Layered Mexican Pizza

This is a scrumptious recipe that you can really play around with in the kitchen.

We don't have pinto beans
so we improvised with "foul beans"
(pronounced "fool").

You'll need:

• 1/2 a medium sized onion
• 2 (ish) tablespoons of butter
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, pressed
• 1 can refried beans
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can pinto beans, drained (really, you can use any combination of these beans... even 3 cans of black beans)
• 1 small can of corn, drained (Let's not get too specific here, use as much or as little corn as you prefer.)
• 1/2 bell pepper
• 3 tomatoes
• 2 cups (ish) of shredded cheese of your choice
• 1 package of taco seasoning (or this recipe)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (about a handful unchopped)
• salt (to taste)
• 6 (8 inch) tortillas
• sour cream
• 1-2 avocados, chopped

Now on with it!

1.  Chop your onion and mince or press your garlic (basically you want your garlic to be in the tiniest pieces possible).  Melt the butter in a small skillet over medium-high heat and add the garlic and onion.  Cook until the onion it is done (taste it to test it).

2.  Meanwhile, chop your bell pepper (as small as you like) and tomatoes.  Set them aside.

3.  In a saucepan, mix together beans, corn, peppers, salt, and taco seasoning.  Heat them together until warm.

4.  Stir in the garlic-butter-onion concoction and the cilantro (the cilantro was a last minute addition to ours, so we just sprinkled it on each layer).  

5.  Grease two round 9 inch cake pans.  

Here's a shot of one set of layers.

6. Layer in the pans starting with a tortilla, then bean mixture, then cheese, and lastly, tomatoes.  Finish with a tortilla and cheese on top.  You'll use three tortillas per pan.  So, it'll go like this: tortilla-beans-cheese-tomatoes-tortilla-beans-cheese-tomatoes-tortilla-cheeeeeeeeese (we like cheese).

7.  Repeat with the second pan.

8.  Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned on top and the cheese is all delicious looking.

9.  Top with sour cream and chopped avocado pieces, cut into slices (we used a pizza cutter, naturally), and eat!

What's nice about this recipe is that you can easily make it your own.  Add or take out whatever you prefer!  Try some lettuce, chives, salsa, etc., and tell us how you made yours!

Onion Chopping with Austin

Baked Potato Soup, Butternut Squash Braid, and Banana Crumb Bread

It's best to start with the Butternut Squash Braid on this one:

You'll need:

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons warm water (110 degrees F to 115 degrees F)
• 1/2 of a butternut squash
• 1/3 cup warm milk (110 to 115 degrees F)
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3-3.5 cups  flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon water

And here's how to do it:

Butternut squash cut in half

1.  Start by slicing your full-sized butternut squash lengthwise in half.  You'll only be using one half of this squash.  The rest will keep in the fridge if you wrap it in plastic wrap.  Then scoop out the seeds and guts and discard (or bake the seeds for a yummy snack!).  

2.  Cube the rest of your squash and steam it using a steaming basket.  If you don't have a steaming basket, boil your squash until it's tender (think mashed potatoes).  We cooked and mashed our butternut squash in our baby food maker (amazing).  
 3.  Now you're going to concoct a yeast paste by dissolving the yeast in the warm water.  It's pretty important for the water to be the right temperature so try and use a thermometer if you have one.  Once your paste is dissolved, set it aside.
4.  Combine your squash, milk, egg, butter, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl (or stand mixer bowl) and mix it well.
5.  Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and the yeast goo and give it a good mix.  Slowly add the rest of your flour until it becomes a soft (and perhaps a little sticky) dough.
6.  If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, attach the dough hook and knead for 4-5 minutes.  If you don't have a KitchenAid stand mixer, turn your dough (which basically means "put your dough) onto a floured surface, (If you get some flour on your hands first, this is a much easier process) and knead for 6-8 minutes.

Floured dough ball

7.  Put your dough ball in a greased mixing bowl (just spray it with oil), cover it with a kitchen towel, and let it rise for an hour or until it doubles in size.  (If it's particularly cold in your house, like ours, it will take quite a bit longer.)

