Cooking Week 12- Cheesy Apple Beer Bread

I move tomorrow.  This means that even though I managed to make the bread on Sunday, this is my first time being able to sit down long enough to write the post.  It also means that I may be able to do the baking challenge a week late, but likely not.  For Cheese I decided to make a cheesy beer bread which I had been planning on making for a while.  

I used a recipe from Cooking light and adapted it slightly to compensate for my laziness.  

Mix 13.5 ounces of all purpose flour, 3 Tablespoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, a shake of black pepper, and a few shakes of garlic powder in a bowl.

Add 1 bottle of hard apple cider and 1 c. of grated cheese.  I used dubliner because it was on sale and I LOVE the stuff :)  Mix until moist and combined.

Spoon into greased 9x 5 loaf pan and pour 1 Tablespoon of melted butter on top.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 35 minutes.  Pour another Tablespoon of melted butter on top and bake for another 15-25 minutes until deep golden and toothpick in center comes out clean.  

Cooking Week 11- Breakfast Mini Cinnamon Rolls

I wobbled on what exactly to do for this week.  I LOVE breakfast so to pick one is hard, but I finally wound up deciding on these mini cinnamon rolls that I've seen online lately.  I must say, I'm glad I did, they are delicious and easy too!

First you roll out the premade crescent dough (I use Trader Joe's brand) and smush the lines together to make them into 4 rectangles. 

Then you spread butter on them and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar (I have some premade at all times for cinnamon sugar emergencies).

Roll from the long end to create a cylinder and cut each log into 5 pieces.

Place in a greased mini cupcake pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes, or follow the baking instructions in the link. 

Whip up the powdered sugar icing in the link (or one one of your own), frost, and eat.  Try not to eat them all! 

Baking Week 11-Savory Potato Bread

Yet another semi-fail from my magazine file.  I grabbed this one from an issue of Cooking Light and I threw out the recipe so I can't tell which one.  It was a prize winning potato bread and staying true to my Irish heritage, I love me some potatoes.  In any and all forms.

I gave this recipe a whirl and while it rose VERY nicely I was somewhat disappointed in the final product. 

It was a little too soft and didn't have enough structure to it.  I also didn't mash my potatoes smooth enough, but that's my fault. 

I think I'll try again with smoother potatoes and a different recipe I think.  Therefore no recipe share.  Find your own with good reviews. ;) 

Baking Week 10: TV inspired Starfleet Combat Rations

Have I revealed myself as a total nerd on here yet?  Cuz I am.  In my quest to watch all of Star Trek, I've been rewatching DS9, which I think is my favorite.  In the episode entitled The Seige (which I will not go into details about so as not to spoil it) Miles O'Brien mentions his love of Starfleet combat rations.  Since I'd been toying around with ideas for this week's baking challenge and simultaneously trying to figure out what snack to make to bring with me on my flight to NYC next week, it was a light bulb moment for me.  I'd make combat rations!  Well in this case granola bars.

I adapted the recipe found here for my preferences and based on the suggestions in the comments.

The honey is in there already because I forgot to take a picture first.

First I mixed 2 c. rolled oats, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 1/2 c. wheat germ, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 c. wheat flour, 1/2 c. unsweetened coconut shreds, 1/2 coarsely chopped walnuts, and 3/4 tsp. salt.

Then you make a well in the center and mix in 1/2 c. honey, 1/2 c. oil (I use canola), 1 egg (beaten), and 2 tsp. vanilla.

Pat mixture in a greased 13x 9 pan.  You can see I leave about 2 inches at the end so that my bars are thicker and chewier.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until the edges start to brown.

Cool for 5 minutes then cut and enjoy when you wish.

When telling the boy about my combat ration plan he suggested that I just make him poptarts and pipe the federation symbol on top because he wants everything he eats to be federation approved.  :|  I thought about piping it on the granola bars combat rations I made, but frankly I got too lazy.  I also imagine TRUE combat rations would be a little less sweet and a little more protein-y.

Cooking Week 10: Lord of the Onion Rings

This week's theme is book/movie inspired.  I toyed around with a lot of ideas for the cooking challenge and wasn't particularly happy with any of them.  While talking about my ideas I tossed out Lord of the Onion Rings and its just cheesy enough to thrill me so I went with it.

A quick google of how to make onion rings and I found instructions to try out here.

I cut my onions.

The little bits are drops of batter I used to test the heat of the oil.

Heated up a mix of canola oil and the bacon fat leftover in my skillet.

Made my batter.

Fried the rings on both sides.

And then promptly tossed most of them.  I'm still no good at deep frying things.  I was feeling sick from the grease of the three rings that I ate and they weren't as crispy as they should be.  Perhaps these powerful rings are not meant to be eaten.

Cooking Week 9: Coffee Semi-Fail!

This week's cooking challenge is coffee.  I debated for a while on what to do (I do love coffee) and while I wanted to make an espresso crusted steak, the boy does not eat steak so I didn't want to have to make a second dinner for him.  Instead I decided to make Espresso Crinkles, a cookie recipe in my magazine file from a 2008 issue of Cooking Light.  The cookies were supposed to look like this:

And instead they came out looking like this:

I thought I followed the recipe, but I must have messed something up.  They still taste delicious, and I gave them to my vet's office as a thank you since I've been spending WAY too much time there, but not what they were supposed to be.  Oh well.  If I have the energy this weekend maybe I'll try the steak.