Cookbook Club: Heading to Louisiana

This month's recipe for the Cookbook Club is from the book River Road Recipes IV: Warm Welcomes. The book features recipes in Louisiana Cajun style. The pick for this month was Shrimp and Tasso Pasta. I had never heard of Tasso, which I learned is a spicy ham. It can be difficult to find outside of Louisiana, so a number of items can be substituted: salt pork, pancetta, prosciutto, Canadian bacon, or smoked ham. Our grocery store didn't have Tasso, so I used a pepper-spiced ham.
The recipe was surprisingly quick to prepare. I planned to make it on a Sunday instead of a weeknight because I was expecting it to take awhile to make. However, I found that this meal could be easily made for a weeknight meal.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I used whole wheat egg noodles. I used butter instead of margarine and cut the amount in half; the meal was plenty buttery. I also used only about a half pint of cream. I can't imagine using two whole pints - I think the dish would have been rather soupy. A half pint seemed to give a nice consistency, and I was glad to not have all of the fat and calories of two pints of cream.
The Shrimp and Tasso Pasta was a tasty dish. I would have to say that I prefer a similar recipe by Emeril, Shrimp and Pasta in a Tomato-Chile Cream Sauce. Both recipes are below.

Shrimp and Tasso Pasta
From River Road Recipes IV: Warm Welcomes

Tasso gives a smoky flavor to this seafood pasta dish. This freezes well and is an excellent dish to take to a friend with a new baby or a death in the family.

16 ounces fine or wide egg noodles
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped (optional)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
8 garlic cloves, chopped
½ cup (1 stick) margarine
2 pints heavy cream
1 pound deveined peeled shrimp
2 cups chopped tasso (reminder: substitutes include salt pork, pancetta, prosciutto, Canadian bacon or smoked ham)
Crushed red pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Creole seasoning to taste
Paprika to taste
¾ cup (3 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente; drain. Cover to keep warm. Saute the bell peppers, onion, celery, green onions, and garlic in the margarine in a large skillet until the vegetables are tender. Add the heavy cream and shrimp and mix well.

Cook for two minutes or until the shrimp turn pink, stirring frequently. Fold in the tasso and pasta. Season with red pepper, salt, creole seasoning, and paprika and sprinkle with the cheese.

Serves 6 to 8.


Shrimp and Pasta in a Tomato-Chile Cream Sauce
from Emeril Lagasse

1/4 cup kosher salt
1 pound linguine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons Essence, recipe follows
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1/4 cup finely chopped jalapeno
1 tablespoon minced garlic
11/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup reserved pasta cooking water
1 cup grated Pepper Jack cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves

Set a large 1-gallon stock pot of water to a boil and add the kosher salt. Place the linguine in the pot and stir the pot until the water returns to a boil. Cook the pasta until tender, but with a bit of resistance (al dente), about 12 minutes. Drain a reserve 1/2 cup pasta water.

While the pasta cooks, prepare the sauce. Set a 12-inch saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter and olive oil to the pan. Once the butter has melted, season the shrimp with 1 tablespoon of the Essence and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and add the shrimp to the pan. Sear the shrimp until well browned on both sides, about 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add the onions and jalapenos to the pan and saute until the onions are softened and lightly caramelized, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic to the pan and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the cream, remaining 1 tablespoon of Essence, remaining 1 1/4 teaspoons of the salt and the pepper to the pan and bring to a boil. Cook the sauce until the cream is reduced by half, about 2 minutes.

Return the shrimp to the pan, and add the tomatoes, linguine and the reserved cooking water to the pan and cook, tossing to incorporate for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and add the Pepper Jack, Parmesan, parsley and basil and toss to blend. Serve immediately.

Emeril's ESSENCE Creole Seasoning (also referred to as Bayou Blast):
(Note: You can buy this seasoning already made in the spice aisle at the grocery store.)
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

Yield: 2/3 cup

Cake Slice Bakers October 2010: Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

I love just about all things pumpkin. I love pumpkin muffins (especially the Starbucks ones with the cream cheese in the center), pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, and pumpkin bread. Oddly enough, I dislike pumpkin pie.

