Pioneer Woman Red Velvet Cake

For a BBQ Brandon and I had... in May.... I made Pioneer Woman's Red Velvet Cake. I know that the usual me would transcribe the recipe for you all, but I'm not home (working from an office space YAY!) and thus... can't.

Just buy the cookbook, you won't regret it.

---REVIEW---

I've been living in Denver for a while now... and I haven't let the "Mile High" get me down. I've thought "I don't need high altitude directions! I'M A BAKER! Get out of my face with your extra flour and water!".

Consider me schooled. This cake sunk. HARD. I pulled it out of the oven at 10pm and it was completely concave. And the BBQ was the next day. And I MAY have freaked out for a minute.

Oh Sarah Michelle, how do you fix a problem like this? You pick yourself up by your bootstraps and let gravity do it's job. That's right. I just flipped the cakes over and let them set so that the big gap was on the bottom. Don't judge me. Nobody knew.

I also made the icing on the cakes, which was SUPER fun. Make icing. Do it.

A friend of mine said that the cake was a little salty-er than normal, but he said that he didn't mind it. Neither did I. I had a piece for breakfast EVERY MORNING the next week.

Bikini what?

Also. Doesn't this piece of cake look like a SHARK! YES, yes it does.

Wednesday Night Dinner: A Feast

We had a feast of a dinner this week. I bought a roasted chicken from Safeway and paired it with sauteed green beans made by Scott, a creamy baked potato thing for the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge Bacon, salad, homemade bread by Suzie and homemade hummus by Shelby. It was all pretty spectacular. For dessert, I made apple tart using a recipe from The Pioneer Woman. And I just want to say that this was a really fun Wednesday night dinner. Nights like these are part of the reason I host this week after week.

Cinnamon Rolls

Sarah Michelle got to meet The Pioneer Woman at her cookbook signing in Denver, and we were both so so excited. We love PW, and according to Sarah Michelle, she's just as fantastic in person.

PW always talks about her delicious cinnamon rolls. I attempted them once with another friend, and I wanted to make them again. So Sunday morning, Sarah Michelle and I rolled out of bed and hit the kitchen. Our cinnamon rolls turned out delicious, but oh man, what a mess. We were trying to catch filling with a bowl as it oozed out of our roll and off the table. Be prepared for a disaster kitchen when you make cinnamon rolls, friends. But when you eat one, it's totally worth it.

Link to recipe.

Wednesday Night Dinner: Lemon Penne Pasta

I was without Internet for a couple weeks so I'm going to blog what you've been missing out. This was a lemon penne pasta I made for Wednesday night dinner that I served with a (grocery store) roasted chicken and roasted asparagus. I pulled the recipe off of Tasty Kitchen.
Click here for the original recipe. It was really very delicious. Our only adaptations to it were that we didn't add green onion and my friend added a little herbs de provence for seasoning.

Pasta a la Betsy, and Sarah, and Brandon

1 lb penne pasta

1 lb large shrimp

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small white onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 14.5 oz can of tomato sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

Dried basil

"Season All"

Garlic powder

Cayenne Pepper

Sweet Cooking Sherry

1. Peel shrimp, rub with a good amount of Season All, garlic powder and cayenne pepper. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a small skillet. Cook shrimp until opaque. Put to the side. Start to cook penne as per the box.

2. In a pot melt butter and add olive oil. Put in the onion and garlic. Cook till onions are opaque.

3. Pour in tomato sauce and reduce heat to low. Stir to combine.

4. Pour in cream. Stir to combine and take heat to a simmer.

5. Cut up shrimp, add to the pot. Stir to combine. Add parsley.

6. Now comes the feel it out part. Add 3 swigs of Sherry, some salt and a dash of cayenne pepper. Add lots of basil. Taste. Add more of anything as you see fit.

7. Add in the penne and mix (being sure to mix from the bottom so that all scoops will get shrimp and onions.

---REVIEW---

So... it started out that Brandon wanted to make a zesty tomato sauce with penne and shrimp. And then I whined, because I've been in a bit of a whining mood lately. Then he told me to come up with something better and I thought of Pioneer Woman's "Pasta a la Betsy".

But... I didn't have wine (and the grocery stores in Denver don't sell wine... and liquor stores aren't open on Sunday nights), so there was a bit of improvising going on.

As in all of Brandon's wonderful recipes (or non-recipes) the amounts of everything that you put into this sauce should be done according to how you want it to taste (Except the Sherry, because that was my addition not his, and I really like following recipes and I made up adding it in. Use three swigs. Live with it.).

Pear Crisp Pie

(Ok, so I forgot to take a picture of my pie by itself, and this picture is a bit blurry. This is a picture from the Pie Off Brandon and I attended last night, and my pie is the one directly to the left of the white one.)

Pie Crust

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1 egg

5 tablespoons cold water

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1. Combine flour and salt. Add in shortening and work together with a pastry cutter (or fork, or whisk) until the mixture resembles tiny pebbles.

2. Lightly beat egg with a fork then add it to the mixture. Add water and vinegar.

3. Remove 1/3 of batter from bowl and put it in a large plastic bag. Flatten slightly with a rolling pin. Close bag tightly. Repeat with rest of dough, using 1/3 at a time.