8.  After it rises the first time, punch it down, and turn it onto a floured surface. Divide it into 3 equally sized balls.  Roll each ball out into an 18 inch "rope."  Lay them on a greased cookie sheet and braid them just like you would braid hair. Pinch the ends and fold them under a bit.

Braided

9.  Cover your braid with a kitchen towel and let it rise for another 30 minutes or until it has doubled in size again. 

Braid after it has risen

10.  Make an egg wash by combining the beaten egg and tablespoon of water in a small bowl.
11.  Brush your braid with the egg wash and bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes or until it's golden brown.

mmmm...

Now for the Baked Potato Soup!

You'll need:

• 2-3 large baking potatoes
• 1-2 tablespoons of butter
• a small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 tablespoons of flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 3 cups of chicken broth (easily made with chicken bullion if you don't have broth on hand)
• 1 cup half and half (or 1/2 c. milk plus a 1/2 c. cooking cream)
• shredded cheddar cheese (to your liking---we like a lot)

Now let's get to it:

Dirty, fresh potatoes

1.  Wash your potatoes, especially if they look like ours (suuuuper fresh).
2.  Cook your potatoes however you like.  You can bake them in the oven for an hour, boil them in water and simmer for 30-40 minutes, or  microwave them.  Basically you want soft, mashable potatoes.
3.  Melt your butter in a large saucepan while you chop your onion.  If you're looking for an easy way to chop an onion, check this out.  Mince your garlic using a garlic press.  There's little else better in the cooking world than a solid garlic press.
4.  Cook your onions and garlic in the butter until the onions are soft (test by taste).
5.  Add the flour, salt, basil, and pepper and mix well.

After adding the flour, it'll look a little dry.

  

6.  Slowly add the chicken broth and mix it well.

After adding the chicken broth, let it boil for 2 min.

7.  Bring it to a boil and let it boil for about 2-3 minutes.
8.  Turn down the heat, add the half and half and the potatoes (mash them up a bit--however you like them).  Heat it through, but don't boil it.

Don't boil it after adding the half and half.

9.  Add cheese just before you serve it up.

um.. yum!

For the sweet Banana Crumb Bread

You'll need:

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup very ripe mashed bananas (about 2 large bananas) (ours weren't "very ripe" but they worked fine)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 egg whites (you can separate yolks from whites using a separator or by using the eggshell)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I left this out of ours and didn't notice)

and also...

• 3/4 cups of quick cooking oats
• 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup

and lastly...

• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tsp milk
• 1 pinch of ground cinnamon

Let's get on with it...

Scrumptious!

Banana bread batter

1.  Combine the flours, sugar, and baking powder.  Wisk it together in order to mix it well.
2.  Add the banana, butter, egg whites, and vanilla.  Mix it only until it's wet.  You do not want to over-mix this!
3.  Coat your desired pan with cooking spray.  We used four mini-loaf pans.  

4.  Spread the batter evenly throughout your pan(s).
5.  Mix together the middle set of ingredients.  Evenly coat the bread with this crumb topping.
6.  Bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes (adjust if you're using different pans and check it often).
7. Combine the last set of ingredients and drizzle over the top of your bread.

Some notes on pacing: Start the braid way in advance as it has to rise twice.  The good thing is that your potato soup will stay warm on very low heat, so if the timing is off a little, you can still serve it hot without overcooking it.  The banana bread can be made in advance as it's really good both warm and cooled, or you can set it up to go in the oven just as dinner is being served (don't forget to set a timer!)

Step into our kitchen...

Now that we've had our first meal together, we'd like to formally invite you to our kitchen.  We're basically two twenty-somethings who love spending time in this particular room of our apartment (so much so that our son has permanent "kitchen toys").  First, a little about us:

Just a mere 5 years ago, Kayti's idea of cooking was a Betty Crocker "Meal in a Box" deal (barf).  In high school, she once murdered a box-mix of cookies by baking them with spreadable butter.  (Nice one.)  You'd never know it now though as she lives for baking delicious goodies from the oven and grieves over "burnt" pancakes.