This is my first month baking with The Cake Slice Bakers. This is an online baking group that bakes their way through a selected cake book each year. The book for this year is Cake Keeper Cakes by Laura Chattman. What's nice about this book is that the recipes are innovative yet simple. Some may require glazes, but all are single layer cakes that don't require frosting. These are perfect "weeknight cakes" - they're easy enough to make that you can come home from work and make one to have for dessert that very night.

So back to the pumpkin. This month's pick is Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. Yum! I remember eating pound cake at my grandma's house as a kid, although hers was always store-bought. She would often put a store-bought cake on a fancy plate and insist that she baked it. I asked her once why it's called pound cake, and she replied, "Because you can eat as much of it as you want and you won't gain a pound." While that's not true, it won't keep me from gobbling up some of this cake.

A couple of notes:
The chocolate chips are a nice addition, and I suspect that cinnamon chips would also be good. I omitted the walnuts for two reasons: 1) I'm not a fan of nuts in baked goods, and 2) I was planning to take the cake into work and am always hesitant to bring in food with nuts in case of allergies. I used whole milk. I also had skim in the fridge but figured the whole milk would be richer. I checked the cake at 55 minutes, but it needed some more time. It was perfect at one hour.
Baking the cake made the house smell like fall. I wish I could bottle the smell! It was beautiful when it came out - a perfect brown. I let it cool a bit before cutting it, but I had my first piece while it was still warm. It was delicious! The cake itself is very moist with a great pumpkin flavor - not too spicy or sweet - and the chocolate chips add a really nice touch. I think this will become a go-to fall recipe!

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

1 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat the inside of a 9-inch by 5-inch loafe pan with nonstick cooking spray and dust it with flour.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Combing the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream with an elective mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, about three minutes, scraping down the sides of th bowl once or twice as necessary.
4. With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sidea of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Stir in the milk.
5. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the flour mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake the cake until it is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour. Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes, invert it onto a wire rack, and then turn it right side up on a rack to cool completely.
7. Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic, for up to 1 week.

Hey, Paula! Your Sons Are Hot, But...

Let's face it...Paula Deen has hot sons. And they are so sweet. And they can cook. What more could you want from a man? With all that being said, I have to say that I didn't love a recipe for a chicken and rice casserole from The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook.

This recipe was the October pick for my cookbook club. I thought that a Paula Deen casserole couldn't be too bad. I was surprised that there was no butter in this recipe, but there was some cheese.

It's really a simple meal to make. There is very little prep - just cutting the onions and sauteeing them in some olive oil and making the Uncle Ben's rice. Then all of the canned ingredients (green beans, water chestnuts, and pimentos) need to be drained and rinsed and the water chestnuts chopped. Very simple prep.

The recipe calls for three cups of chopped cooked chicken. I decided to use the white meat from a rotisserie chicken, which definitely saved me the time of roasting several breasts of chicken and waiting for them to cool enough to handle to chop. I used cream of chicken soup instead of cream of celery because my husband grabbed the wrong can at the store. (He swears that he pulled the can from the cream of celery dispenser.) The cream soup was the Campbell's 98% fat free variety. All of the ingredients get mixed together and then go into a casserole dish.
The casserole bakes for 25 minutes. What I loved best about this is that it gave me enough time to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes so there was no clean-up left to do after we ate dinner.
When it came out of the oven, I have to say that I thought it looked pretty good. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my favorite. I tend to cook with fresh ingredients, and I think that's why I didn't love this recipe. I detest canned green beans, but they weren't as bad in the casserole. I thought the water chestnuts just didn't go with the dish. I enjoy their texture in spinach dip but didn't like them here.

My 20-month-old loved it and asked for a second bowl. She usually won't eat chicken, so I've learned that casseroles are the way to sneak in some extra protein. My husband said, "It tastes like something my mom would have cooked in 1986." My mother-in-law isn't a bad cook, but she tends to cook dishes like this because it's all my father-in-law will eat. When my husband told him what we were having for dinner he said, "Oh, that sounds good."

So while I'd still be happy to have a dinner date with either of the Deen boys, I would hope that they pick a different meal to make for me.

Chicken and Rice Casserole

Serves 6 to 8

3 cups diced, cooked chicken

1 medium onion, diced and sauteed

One 8-ouce can water chestnuts, drained and chopped

Two 14-ounce cans water chestnuts, drained and chopped

One 4-ounce can pimentos, rinsed and drained

One 10.5 ounce can condensed cream of celery soup

1 cup mayonnaise

One 6-ounce box of Uncle Ben's long-grain and wild rice, cooked according to package directions

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients together and pour into a 3-quart casserole dish. Bake for 25 minutes.

