups of sliced mushrooms first, then add the peppers and let them go. A couple other suggestions - if you have a hankerin' for green bell peppers (neither of us care for them), swap half of the red bells for those. If chicken sausages don't strike your fancy, then go with good ol' pepperoni instead - or, just leave them off for a veggie-friendly pizza!

Just to add some pizazz, after spooning the herbed tomato and cooked vegetables over the top, a little more mozzarella sprinkle over never hurt anyone, so on it went! This took just short of half an hour to completely cook the crust through and warm those toppings up. Slice it in the pan if you like, but one can make a more dramatic presentation by moving the whole shebang out onto a cutting board - don't worry, it just slides right out! The golden crust was hefty enough to hold up to all those ingredients on top, but we didn't find it too bread-y, except maybe the corners that ended up pretty beefy. The bottom of the crust retained some crunch as advertised (helped by the oil we added I would guess), but do realize it won't be as lush and rich as one gets from their local pizza joint.

We sliced this into six liberal squares, but really, eight probably would have been more appropriate as we ended up pretty stuffed! I think the only thing I would have done differently would be to mix in a bit of crushed red pepper into the tomatoes for a little kick.

Recipes
Deep-Dish Pizza

Minestrone with Endive and Pepperoni

I was determined to work a soup into the menu this week, but had a hard time narrowing it down to a recipe... that is, until Jeff came by, saw one of the options had pepperoni and declared it the winner. I guess I should have just asked for his input to begin with because he definitely picked a winner in this Minestrone with Endive and Pepperoni.

Stirring a bit of chopped red bell pepper, or any sweet bell color you like, around in our Dutch oven was where I turned attention first to start bringing this soup to life. Broth, of the beefy variety, was poured in when the peppers had softened, with dried oregano and thyme added for good measure. When the broth had come up to a rapid bubble, elbow pasta was stirred in (I used this multi-grain pasta for those wondering) and left to cook until it was a few minutes short of actually being done.

Besides being a soup, what else attracted me to this was how fast it could be thrown together, especially since it called for using frozen mixed soup vegetables - we found a bag that had potatoes, carrots, celery and onion. Of course, one could certainly use fresh vegetables with a little extra work - just add the carrots, celery and onion as you normally would in the beginning. Then, either par-boil the potatoes separately and add them when called for, or toss them into the broth to cook before you add the pasta. The original recipe also called for frozen baby lima beans, but we swapped in edamame instead as we already had some in the freezer.

When the vegetables had almost cooked through, fire-roasted diced tomatoes were brought into play, along with diced pepperoni (Jeff did a little cheer as they went in!) and coarsely chopped endive for a little green boost. Chard would also work well here, just be sure to pull away the tougher stems. Just before serving, give the soup a quick taste - you'll most likely want to hold off on adding more salt (more on that in a second), but plenty of fresh ground black pepper is definitely appropriate.

With the broth and pepperoni seasoning this minestrone with a salty edge, right before we dug in, we took a knob from our block of Parmesan cheese and showered each bowl with just enough to compliment (hence why we held back on adding even more salt.). With a decent ratio of broth to vegetables and pasta, we found this to be very filling and it definitely warmed our stomachs up on this chilly fall evening. Pepperoni isn't what one might necessarily expect to find in this type of dish (at least I didn't think so), but it brought a mild spice that we both thought perked up the soup.

Recipes
Minestrone with Endive and Pepperoni

Spaghetti with Frisée and Fried Egg

Rather than just having a bowl of spaghetti and sauce for dinner, why not spruce it up and take the noodles for a spin in a different direction? That's what we did with this Spaghetti with Frisée and Fried Egg we prepared this evening.

As we dropped the pasta, our knife went to work slashing a few strips of bacon into pieces, then tossing them in a skillet to start rendering out. As we used a good amount of bacon, it produced plenty of drippings as they cooked - halfway through, we took the time to drain away most of the excess fat and reserved it for later use. Why let it go to waste? Wicked and probably a little naughty for sure, but you'll see in a minute what we did with that crazy liquid. Besides, we did our good deed by using healthy whole-wheat pasta, right? Hee hee!

