Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! No parties for me this year, we got word on Tuesday of this week that our sellers (of the house we've been trying to buy for months!) had their short sale approved by the bank (YAY!!!!!) so J and I decided to be low key and stay home so we could get some things done now that we know we'll be moving for sure in a few weeks! Looks like we'll close the week of the 9th, and hopefully be all settled in by Thanksgiving!

I spent the day carving pumpkins, (albeit badly!), and baking these delicious Ham and Cheddar Pretzel bites with Jalepeno Mustard, courtesy of Gourmet magazine's spread on Chef Edward Lee (from the October issue). A little time consuming, as pretzels are, and mine are nowhere as pretty as the ones pictured in the magazine are, but they were delicious and I plan to make them again! The recipe calls for "Country Ham" which is a southern thing, and I'm nowhere near the south and could not find any or anyone who knew what that was at the grocery store, so I picked up a hamsteak and diced part of that up for the recipe. The bonus is that J can have some ham with his eggs and bagel in the morning.

We got a lot of Trick or Treaters this year, all the little kids come early in the night, and then the last half hour are all teenagers. It's pretty funny!

Apple Bread with Cinnamon & Walnuts

Another fall favorite! The quick bread.

I'm not sure where I got this recipe. It seems to be one of those things that just ended up in my recipe collection years ago and I can't call it my own but I make it often enough that I no longer need to look at the recipe card (which for me is RARE! ha!).

I love this because it's easy, I usually have all the ingredients on hand and like most quick bread recipes, you bake it in two loaf pans so you can eat one now and freeze one for later! It's great for breakfast or dessert and everyone that I've made it for has loved it. Bonus. I like to sneak whole wheat flour into the bread (50/50 all purpose and whole wheat). It comes out a little heavier and doesn't rise as much as using all white flour but it makes me feel a little less bad about eating it!

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups diced apples
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional of course!)
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease two loaf pans. Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Next, beat the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Fold in apples and walnuts (if using) and stir together gently. Pour evenly into the two loaf pans and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes (or until toothpick inserted comes out clean). Let cool before removing from loaf pans.

Slice and enjoy for dessert (it's great with ice cream or a rum glaze), breakfast or a snack!
All text and photographs (except where noted otherwise) © 2008, 2009 Food is to love / Andrea Quigley

Apple Crisp (Mom's recipe!)

It's fall. And I apologize once again for being so quiet! Things have been busy and while I have been cooking and baking plenty, I haven't found the time to post anything. J and I still haven't closed on the house. It's a long story, but the short version is that our sellers are working on getting approval for a short sale and that is taking some time. Trying to be patient and not get too bummed about it but it is what it is and I can't do anything to speed up the process. Just keeping my fingers crossed that their short sale is approved and everything goes as planned. Anyhow, back to food!

The air has definitely gotten cooler, the leaves have changed and are falling off the trees, and I'm reaching for a sweatshirt or fleece every night. That means it's time to bake lots of stuff with apple or pumpkin in it! Went apple picking with J a few weekends ago so first up: Apple Crisp!

This is my Mom's recipe. It's super easy and one of the things I like about it is that it doesn't contain oats! Nothing against oats for breakfast or in an oatmeal cookie but I personally don't think they belong in apple crisp. At least in not in mine!

Ingredients

5-6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced (I use Cortland for baking)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the sliced apples in a rectangular baking dish (9x12 or 9x13), piled high (cut more apples if you need to). Mix the white sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon together in a small bowl and then sprinkle on top of the apples and mix with your hands to coat. I love spice so I use a little more cinnamon and nutmeg than the recipe calls so add whatever amount suits your taste.
Next put the flour, brown sugar and butter in a bowl. Using two forks, cut in the butter to coat the pieces with flour and sugar until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Distribute on top of the apples and pat down. Bake for 30 minutes or until the apples are tender and the topping is browned.Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. Happiness!All text and photographs (except where noted otherwise) © 2008, 2009 Food is to love / Andrea Quigley