Heaven in My Mouth

Fall is my favorite time of year. Not only do I love how the weather gets cooler, allowing one to wear sweaters and jeans, but I love fall cooking - soups, stews, casseroles. And I also enjoy fall baking. After months of "I want to bake something, but I don't want the oven to heat up the house," the urge to bake can easily be handled without the worry of turning the house into a sauna.

I have made two different types of apple cakes this fall. For my husband's birthday, I made an apple spice cake (from Martha Stewart's website) with a cinnamon buttercream frosting. Pretty yummy! I took some of it into work, and the Dean gave it an A+. The other cake I've made is an apple cake with a brown sugar glaze. The apples make the cake so moist, and the glaze, made with brown sugar, butter, and cream really tastes just like caramel. The cake and glaze together provides a caramel apple sensation, but without the caramel getting stuck to your teeth. As a side note, I actually had a bruised tooth from eating a caramel apple. Who knew you could bruise a tooth? I didn't until I went to the dentist for pain that started after eating a caramel apple, and he said that it had bruised my tooth. So, I offer a 99.4% guarantee that this cake will not cause teeth bruising.

And by the way, this cake is delicious served still warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Here's the recipe!

Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze (from Southern Cakes)

Apple Cake

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups finely chopped apples (I used Granny Smith)

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional - I omitted)

Brown Sugar Glaze

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon heavy cream

For the cake: Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-ince pan (round or square) and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir with a whishk to combine.

In large bowl, mix the eggs with a hand mixer until light in color and foamy. Add the oil and vanilla and beat well. Stir in the flour mixture with a spoon and continue stirring the batter until the flour disappears. Add the apples and nuts and stir to mix them into the batter.

Scrape batter into prepapred pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Place the hot cake on a wire rack. Whie it's still hot, prepare the glaze.

For the glaze: Combine all the ingredients into a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture comes to a gentle boil. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Spoon the hot glaze over the still hot-from-the-oven cake. Let the glazed cake cool completely before serving straight from the pan.

Welcome to the Club

I've been a slacker with this blog thing. The reason I have been such a slacker here is because I haven't been a slacker in the other areas of my life. Since the semester began, I find myself trying to balance work and the rest of my life, which unfortunately means less time to bake and less time to blog.

Anyway, I have some exciting news. (At least I find it exciting - you may not.) I am now a member of two blogging groups: The Cake Slice Bakers and the Moving to Maryland Cookbook Club. I have been following The Cake Slice Bakers through two of the blogs I regularly read - Lick the Bowl Good and McPolish - and have longed to be part of this club. The group picks a cake cookbook once each year and then bakes one cake a month from the book and blogs about it. October will be my first month baking with the club, and I'm really excited!

The Moving to Maryland Cookbook Club is a group I learned about through a friend - her friend actually started the blogging group. Each month, one member selects a recipe from one of her cookbooks she has been wanting to try. She shares the recipe with others in the group, and everyone makes it and blogs about it. September's recipe is from Rachael Ray's book 2, 4, 6, 8, a book that I own but have barely used. The selected recipe was for Mega Meat Stuffed Shells. Here are my thoughts on the recipe. 1) You can use less red pepper flakes than the recipe calls for. I only used 1/8 of a teaspoon, and it was still plenty spicy. 2) The shells need to cook a little bit longer. The centers were chewy. 3) If I make this recipe again, I will put the sauce over the shells in a casserole dish and put them in the oven for just a bit. Without this added step, I felt that they were too dry. To serve with the shells, I made a Warm Mushroom and Sherry Vinegar Salad, also from the 2, 4, 6, 8 book on page 63. I omitted the celery and used spinach rather than the recommended greens. The salad was so yummy!

Lastly, unrelated to either baking/cooking club, I made a rather delicious cake this past weekend. It was a piece of cake to make. (Pardon the lame pun.) It starts from a box mix, and you add other ingredients to make it special. I found it on the Better Homes and Gardens website after doing a Google search for "fall cakes." The recipe is for a Butterscotch Marble Cake. I found the name a bit of a misnomer because it's not really marbled. I did my best to marble it by running a knife through the batter and was surprised upon cutting the first slice that my cake turned out just like the picture. I took most of the cake to work today, and it was gone in less than an hour. I had co-workers upset that they didn't get a piece!