After taking the now-crispy bits of salty bacon out of the skillet, we quickly followed up with a hefty amount of chopped, slightly bitter greens, frisée to be exact. Just as it began to wilt, we shocked it with a shot of sherry vinegar to envelop the greens with a sharp note. Scooped into a bowl with the drained pasta and a scoop of the starchy water it cooked in, we used the same skillet for the third time (hurray for less dishes!) to work on the last touch for this dish.

Pouring in enough of the reserved crazy liquid, aka bacon fat, to cover the skillet and heat back up, we then cracked in a couple eggs to fry. Sizzle the eggs to your liking, but for us, I let them cook until the whites had just set, the edges were ever-so-crispy and lightly golden, yet the yolks retained a silky softness that when pierced with a fork, let loose a golden flow of decadence. Twirling the noddles, strewn with the tender greens, into a nest on the plate, scattering the top with bacon and sliding the fried egg on top, one would think we'd be set to eat, yes? Not so... since we'd already started down a slippery slope with all that bacon, we figured we might as well throw caution to the wind and top off the plate with freshly grated shreds from a quality block of Parmesan cheese.

On the plate in just about 20 minutes, this is one of those simple, yet satisfying dishes I will definitely keep handy for those nights when we have a house showing or errands that keep me out of the kitchen. Maybe not as often as both of us would like, but it won't be long before this graces our table again!

Recipes
Spaghetti with Frisée and Fried Egg

Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies

Since we did an apple treat last week, we thought we would keep the fall theme going and follow up with these Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies for the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day!

These brownies were not so much of a challenge to make, but there are a few somewhat messy steps to get the batter in the pan and ready to bake. Starting out with a single base, made from flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla and baking powder, the fairly fat-less batter is divided between two bowls to get gussied up. Oh, there was one more ingredient, but I'll wait (unless you cheat and jump to the recipe!) to divulge what that was... sneaky, I know! But you'll like it!

Into one of the bowls, we gingerly stirred in a decadent melted duo of bittersweet chocolate and butter. I know, one whole, buttery stick... but these are brownies - resist trying to lighten with applesauce! With that pale batter transformed to a dark, delicious pool, the other bowl was given a shock of color with mashed pumpkin, along with a smidge of canola oil. With all that pumpkin added, this one needed a couple spices to accentuate the sweetness - cinnamon and a few fresh grates from one of the whole nutmegs we have in the pantry did the trick. Add a half cup of chopped, toasted nuts if you like, but we left them out of this batch.

The two batters are then alternately layered into the baking pan, so you'll end up with 4 total, into which you'll stick a knife to swirl them together creating a lovely marbled effect. I do have one tip - once the batters are combined, work as quickly as you can to get them layered into the pan and swirled. The pumpkin batter was fine, but the chocolate will start to firm and set if you wait too long. Use a trusty wooden skewer or toothpick to test for doneless - you'll want to take them out when there isn't any wet batter left, but there are still sticky crumbs to be found. If it are passed that point, they won't be bad, they just will be a bit more cake-y.

While I wouldn't classify them as cake-style brownies myself, I don't think they quite fit into the fudgy mold either. When I think of describing them, dense, rich and moist come to mind, along with a nice chew that rounds out the texture. We also noted a slight tingle coming up our throats after a couple bites... remember that special ingredient I was holding back? It's cayenne pepper! Not much, a puny quarter teaspoon, which one probably couldn't point out as it doesn't scream its existence. However, we liked the complexity it added to these brownies. I wondered how prevalent the pumpkin would come across - it was definitely there, highlighted by those warm spices, but it played with the chocolate well enough to come across as a complete package without one competing with the other.

Recipes
Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies

Another yearly apple trip!

Brrr! It was a cold, blustery trip yesterday, but Jeff, Gus and I bundled up and drove down to join my family at our meet-up spot in Winona to do our annual apple picking trip! The first trip we talked about on the blog, you'll notice that we were in shorts. This year? I'll let this picture do the talking.

