Why are the Girl Scouts of America trying to kid themselves with the serving size? The serving size of Girl Scout cookies is 1 box, not 2 cookies. Duhz.

I have to sign up for a dish to make for our St. Paddy’s Day Potluck at work. WAY too many choices. Considering how long it takes me to pick out a movie, this is going to take forever. Any suggestions?

Slander has made a few fun meals this week, but last night’s was the most memorable. About a month ago, we went to Costco and got a bunch of canned foods. We bought a 12 pack each of corn, black beans, diced tomatoes and garbanzo beans. Although we usually eat a lot of black beans, somehow we have barely touched the pack we bought! This had one obvious solution: Cuban Black Bean Soup & Corn Bread. Sarah took the reigns on the soup, and it turned out absolutely delicious. That girl sure knows how to fry up some beans & bacon! I’m not sure which recipe she used via the Internet, so I’m just going to wing it. I made the corn bread from the cornmeal box recipe with corn added to the mix. Somehow the second bread loaf I made turned out a bit runny, which does not make sense to me as I used the exact same recipe. I guess I need to pay attention more often. I have the same lack of attention span while typing and it makes me look illiterate. I guess not being able to follow a recipe would make me illbakerate. Zing! That was pretty bad. Moving on…

One exciting bit of information before I start talking about the goods- I made my mom’s french bread without reading the recipe the other day! This is an exciting moment for the Smith family. Maybe it will be something passed through generations now, or something. Anyway, on to the nom noms…

Cuban Black Bean Soup

Ingredients: 4 cans of black beans, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can green chilies, half pack of bacon, cubed ham, 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 onion, fresh chopped garlic, shredded cheese, tapatio, spices

To make this soup, Sarah heated up the canned goods in a big pot and let it boil for a while. While that was boiling, we fried up the bacon, chopped it up into smaller pieces and added it to the pot. Next, she sauteed the onions and peppers for a bit and added that to the pot. Add a bunch of swigs of tapatio and other spices that sound like they would make your soup delicious. Reduce to a simmer and let it hang out for about a half hour. Once your guests show up, it will be perfect! When serving, add some cheese (and sour cream, if you got it) and enjoy the silence that happens once people can’t speak anymore because your soup is so damn good it takes the words outta their mouths!

Corn Bread

Corn bread is officially the easiest thing in the world to make. I wish I knew this earlier so I could just eat corn bread all the time! Here is the recipe I used to make this delicious corn bread. I didn’t bother going to the Internet and used the trusty box recipe. Slander tip- slab a bunch of butter and honey on your cornbread slice when eating to make it even more mouth watering.

• 1 cup Albers® White or Yellow Corn Meal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Grease 8-inch square baking pan.

COMBINE meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Combine milk, oil and egg in small bowl; mix well. Add milk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until blended. Pour into prepared pan.

BAKE for 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve warm.

NOTE Recipe may be doubled. Use greased 13x9-inch baking pan; bake as above.

FOR MUFFINS:
SPOON batter into 10 to 12 greased or paper-lined muffin cups, filling 2/3 full. Bake in preheated 400°F oven for 15 minutes.

I had a dream about baking bread last night. I think that is how you know the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer is working.

Tip- Don’t forget the salt in your bread recipe. It really does taste a little weird without it. Not that I know that or anything…seeing that all my baking adventures are perfect…

Last night was Valentine’s day. Instead of spending it with the men in our life, we had a friend of ours over for a saucy (more like buttery) evening. We found it more appropriate to have our favorite non-Slander lady over for homemade pizza and cake. As you can see from my previous post, there was a fallen soldier.

Here is how it all began:

I was actually surprised how red the Red Velvet Cake turned out! After pouring the batter into the pans, it was bake time. For the first time in the history of our oven, I actually managed to over-bake something. I put it 5 degrees hotter than it says on the recipe and left it in a little longer. Usually, our oven needs to be at LEAST ten degrees hotter than recipes call for and bake for at LEAST 10 minutes longer. This time, not so much. FUCK YOU FOODNETWORK.COM. You lied to me. Your cake sucks. Heh, just kidding. It was pretty tasty, even though one of the layers broke. I’ll probably try a different recipe next time I make this cake. The reviews of it were 50/50 and it wasn’t specific as to the tempature and time it took.

I will post the frosting recipe though. This was the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. The frosting was perfectly light and fluffy after mixing it forever in the mixer. Much better with the stand mixer this time instead of using the hand mixer. I managed to get powdered sugar everywhere (again). Tip for making things in the stand mixer: mix it up a bit by hand first (just squish everything together a few times with your clean hands) to get all the powdered sugar a bit wet with the butter and cream cheese. The mixer is a bit too powerful for the sugar in the beginning without a little extra help.

I will forever use this recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
• 2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup), softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand-held electric mixer in a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, and butter on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. (Occasionally turn the mixer off, and scrape the down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.)

Reduce the speed of the mixer to low. Add the vanilla, raise the speed to high and mix briefly until fluffy (scrape down the bowl occasionally). Store in the refrigerator until somewhat stiff, before using. May be stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Yield: enough to frost a 3 layer (9-inch) cake

Chef: Sara Moulton

It really isn’t necessary to be hungry when you eat cake.