I'm hoping that things will slow down a bit soon or that I at least get more of a grip on life so I can find some more time for baking. I'm looking forward to fall cooking and baking - casseroles, soups, stews, pumpkin, and apple.

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

When my neighbor was away a couple weeks ago, she told me to help myself to her garden. She had some ginormous zucchini, and I was still working my way through the first of the two I picked. I've made a couple of zucchini dishes, a chocolate-orange zucchini bundt cake, and today some chocolate zucchini muffins with chocolate chips. When the baking itch set in this afternoon (I think it was the cool weather that prompted it), I checked out my favorite cooking/baking blogs. On For the Love of Cooking I found the muffin recipe and thought it'd be a great way to use up the rest of the zucchini. I liked that the recipe used whole wheat flour, making the muffins somewhat nutritious between the flour and zucchini.

Ingredients:
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 cup of flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup of milk
3/4 cup of canola oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup of zucchini, shredded (I usually shred mine in the food processor, but today I just did it by hand on a box grater)
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a muffin tray with cooking spray.

In a large bowl combine the flours, sugar, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cocoa, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix thoroughly.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the shredded zucchini and stir. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until just combined then add the chocolate chips. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tray, filling each cup to the top.

Bake in the oven for 17-20 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the muffins cool before serving.


I was a bit surprised at how runny the batter was, but the muffins came out great. They are light and moist.

And while I'm showing off the muffins, why not show off the beautiful flowers the hubs picked up for me...just because?

Do Chickens Have Ovaries?

The hubs works with a woman who has a farm, and she brings in fresh eggs for her co-workers to buy. In the dozen eggs we got from her, there is one teeny, tiny egg. I guess it's not that tiny, just tiny relative to a standard large chicken egg. So then I got to thinking: what determines the size of the egg? How often do chickens lay eggs? And where do the eggs come from? Human females are born with all of their eggs and then once they reach menstruation age during adolescence, they release on egg per month. Chickens, being as small as they are, can't be born with all of their eggs. At least not full sized ones, right? So then I wondered if chickens even have ovaries?

So I did what any good researcher would do: I Googled it. The exact phrase I Googled was "do chickens have ovaries?" Now the results weren't from any academic source, such as the ones I require my students to use when doing research. But I did find some information posted by chicken farmers, so I figured that they probably know what they're talking about. Here is some interesting information about chickens, eggs, and ovaries.

1) Yes, they do have ovaries.
2) Believe it or not, the egg laying process for a chicken begins in its eye. Chickens lay eggs only after receiving a light cue, either from natural sunlight entering a coop or artificial light illuminating a commercial egg hatchery. The light stimulates a photo-receptive gland near the chicken's eye, which in turn triggers the release of an egg cell from the chicken's ovary. (So I guess this means that they already have eggs in their ovaries, yes? But they must be microscopic. They can't be full-sized Grade A large eggs. A chicken ovary can't hold all of those eggs.)
3) Chickens lay about one egg every 26 hours. They tend to lay one egg per day for about six days before resting for a day. This is particularly true for chickens in captivity. Wild chickens and other wild birds may rest for months before laying more eggs.
4) Chickens less than one year old (called pullets) lay small eggs and will lay larger ones when they get older. Pullets also tend to lay one egg every three to four days and then increase the frequency of their laying (sounds dirty - like a chicken whore!) when they get older.
5) Chickens do not need a rooster to lay eggs. In fact, if the goal of the farmer is to produce eggs, the roosters must be kept away. The eggs we get at the grocery store are unfertilized. If the egg becomes fertilized, it'll turn into a chick. (I guess this makes sense - human women can ovulate without a male but needs male sperm to create a baby.)
6) And finally, one tidbit of info that I already knew: there is no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs.

So now I have learned a number of very interesting facts about chickens, eggs, and ovaries. In fact, I think I've learned a lot about birds in general this year. For example, in the spring, I learned that blue jays and cardinals don't mate and produce purple birds because blue jays and cardinals are different species. Good to know.