That would be three layers up top, two pairs of socks (with one of them being wool...) and gloves to try and keep me warm, and I was still bouncing all around trying not to freeze (I get cold so easy!). Lucky for Gus, he has all that long hair to keep him toasty!

Depending on where exactly we go, we tend to travel back and fourth, weaving in and out of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Here we enter Wisconsin for the first time, just outside of Winona.

Jeff was playing with the camera and I'm sure this will be no surprise to you that we have this hanging in the car.

Shocking, I'm sure!
Our first stop is always to the hilly Decoraland, which is where we do most of our picking.

See? One stop shopping! It's a small list compared to the variety of trees they actually have to choose from. We put our hands to use and snatched off Golden Delicious, Fireside, Zestar and of course, the ever sweet and crispy Honey Crisp.

I can't believe how much we ended up with - 68 pounds! Those darn bushels fill up so fast. Now we just have to figure out what to do with them all - any suggestions?

Besides going for apples, the other reason we go to this area is simply all about gawking at the absolutely stunning scenery... though, sadly, this year the colors were quite muted compared to other trips.
That doesn't mean it wasn't still beautiful (note the trees growing out from the rocks!).

The little markets and shops along the way are what really make the trip special - here's one we never miss.

Pumpkins galore were found here...

All shapes and sizes, along with funky gourds one would expect to find!

They also had loads of pie pumpkins, just aching to be cooked and mashed for the first pumpkin pie of the season!

And yes, the kitchy Halloween displays were ever-present... here's just a snap of the many!

This is from a set of furniture made right from twigs and logs -Mom especially took her time snooping around this area to try and figure out how to make them herself!

We stopped at a few other spots, but we were too enthralled with the offerings that we got caught up and left the camera in the car. What a great way to spend the day - we can't wait until next year's jaunt!

Mexi-Pizza...

That was interesting! I had our pizza post all ready to go after dinner last night... but when I went to hit publish, I looked down to see our cable modem was out! It just came back a few minutes ago, so I apologize for the tardy pizza!

However, it does give me a second to show you what we woke up to...

Get ready, winter is coming early! Actually, it wasn't much more than a dusting, but it is darn cold out here!

With inspiration from south of the border, we needed to do a little extra work to get last night's Friday Night Pizza on the table. Instead of buying prepared chorizo for this Mexi-Pizza, we went ahead and tried our hand at a quick homemade version!

I went with this pizza mainly because I had a scant pound of pork I needed to get used up - you can use already-ground pork if you like, but I cubed what I had on hand and whirled it in the food processor to grind it down. When you grind meat like this, you want the cubes to be cold and on the smaller side, about 1/4" to 1/2" or so in size. Using the pulse button is best as it goes pretty quick and you want some control on how ground it ends up - you are not looking to make meat paste after all! When the blade had diced the meat into fine pieces, we added the seasonings - three cloves of minced garlic (which can be dropped in the food processor first... let it do the work!), an ample amount of paprika (smoked - for not only is robust color, but depth), cumin, oregano, crushed red pepper for heat and a tiny pinch of cinnamon.

While we let that hang out for a few minutes to mingle, we took a few poblano peppers and set them under the broiler until they were well-charred all over. We don't have a gas stove, but if you do, you could blister them on top using a burner - just note that the peppers will be crisper and not as "cooked-through" as they get when you roast them in the oven. Done to make the skins slip off the peppers, this also gives them a bit more character with a slightly sweeter, smokier aspect. When you pull them out of the oven, stick them in a heat-proof bowl and cover them with plastic wrap (tossing them in a heavy zip-loc bag works too) - this traps in the moisture, creating a warm steam bath to make the skins practically fall off. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to pull off each and every dark bit - if it comes off, great, if some are stubborn, C'est la vie. Just don't run them under water - you'll be washing your work down the drain!