4. Put in freezer for at least overnight (this will make the dough more flakey, but you can use it right away if you'd like. Thaw dough for 20 minutes before rolling and putting in a pie tin.

5. If you want to pre-bake your crust, fill with pie weights (or pinto beans or rice on tin foil) and bake for 10 minutes on 400.

Pear filling

4 green pears (the harder the better)

Sugar

Pinch of Salt

1. Peel pears with a vegetable peeler. Cut lengthwise, spoon out seeds and stem. Cut into 1/2 pieces.

2. Add "a good amount" of sugar (this is a direct quote from Pioneer Woman, I just poured the sugar in till I felt warm and happy inside). Add pinch of salt. Mix all around.

Crisp Topping

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Dash of nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 lb cold butter (1 stick)

1. In a medium bowl mix together all dry ingredients.

2. Cut butter into 1/2 inch squares. Put in bowl with dry ingredients and mix together with your hands (really squeeze together) until mixture resembles a coarse meal.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

1. Roll out pie crust. Pre-bake pie as directed above.

2. Take crust out of oven, pour in the pears. Cover with the crisp topping.

3. Cover with foil, bake for 15 minutes at 350. Remove foil, continue baking for 30 minutes more.

4. Take up the heat to 400, bake for 10 more minutes.

---REVIEW---

Brandon told me on the day of the Pioneer Woman signing that we were going to go to a Pie Off. I knew it was fate.

While Ree was signing my book I told her about the contest and asked her what I should make. I told her that I have a boyfriend that loves peach cobbler and she told me how she thought I could adapt her Pear Crisp recipe to make it into a Peach Cobbler Pie.

Well, turns out peaches are out of season, so I tried canned peaches. Horrible. Tried apples. No good. Stuck with the pears.

In the end I used three different recipes of Ree's and combined them to make a (contest winning) kick ass pie.

Sherried Tomato Soup

1 medium white or yellow onion

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter

Two 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes

One 46 oz. bottle or can tomato juice

3 to 6 tablespoons sugar

1 or 2 tablespoons chicken base, or 3 chicken bouillon cubes

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup sherry

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

1/4 cup chopped basil

1. Dice onion. Melt butter in large pot and cook onion till translucent.

2. Add diced tomatoes and tomato juice.

3. Add 3-6 tablespoons of sugar to combat tomato's acidity (I used 6 because I love love sweet tomato soup).

4. Add chicken base.

5. Add LOTS of ground black pepper. Heat soup till almost boiling and then turn heat off.

6. Add sherry and heavy cream. Stir.

7. Add the herbs. Add more pepper.

---Review---

At first I thought that the sherry was a little too overpowering, and considered suggesting that it be cut down to 1/2 cup in the future. But after letting the soup sit overnight I realized that the sherry is amazing. This soup is amazing. And it is my new favorite.

Being a vegetarian (or at least a recent vegetarian), I don't have any chicken base, so I left that out. Soup came out fine. Also, I sprung for some fresh herbs, which is totally not my style, and I think that it was totally worth it.

My new favorite tomato soup. Even better than Tucson's own Beyond Bread Tomato Basil Soup.

Grilled Green Chile and Cheese Sandwich

My sister moved into my house and I'm thinking it means I might cook more often now that there's someone else around. I had leftover green chiles from last week's Wednesday night dinner, and some leftover havarti cheese, and the perfect recipe came to mind—Pioneer Woman's favorite sandwich. The sandwich consists of green chiles, tomatoes, red onions, and cheese with a sauce made of dijon and mayo. It was pretty delicious. On the side I roasted some sweet potatoes and threw together a salad. For the sweet potatoes, just toss them in olive oil, add a little salt and pepper, and roast for 35 minutes at 375 degrees. Delish!

Wednesday Night Dinner: Roasted Chicken, Potatoes, and Veggies

We had a small group for dinner this week, just the girls. I've got a new job, and less time to cook, so I picked up a roasted chicken from the store this week, made Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes, steamed some broccoli, and threw together a salad with romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, a carrot, and feta. It was delicious.

Blueberry Muffins

Tonight, I decided to go for a baking frenzy, but only succeeded in making blueberry muffins because I ran out of flour. So much for the baking frenzy. But now I at least have breakfast for the rest of the week. This recipe comes to you by way of Pioneer Woman, one of my favorite daily blog reads. I made a couple adjustments to the recipe due to what I had on hand, but I was pleased enough with the result. The color of the muffins was a little too dark for my tastes, and I tried to adjust the cooking time by five minutes when I put in the second batch, but then it didn't seem long enough. Looks aside, the muffins are pretty tasty and will make a perfect quick breakfast.

Ingredients:
3 cups minus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Dash of nutmeg
Heavy pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup veggie oil (I used canola)
1 egg
1 generous cup plain yogurt (I used light vanilla)
2 cups blueberries
vanilla extract
softened butter (for muffin tins)
Turbinado sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.

In a large bowl, sift flour, baking soda, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, cap-ful of vanilla extract, egg, and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients and stir to a count of 10.

Add blueberries to mixture and stir 3 times.

Add mixture to well-buttered muffin tins. (I skipped the buttered tins and just put down cupcake wrappers). Sprinkle berries on top and press down. (I also skipped this step). Sprinkle turbinado sugar over top. Brown sugar can be substituted. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.