Austin's first cooking memory is spreading about a half cup of Easy Bake cake mix into the bottom of a full sized cake pan. Apparently someone had bought him an Easy Bake mix, but not the pans to cook it in... needless to say, disappointment followed. Since then, his cooking has thankfully taken a turn for the better. Around college-time, when home cooked meals disappeared faster than you can overcook an egg, returning to the kitchen became the best alternative to the cafeteria and the "Freshman Fifteen." Though rarely revisiting cake baking (Kayti usually handles this part), he now throughly enjoys big fresh flavors and new recipes.

Our vision for this blog is to bring you:

• Simple Recipes: Not that our recipes will be dull or mundane, but we hope to simplify them for the amateur cooks (like ourselves) by explaining techniques that we've learned as well as deciphering cook-ish vocabulary along the way.
• Useful meals you can make: Most of our posts will be complete meals that we're making here at home.  Seriously, you're really just coming into our kitchen... except... you actually have to cook it again.  (We've done the planning for you though--so, yay!)
• Easy how-to's: There are some things that we'll trial-and-error for you... step... by... step.  No holding back either, if we screw up, you'll see it.  
• Fresh Ingredients: It is difficult (and/or expensive) to buy processed foods where we live (not to mention incredibly unhealthy to eat) so most of what we push out onto the dinner table will be made from scratch with fresh ingredients.  Don't be scared of "from scratch."  Most people don't understand how simple cooking from the ground up can really be!
• Entertaining Reads: Recipes can be boring in blog form, so we plan to talk with you and show you plenty of pictures.  This will make for lengthy posts, but we'll try to use font to highlight the important parts when you're going back in just for the recipe.  (We highly recommend copying down the recipe on a card or notebook though.)
• and of course... deliciousness!

We hope you'll comment, question, and contribute. We've made a lot of mistakes before, and sometimes it's hard to remember what we've done wrong so if something is unclear or if you have a problem that we didn't cover, please ask. You're probably not the only one with that question!

Chicken Scampi, Green Beans, and Truffle Brownie Cups

Let's start with the chicken scampi:

Here are the basics of what you'll need. We'll talk about spicing it up a bit in a moment...

• 1/2 cup (1 stick or 113 g) butter 
• 1/4 cup olive oil 
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley (or a sprig of chopped fresh parsley) 
• 1 teaspoon dried basil (or a sprig of chopped fresh basil - just the leaves though) 
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano (or a short sprig of fresh oregano - again, just the leaves)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (This can be bought in a jar OR you can mince garlic with a garlic press. If you have neither just chop it up a bit) 
• 3/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (Preferably from an actual lemon, but fake plastic bottle that looks like a lemon will do.) 
• 4 boneless chicken breast halves, sliced lengthwise into thirds 
• 1 package of long pasta (or make your own!) - fettuccine or linguine would be nice

Directions 

sauce on the back burner

1. In a medium to large sized skillet (something wide and flat) heat the butter or margarine and oil over medium high until the butter/margarine melts. Add the garlic and salt to the pot and mix them in a bit. If you are using dry herbs add them now, but if your lucky enough to have some fresh, wait a bit so you get more taste from them. This is where you can go crazy. Love the taste of parsley, then pile it on. Basil make you nauseous? Leave it out. Why not try some rosemary or thyme? These spices suggested are fairly italian so we wouldn't recommend going outside of this family (a.k.a. allspice probably won't fair well in this recipe). Make this sauce your own! After you're done gettin' busy, stir in the lemon juice. If you're a fan of lemon juice, double it.
2. Toss in (ok, not literally) the chicken and saute (a.k.a let it cook) for about 3 minutes or until it looks white. Lower the heat and cook for it about 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and the juices run clear when you press on the chicken a little. (Try to not overcook the chicken or else it will start to get tough.) If you're using fresh herbs add them 1 to 2 minutes before you serve.