Cooked in a hot skillet to crumble the chorizo, we scattered the meat over our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough, partially-baked, giving us a solid platform for this pizza. Finely chopped red onion went on next, followed by shredded Monterey Jack cheese and the roasted poblanos that we chopped. Jeff can be funny about peppers, so slice the peppers how you like - if they are left in strips, he's more likely to just pick them off... so chopped it was! Baked to melt the cheese and finish crisping the crust, when we pulled the pie out of the oven, we gave the pizza a more cheesy note by throwing on little pebbles of queso fresco! If you've never had this type of fresh, snowy-white Mexican cheese before, it is a little salty, a touch tangy and very crumbly - great for salads and quesadillas as well! If you can't find this, a firm, block-style ricotta salata could be used instead.

Dandy as is, we still had one more ingredient to use on this pizza - fresh lime juice! It fits with the theme and all I guess, but you don't often see it used on pizza, that's for sure! The juice cut through some of the richness in the cheese and chorizo, while adding a delightful zip that was refreshing and clean. We used the twelve ounce version of our dough recipe, which gave us a crust that was fairly thin and crispy - if you wanted a base that was thicker with a bit more chew, try using a pound of dough instead.

Recipes
Mexi-Pizza

Melon Panzanella...

Panzanella is traditional known as a bread salad that has fresh tomatoes in it, but recently we made a version of the popular dish that swapped out the tomatoes for an unexpected ingredient. While playing on the sweetness the tomatoes would have added, this Melon Panzanella called for using any type of firm, ripe melon - in our case, it happened to be cantaloupe!

Honeydew, casaba or even watermelon were recommended and while our market had most of them on sale, the scent and texture of the pale tangerine fleshed cantaloupe was the best of the bunch. Rather than using stale bread, we took a few slices of a hearty whole-wheat, cubed them and let them dry out in the oven set at a fairly low temperature. You're not looking for them to gain color and toast, but just firm up and dry out enough that they can absorb a dressing and not turn into mush.

To give the oil used in the dressing a bit more bang-for-the-buck, it was first heated and used to sizzle strips of salty prosciutto, turning them light and crispy. This also gave us a chance to remove the raw harshness from a couple cloves worth of minced garlic by tossing them in to soften when the prosciutto was done. The warmed dressing was then completed by stirring in red wine vinegar and seasoning it with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Tender leaves of baby spinach were our green of choice, though peppery arugula would be an excellent option if you can find it in your market. Tossed with the melon, sliced into cubes, the salad was completed by adding in chopped fresh basil, the barely toasted bread and the prosciutto mixture. To give the magic of the dressing time to work, you'll want to set the salad aside, giving the bread time to soak in the flavors and soften slightly - which comes in handy when you need extra time to give the main dish attention! So refreshing and light, I loved the excitement this produced when we served this to a couple friends we had over - different enough that one is surprised, yet still familiar that was is comforted and inspired by the simplicity!

Recipes
Melon Panzanella

Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese

For dinner tonight, we worked two types of chiles into one of our favorite pasta dishes... Mac 'n Cheese! Besides the intriguing use of chiles, the method used to make the cheese sauce is definitely not your typical fashion either... let's jump right on in and see what we had to do to turn out this Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese!

After we dropped the long, curly pasta called cavatappi (which also conveniently has ridges on it to grab onto the sauce) into the salty sea of boiling water, I had another skillet going to take care of the chiles. The amount may seem excessive once you see your pile from slicing the jalapeños and serranos, but don't be alarmed! The duo won't be added in raw - they are softened first in a slick of oil, along with a couple cloves of garlic, which will help pull their rich chile flavor out and tame their heat levels (though a bit too much in our minds... you'll see in a minute!).

After scooping the chiles and garlic out, we used the same saucepan to create the simple sauce by heating together milk and cubes of cream cheese. Yup, that's all it takes! Well, almost. For a little onion-y bite, a couple tablespoons of dried minced onion are also tossed in - however, if you wanted to use fresh, just grate a bit of onion in. This way you'll end up with mostly juice and tiny bits of onion, which won't end up as crunchy uncooked nuggets. When the cubes of cream cheese have melted in, thickening the mixture to create a velvet-y smooth sauce, it was combined with the now-drained pasta and chiles.