Ok, I couldn’t think of a clever name for cinnamon rolls, besides just, you know, cinnamon rolls. But! These things were amazing. I say were, because I made them Sunday and I’m pretty sure they are all gone now that it is Monday morning.

The need for cinnamon rolls started when the boyfriend and I went to breakfast on Saturday at the Rusty Pelican Cafe and they were serving a Valentine’s day menu. While I’m not a big Valentine’s day fan, I do love to eat. Especially chocolate… and sugar… and butter. They were serving huge cinnamon rolls. We LOVE cinnamon rolls! Obviously, we had to order one to eat before our actual breakfast came. It was delicious, with a glaze as the frosting and definitely the size of two cinnamon rolls.

This little bit of cinnamon rolls prompted me to make some of my own. I have been trying to figure out what to make with my kitchen aid stand mixer. I’m not much of a baker, so this is uncharted territory for me. I also wanted to make something nice for the boyfriend, as they are his favorite and he needs some brain food for midterms. With a quick google search, I found the following recipe. Originally found on allrecipes.com and reblogged on goodeatsblog.com, I will present you with a delicious recipe that somehow I didn’t mess up the first time around. They took me about 3-4 hours to make, but that was because of rising time, figuring out what to do next, and cleaning the kitchen in between. Give yourself a full morning or afternoon to make them, or make the dough the night before you want to eat them in the morning. If you are going to be hangin around the house on a Sunday morning, these are a perfect treat to present your roommates with!

Clone of a Cinnabon

Ingredients

Dough:

1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C) (I heated up the milk in the microwave for 1 minute and this was just fine for making the yeast bubble)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup butter, melted
4 1/2 cups bread flour (mine only needed 4 cups of flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Filling:

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

Frosting:

1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Heat up 1 cup of milk in microwave for 1 minute. Add yeast and 1tsp of sugar. This will activate the yeast. As it dissolves, the yeast will start to foam and bubble. Cover the yeast/milk/sugar mixture and let sit for about 10 minutes before adding to the dough mix.
2. In your Kitchen Aid stand mixer, add the yeast/milk/sugar mix, along with your eggs, melted butter, 3 cup of flour, salt and sugar. Mix with your flat beater on a medium speed until combined. From here, switch to your bread hook attachment to knead to dough and add 1/2 cup of flour. Turn to speed 2. Keep adding flour to the dough until it stops sticking to the side.  I had 4 cups of flour total before it stopped sticking to the side. The recipe called for 4 1/2 cups of flour, so I added the last 1/2 cup and it made my dough too dry. From here, I added a little bit of water and more flour by the tablespoon until it looked right. I think the moral of that story is…if it stops sticking before the amount of flour you are supposed to you, stop fucking with it.
3. Transfer the dough to a greased bowl (I gave mine a few good sprays of PAM) and cover. I’ve found that the best way to get your dough to rise in a timely fashion is to cover your bowl in plastic wrap and put a towel over it. Let rise for an hour (until it is doubled in size, although, I can never tell if it actually doubled), and put it on a flat, floured surface. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes.
4. In a bowl, combine the cinnamon and brown sugar for the filling. Roll out your dough to be a rectangle and spread butter all over it. I have no idea if I actually used 1/3 cup of butter, I just spread until it looked good. The recipe says to make the rectangle to be abuot 16x21. I’m going to guess mine was that size, but you know, it will still bake and stuff it isn’t the EXACT size.  
5. Once the filling has been evenly dispursed over the dough, its time to roll it up and cut! Cut your roll with a bread knife into 12 pieces. Grease a 9x13 pan (again, I used some trusty PAM spray), and lay the rolls flat on the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again for about 30 minutes, or until double in size. I didn’t know if they actually doubled in size, but they rose enough to touch each other, which I felt was good enough.
6. Heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake the rolls for 15 minutes. Mine took about 24 minutes, but start with 15 and go up in 5 minute increments. You want the rolls to pop and look a nice golden brown.
7. While your rolls are baking, make the frosting. Combine powdered sugar, cream cheese, salt and butter in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer. I could have done this in the kitchen aid mixer, but I let a friend use my whisk attachment and therefore didn’t have the proper frosting making equipment for the stand one. But! I did have my kitchen aid hand mixer, and proceeded to make a mess by getting powdered sugar all over the counter. The frosting was pretty delicious, but I could have used more for sure. When in doubt, more frosting is better, duhz. When the rolls are baked to perfection, take out of the oven and spread frosting all over the place. It will melt nicely over the top and harden to make sure everything is even.

My only critique of this recipe is that I didn’t get the cinnabon vibe from them. Maybe I made them wrong? I mean, they are off the hook AND the chain, like my  mother would say, but I didn’t get the cinnabon vibe. I guess I need fluffier frosting to complete that taste. Either way, I still consumed at least 3 of them last night and one for breakfast in the morning, you know, to make sure they were not posionous and eatible…. Good tip- if you have (and I don’t know how this would happen) some left after “taste testing” them, heat in the microwave for 30 seconds to warm up and melt the frosting again. This is the perfect amount of time to get that “fresh baked” feel.