Serve the chicken scampi over linguine or fettuccine pasta.... or anything else you have lying around. We l.o.v.e. fresh pasta so Austin whipped some up for our dinner tonight. If you want to make fresh pasta he follows a method similar to this one. Once you're used to it, it's really not that much effort, but if it's a first for time with this kind of recipe, some store bought pasta would be perfect too.


On to the veggie...
For the green beans you'll need...

• Fresh Green beans 
• Celery Seed 
• Salt and Pepper 

Directions:

1. Rinse your beans and snip off the ends. Cut them however you like. For our dinner tonight, we sliced them lengthwise. You can leave them whole, cut them diagonally, or cut them lengthwise twice. 
2. Fill a pot up with a little bit of water (maybe an inch) and insert a steamer. If you don't have a steamer, just put the green beans directly in the water. Put the green beans in the steamer and cover the lid. Check on your beans every once in awhile by tasting one. Everyone likes their beans different, so cook them as long as you like. (You can also boil the beans in a pot of water, but steaming allows more of the nutrients from the beans to stay in the beans rather than get lost in the water.) 
3. Remove the green beans from the pot and put them in a bowl. Season with celery seed, salt, and pepper as you like. If you have celery salt rather than celery seed, then skip the regular salt. Try other seasonings too! 

chicken scampi, fresh pasta, and celery infused green beans

... and Kayti's favorite part of the meal... dessert...truffle brownie cups...
This recipe comes from The Pampered Chef.
You'll need:

• 1 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 2/3 c. flour
• 3/4 c. heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Our homemade double boiler

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Grease and flour a mini-muffin pan. We used vegetable oil in a re-fillable bottle like this one. To flour a pan, just spoon a pinch of flour into each cup. Hold the pan over the sink and knock it around until the bottoms and sides are coated. 
2. Place 2/3 of the chocolate morsels and butter in a small metal bowl inserted into a small cooking pot filled with an inch of boiling water. This is called "double-boiling." It's a great way to melt chocolate, especially if you don't have a microwave. (If you do have a microwave, but the chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl for 40-60 seconds and stir halfway through.) Stir the chocolate regularly until it's smooth. (Note: I (Kayti) actually forgot to add the butter---whoops--and they still came out delicious.) 
3. Transfer the metal bowl to your counter and add the sugar and egg. 
4. Add the flour and mix until it's incorporated. (Since I forgot to add the butter, I noticed the consistency was a little off, so I didn't add all the flour.) 
5. Divide the batter evenly among the mini-muffin wells. We used a small cookie scoop (2 tsp. size). Press each one down so that it is flat. We have this handy tool from The Pampered Chef for making little tartlets. 
6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are set. Don't over cook these bad boys. The first batch...er... I forgot to set the timer and well... 
7. Microwave the cream for 1-2 minutes (or heat using the double boiler method mentioned above) until hot and stir in 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Wisk it until it's smooth and then stick it in the freezer for 10-12 minutes. Check on it halfway through and give it another wisk. 
8. Spoon this lovely chocolate sauce (called a ganache) into a resealable plastic bag. (If you fold the top of the bag down a few inches, it will be much less messy.) 
9. When they're finished, pull the brownies from the oven and cool for 2 minutes. Then press each one with your finger to make a little well (we used our nifty tartlet tool mentioned previously). Let them cool another 3 minutes. 
10. Remove the brownies from the pan. 
11. Cut off a SMALL corner of the plastic bag with your ganache (always start small... you can always cut bigger) and squeeze a bit of the ganache into each brownie well. This is called "piping." 

Beautifulness....

As far as pacing goes for this whole meal the major hang ups are going to be the prep work for the brownie truffles, slicing the green beans, and the pasta if you're going to make it fresh. Cooking the chicken, green beans and pasta can all happen pretty much simultaneously-- and if you're feeling confident you should go for that (so that everything will be warm-ish). If you're not so adventurous, take your time and do one at a time to make sure you still have some fun in the kitchen.

Once the brownies have cooked and been pressed, the ganache has cooled, beans are cut and the pasta is ready to be cooked, you should make sure you have a large pot of water boiling. From here everything happens pretty quick so hold on tight, and good luck!