This is a Mac 'n Cheese after all, so you know cream cheese can't be it, right? You know it and another half pound of cheese was added in the form of mild Mexican-blend cheese! Monterey Jack would also be work well (and was originally called for), but I used what we had in the refrigerator. Now, you could have this as is out of the saucepan, but to give the top a bit of color, the cheesy concoction was placed into a dish and set under the broiler for just a few minutes.

So, back to that mound of chiles... did it make this too spicy? Quite the contrary! By removing the seeds and ribs of the chiles, you are left with their potent flavor, yet you won't have to deal with the fiery punch if you would have left them in. However, it almost seemed a bit too mild for us and we would have liked a touch of spiciness - maybe if we chopped one of the chiles whole it would have satisfied our lust for heat? When we go to make this again, there is one more thing I would do different - a crunchy breadcrumb topping (probably using panko) would be an excellent way to dress this up and provide a bit of contrast to the lush creaminess underneath.

Recipes
Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese

Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake...

We've been without the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day for now, what, two weeks? I was excited to jump back in, but what to make? With fall definitely showing its color and cool attitude around here, along with its bounty of apples flooding the market, it wasn't a tough choice once I came upon this Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake!

Because this cheesecake is fairly substantial, we needed a solid crust to give it sturdy legs. A graham cracker crust would be nice, especially using ones already laced with cinnamon, but we went with a spicer route and ground up crunchy gingersnaps! If either of those two wouldn't work for you, we've used animal crackers before with much success. With a touch of brown sugar, cinnamon and a pinch of salt added to the crumbs, we moistened the mass with just enough melted butter to bind. Pressed over the bottom and up the sides of a large springform pan, we placed the pan into the freezer while the oven heated up. The crust then needs to slip into the oven for just a few minutes, setting the crust and turning it a light golden hue.

Before I could get my hands dirty making the cheesecake batter, we needed to deal with autumn's natural sweet treat - the apples! Using peeled and sliced Golden Delicious apples (try Fuji here if you like), we tossed half the amount into a skillet of melted butter and left them to cook briefly, turning just a single time, until they gained a touch of color. A very light dose of brown sugar later, the apples were ready to be turned out onto a plate to start cooling down with the next batch going in to cook. Be sure the second batch has enough time to cool as you don't want to try and layer hot apples into the batter!

Luxuriously smooth and dotted with specs from our favorite fragrant Vietnamese cinnamon, the cheesecake batter is an extravagant combination of cream cheese, sour cream and heavy cream, sweetened with brown and granulated sugar. Along with the aforementioned cinnamon, vanilla and a shot or two from our fall staple, apple cider, were also blended into the batter with a few eggs to finish it out. Once the first egg is dropped in, mix the batter long enough to just mix the egg in before adding the next - you don't want to overwork the batter at this point.

Enough of this tan, thick liquid is poured into the cooled crust to cover the bottom, then those caramelized apples are arranged over to form a hidden surprise layer inside. The rest of the cream cheese mixture is added into the pan and sent off to bake in the oven until the cheesecake is almost completely set - you should have just a bare jiggle in the center when it's ready. Plenty of cheesecakes are baked in a water bath for a gentle heating, but I've had a few that even being well-wrapped with heavy duty foil still end up with a soggy crust from water somehow leaking inside. I've gone to a method here where you simply put a pan of heated water on the rack directly below the cheesecake and let it work its magic - however, if you are more comfortable with setting your wrapped pan in a direct water bath, feel free!

As with most cheesecakes, this one too is best left to rest at room temperature until completely cool, then stashed away in the refrigerator overnight to completely chill down. You can get away with a 6 or so hour stint in the refrigerator, but the extra time allowing the flavors to develop and letting the texture settle down is worth it, in my opinion.

