Chocolate buttermilk cupcakes with coffee frosting

Absolutely delicious!


1. Whip up a batch of The Pioneer Woman's Chocolate buttermilk sheet cake. But put it in 24 cupcake tins instead.

2. Bake at 350 for 18 min

Coffee Frosting
1 stick butter
~3 cups confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tsp instant coffee
2 tbs half and half (or milk)

1.Cream the butter.
2. Mix the instant coffee, vanilla, and part of the half and half in a small bowl until all the coffee is dissolved.
3. Add half the sugar and beat well. The add the coffee mixture and beat some more
4. add half and half to acheive a nice spreadable consistency. Don't be afraid to keep beating, it will only get fluffier.
5. This is the hard part. Wait until the cupcakes are cool. They need to be below 88F or the butter will melt and you'll get a gooey mess. (Gooey messes still taste good, but don't look good)

Frost and enjoy- I added a few mini chocolate chips for show.

Falafel

I needed a vegetarian dish the other day and Rob said "why don't you make falafel". I'd only ever made it with a mix, but it turns out to be super easy.

For the Falafel:
1 can garbonzo beans, drained
1/2 an onion, chopped fine
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1 tsp baking powder
6-8 Tbs flour
splash of lemon juice
oil for frying

1. Drain the beans and puree in a food processor until coarsely chopped - don't over do it! Add the spices and the onion and pulse a few more times.

2. Turn into a bowl and fold in the baking powder and flour. Refrigerate for 30 min.



Chop up toppings - pictured here:
cilantro
tomatoes
cucumber
baba ganoush
jalepanos
mushrooms sauted in better ( I mean butter)



3. Form the falafels into patties and pan fry, 5min per side until crunchy and done. Or place on a greased cookies sheet at 400 for 20 min, flipping part way through.
4. To assemble place a falafel patty in a fresh-baked pita (what do you mean you don't have any? Just take the 5-min a day bread and roll out a egg sized lump into a circle. Bake on a baking stone at 435 for 5 min/side until puffed)

Enjoy! They are good leftover as well.

Maida's Marvelous Beans

Maida won my informal facebook contest of what to do with the white beans I had soaking and I loved the result so much I wanted to share. I had to add a bit of garaham marsala and chili powder to her original idea for that sweet kick.

Maida's beans.

1 cup dry white beans
1 large onion
2 tsp cumin
1 Tbs fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garahm marsala
1 15oz can diced tomatoes
1 box frozen spinach

1. Cook the beans, soak overnight and put in the slow cooker for 8 hours.



2. saute the onion in some oil over low heat until soft. Add the garlic and saute another minute



3. Add beans, cumin, ginger, chili powder and tomatoes and cook over low heat for about 15min until well blended.



4. thaw the spinach and squeeze as much water out as possible, then add it to the bean mixture.



5. Serve over rice (Maida says) or if you have an extra 10lbs of potatoes and no rice as I did, dice the potatoes and bake on a lightly oiled sheet at 400 for 30minutes or until crisp, turning occasionally.

Chicken Pot Pie

It's winter so I needed some comfort food. Preferably comfort food that used up some of the chicken. Recipe is mostly based on The New Best Recipe Cookbook


1-1.5lbs cooked roast chicken (say the one you made like this)
3 carrots, diced
1 large onion diced
2 tsp thyme
pepper
salt
5 mushrooms
1 tsp tomato paste or powder
1/4 cup cheap white wine
2 tbs butter
1.5 cups chicken broth
1.5 cups milk
2 tbs flour
1.5 cups frozen peas
1 batch of buttermilk biscut dough OR 1 batch pie dough OR be lazy/healthy and skip the crust

First, preheat the oven to 400F the Make biscuit dough (or heck, take it from one of those tubes, whatever you like)
1. In a dutch oven heat 1 tbs of chicken fat over medium high heat. Saute the onions, celery, carrots and thyme until just soft, around 6min. While the veggies saute, cut the chicken into bit sized pieces.
2. Remove the veggies into a pan. Add the mushrooms back to the same pan. Allow the mushrooms to brown over high heat for 1-2 min, then add the wine and the tomato. This step is how it gets the nice amazing deep flavor, so don't skip it. Tomato paste is a fine sub for tomato powder - it should be the slightest hint of tomato, just enough to say "what's that?"
3. When the mushrooms are soft and wine is cooked down add the mushrooms to the bowl of veggies.
4. Now add the butter to the hot pan and let it melt. Add the flour and wisk constantly to make a roux. Allow the roux to brown for 2-3min, stirring constantly. The add the chicken broth a little at a time, wisking like crazy. Keep adding liquid and stirring until all the liquid is in. Bring it to boil and cook until thickened.
5. Remove the dutch oven from the heat and combine the the sauce with the chicken and veggies. Add the frozen peas and mix well.
If you're lazy and doing casserole. STOP. You're ready to eat.
If you're fancy-schmancy, turn the whole mixture out into a 9x13 glass baking dish. Yes, I know it makes another dish dirty. I tried it in the past and it doesn't cook as evenly and the biscuts end up too thick. Cut the biscut dough into peices and place it on top of the casserole. Bake at 400 for 20-30 min until the biscuits are brown and sauce is bubbling.

Roast Chicken

Part 1 of a series on chicken.

1 whole chicken (I had a whopper- 8lbs!)
2 Tbs butter
2 tsp rosemary
zest of 1 lemon
1 small onion
1 carrot

Summary of the directions - see "Thanksgiving"

1. Preheat the oven to 375F
2. rinse the chicken and pull out the giblets. Cut out the backbone and butterfly it.
3. rough chop the onion and carrot and place on a heavy baking sheet - place the butterflied chicken on top.
4. combine the lemon zest, rosemary, and softened butter and mix well. Dry the chicken with paper towels and spread the butter mixture over the chicken and under the skin.
5. Bake until the breast is 160 and thighs are 175. If you (theoretically) accidently melted your thermometer by leaving it in the oven last week stick a fork in the chicken to check for done-ness. It should take around 12-15min/lb