Cookies & Cream Heart Attack Bars

Yeah, that's right. I call these Heart Attack bars. I'm sure that's not going to get me any ranking in the search engines, haha, but it was a fitting name back when I came up with the idea. It's a mixture of chocolate sandwich cookies, butter, cream cheese and sugar, the only thing I could add that would make it worse for you is bacon and I have a feeling that wouldn't taste so good here.
I've got to apologize because I don't have any pictures of the bars cut up into squares. I was making them for a cookout I was going to and we were running late so I ended up just grabbing the pan hot out of the oven and bringing it with us (the squares need to chill for a while before cutting) and cutting them there. So, it's hard to tell what you're looking at but they're really yummy so it doesn't really matter does it?

Ingredients

1 package of Chocolate sandwich cookies (with vanilla filling)
2 8oz packages of light cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place sandwich cookies in a large plastic freezer bag. Seal. Using a meat tenderizer (or something equally blunt), smash the cookies in the bag until all are roughly crumbled. Try not to tear the bag because it will make a big mess! Put the crumbled cookies into a medium-sized bowl and pour the melted butter over them. Stir to combine. (The butter will help the cookies form a "crust" and also prevent the bars from completely sticking to the pan.)

In another bowl, mix the remaining ingredients (cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla) with an electric hand mixer until smooth.

Spread half the cookie mixture in the bottom of a 13x9x2 baking dish. Carefully spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the cookies and then top with the remaining cookies. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top is set. Let cook and chill for 2 hours before serving. Cut into 24 squares and make sure to eat any crumbs left in the pan.All text and photographs (except where noted otherwise) © 2008, 2009 Food is to love / Andrea Quigley

Overcoming Fears of Baking with Yeast: Bagels

Of all the breakfast foods out there, bagels are the one that have my heart. Sure, I dig into a bowl of steel cut oats or yogurt & fiber one most days but if I'm feeling naughty, it's a big fat toasted bagel (preferably garlic or everything, or anything that stinks! haha) slathered with an inch of cream cheese that I go for. Well maybe not a whole inch of cream cheese, but close!

I've wanted to make bagels for as long as I can remember but have been afraid to even try since I have about as much experience working with yeast as I have with building houses (i.e. none) House building seems like so much work and seems to have slightly more consequences if you screw up so in comparison, making bagels actually seems pretty easy! Plus, there are no slivers with bagel making!

I've stumbled over lots of yummy looking bagel recipes on blogs over the last few months but ultimately decided to follow a wonderful bagel recipe I found posted at Thibeault's Table, particularly because of her beautiful and easy to follow step by step pictorial on making them. It made all the difference! Here's the page with the actual recipe I used.

I ended up making an assortment of bagels: garlic, onion, everything, asiago cheese, poppyseed, sesame and even a plain one. I used dried minced garlic and onion (the kind you find in the spice aisle) and for the cheese bagels, I mixed a little bit of grated asiago with grated parmesan and it worked pretty well (just make sure to grate your own cheese of course!). The recipe is originally for 48 mini bagels but I made about 15 normal sized ones. I like me a big bagel!

Two things I will do differently the next time I make them: #1, add a little salt to my toppings. Bakery bagels always have a salty bite to them and these didn't. I think there is plenty of salt in the recipe but a little coarse seas salt tossed on towards the end of baking would be nice. #2, watch my bagels more closely when boiling. J and I had a couple cocktails while doing our baking on Saturday (J made pretzels while I made bagels. Adorable!) and definitely didn't focus on timing as much as I probably should have! (It's also why my pictures get progressively blurrier)

Anyhow, these came out great and were so much easier than I thought they'd be! I'm no longer afraid of working with yeast and am plotting my next baking adventure. Try these-you'll be impressed with yourself too!

All text and photographs (except where noted otherwise) © 2008, 2009 Food is to love / Andrea Quigley