Dense, so creamy and seriously pleasing, Jeff and I decided to share a piece so he would have more to take in. Talk about a war with forks - it was a battle between savoring each forkful, before realizing that if you didn't get your next bite ready, all you might hear is the clank when the tines hit an empty plate! As if the cheesecake wasn't enough, that layer of soft buttered apples inside was just what this guilt-inducing cake needed to round it out. It you want to fancy up the top, warm up a few tablespoons of apple jelly and brush the top for a shiny glaze. With as good as this was, neither of us gave it a second thought as to what it looked like though!

Recipes
Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake

Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes...

We had both been craving a breakfast-for-dinner night for a couple weeks now and I got around to working one into the menu. I was originally leaning towards waffles, but Jeff swayed me to pancakes... which is why I ended up making these Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes tonight!

One of the main reasons I decided on this recipe was it had a large yield, meaning I knew we would have plenty of leftovers to pop in the toaster oven for quick breakfasts! Rather than using completely all-purpose flour for the dry ingredients, which one can certainly do, I swapped half of it for whole-wheat pastry flour to nudge the nutritional value up. If you have access to it, white whole-wheat flour would also fit in well here without worry about weighing the pancakes down.

You may look through the instructions and wonder what's up with calling for a food processor... why the use of heavy duty equipment for just pancakes? To make them a bit more hearty, a couple cups of oats will be added into the mix. However, a portion of the oats are added with the dry ingredients and are then whirled in the processor to coarsely grind them down. This way, you'll end up with contrasting textures between the ground oats and ones left whole.

To create the batter, milk, eggs and a little oil were swirled into the dry ingredients, which we did while we waited for our griddle to come to temperature. You can make these plate-sized pancakes with a couple extra minutes on the pan, but we kept them smaller - using around three tablespoons of batter, we ended up with pancakes that were roughly 3 1/2" to 4" across... about the size of my palm.

The pancakes do have a heft to them from the oats, but they weren't too dense or gummy - they cooked to a decent thickness with a fluffy interior. If you wanted to embellish them a bit more, cinnamon chips to echo the flavor in them already or even a handful of chocolate chips (um, yes!) would be nice to toss in. Or, once you drop the batter onto the skillet, arrange some sliced bananas over the top! Even without any of those add-ins, as we did tonight, these pancakes did not disappoint with their nutty notes - a pat or two of butter and a drizzle of pure maple syrup later and our stomachs were happy and content!

Recipes
Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes

Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies

With all that time off from our kitchen while we were in Disney, I'm sure you can imagine that I couldn't wait to jump in and get to work! We haven't had a chance to hit the market yet, so I knew I would have to ensure I would only need pantry staples to get a treat together. I was aiming for cookies and was happy to find we already had everything to get a batch of these Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies in the oven!

You'll always find copious amounts of butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar here as I keep us overstocked in that department and the only other ingredients I needed for these cookies were flour, baking soda, salt, an egg, vanilla and peanut butter, of the crunchy variety. Yep, I always have those somewhere too - though not always the crunchy peanut butter as we are really creamy fans (it was on sale... couldn't help it!). I do actually make our own peanut butter for everyday uses, however for baking purposes, I usually stick with commercial brands as the natural peanut butter I turn out (just peanuts and salt) doesn't always react the same in recipes that are not tailored for it.

After bringing the dough together using our stand mixer, I noticed the dough was soft enough that one could just as well use a single bowl and a sturdy wooden spoon - besides, it'd be a good workout for your arm muscles! Using a tablespoon cookie scoop to turn out balls of the peanut dough, we then made the classic criss-cross topping to the cookies by smooshing (technical, huh?) the balls down using the tines of a fork. You can use the bottom of a glass, dipped in sugar, if you like or even whip out a potato masher and go to town for a more unique topping - you're just looking to flatten the dough.

Taking the cookies to the point where they are just golden on the bottom, while leaving the tops with barely any additional color, gave us cookies that had a slight crispness around the edges, leading to their centers that were soft and chewy. While creamy peanut will always have its place, I do have to mention how much we enjoyed the nibblets of nuts from the peanut butter - they imparted a nice contrast with their crunch and made the cookies feel more hearty.

Recipes
Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies