Cocolate Puffed Wheat Squares

Chocolate Puffed Wheat Squares









This recipe is always a winner. It's not healthy by any stretch of the imagination (hey, it's got puffed wheat, doesn't that count for anything?! And about a pound of butter and sugar, nice try) but it's good. That much I know.
My mum used to make it for us to take on school trips and the 4L ice cream bucket full of them was licked clean long before we got where we were going and sad was the kid who didn't realise we had brought them and didn't get one.

You can also substitute 4 C Rice Krispies for the puffed wheat. Magical.
But the most magical thing about them? They're dead simple. Even easier than that, really.
And, if you use margarine and not butter, they're vegan. Yum.

(This recipe is from memory, hence the wild-Missus-Mustard-this-does-not-make-sense style instructions.)

Puffed Wheat Squares

1/2 C butter or margarine
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C corn syrup
2 T cocoa powder (feel free to add more!)
2 t salt (this is my addition, but I recommend it)
6 C puffed wheat

Stovetop Directions
1. Melt butter/margarine over low-medium heat in a small saucepan. Add remaining ingredients - except puffed wheat - and stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into an appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. ("Appropriately-sized" meaning, pour the puffed wheat in, and if it looks like the height you wish your squares to be, go for it)
3. Pour chocolate mixture over puffed wheat and stir to coat evenly.
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature, if you can wait that long.

Microwave Directions
1. Melt all ingredients - except puffed wheat - in a large, heat-proof bowl until sugar dissolves or almost dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into bowl with chocolate mixture and stir to coat.
3. Pour mixture into appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. * See above note!
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature. I dare you.

Maybe Dad would like some.

Root Beer Float Cake

Root Beer Float Cake



Recipe from joythebaker.com/blog

I had planned weeks in advance that this was to be my birthday cake. Baked my me. For my own birthday. Yes, my mum thought it was a bit weird too.

So I make the cake. With the whole cup of cocoa powder. And I tell my mum and sister what the icing is meant to be. There is uproar. No, you can't have root beer cake with root beer icing! Make a white icing! It was only after I played the "it's MY birthday!" card that they agreed to go along with this (in their opinion) overly root beery icing.

It turned out perfectly. I have never had a better cake in my existence. It wasn't that root beery but it was all-around delicious and thinking about it's dense, moist chocolateyness makes me want to bake one this instant. And I'm already thinking about that pop/soda to use next.

PS - This is the second cake I have ever made from scratch in my life. The last one being six years ago in Grade 10 at OSS.

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins & Banana Muffins

B Muffins


Blueberry muffins.
My mum used to make these often when I was growing up. I will always remember taking them to school in Kindergarten and having this one boy (Ryan?) asking to trade some of his lunch for my muffin. Hands off, boy! These are some good muffins!


Banana muffins.
Last year, in Switzerland, jonesing for some muffins, I made these. Several times. Because they never stayed around long.

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins
From my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook.

1 1/3 C flour (I used whole wheat, but my mum always made white. I think both are tasty)
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 well-beated egg
3/4 C milk
1/3 C cooking oil (I used melted margerine since I didn't have neutral oil)
1 tsp lemon zest
1 C blueberries (fresh or thawed)

Stir together first 3 ingredients and 3/4 t salt; make well in centre.
Combine egg, milk and oil; add all at once to dry mixture. Add in lemon zest and blueberries.
Stir just till moistened.
Fill well-greased muffin tins 2/3 full.
Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes.
Once muffins are baked and still slightly warm, dip tops in melted butter (we used margerine) and then in sugar. **

** I suppose you could skip the butter and sugar top, but really, why would you? I like to cut back on fat and sugar just as much as the next girl, but I think you should endulge here.

Banana Muffins
Recipe from muffin-paradies.de
(loosely translated by me)

Ingredients
2 ananas
100 g chocolate
60 g butter
120 g sugar
2 T milk
220 g flour (I use whole wheat)
2 t baking powder
1 pinch salt

Method
Preheat oven to 180 Celsius and grease (or spray) muffin tins.
Mash peeled bananas in a bowl. Cut up chocolate (Europeans don't typically have chocolate chips, but you would obviously use them here. Unless cutting up chocolate is your thang)
Mix butter, bananas, milk and sugar well.
Add flour, baking powder, salt and chocolate and mix only until moistened.
Fill muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.

Mum's Banana Bread

Mum's Banana Bread
A Little Taste Of Home



Before I go home in four days. (!?!?)

Quinoa ratatouille, tabouleh & oreos.

Ratatouille with Quinoa


Mister Mustard coordinating his outfit to his cooking endeavours.



We make ratatouille a lot in our house. It will absolutely be made again, and next time it will be accompanied by a recipe!
This was both of our first times eating quinoa. It's curly! And sticky. And distinctively very yummy.


Homemade iced tea. New obsession as it gets warmer.

Tabouleh



Mister Mustard's Tabouleh

1 chopped tomato
1/2 English cucumber, chopped
1/2 chopped red pepper
3 green onions, white & light green bits sliced thinly
1 avocado, chopped (optional. it wasn't used in this picture here, but it's really tasty)
raisins (optional)
chopped parsley (optional)
3-4 servings of cooked couscous

dressing:
Mix in a separate small bowl or measuring cup
2:1 ratio of olive oil : lemon juice (about 1/3 - 1/2 C in total? he said he doesn't know)
salt
pepper
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp paprika
2 tsp dill (I love it, but the Mister hates it, so add accordingly)

Mix together in a big bowl and eat it up! Mister Mustard served it with hummous and tortilla chips.

**Really, we just add whatever vegetable we have in the fridge and think would taste good.

Homemade Oreos



Does using raw, organic sugar instead of 'ol white, refined sugar make a difference in baking? It sure seems to for me. I could feel the crystals in these and it put me off, but the taste was amazing! So I will be trying these again. Either with un-hippyfied sugar or some kind of powder like sucrose or Splenda or something fancy and chemical like that.

Something else I would change (back), is the method of forming the cookies. In the recipe I'm linking to here, she forms them individually (which I thought was a waste of time!), so I rolled my dough into a log, threw it in the fridge and then sliced it. Do it her way. I think they will turn out more compact and less full of air holes. Because Oreos don't have air holes.

I've had a bit of trouble but I do urge you to try these! They are very tasty and the filling is much better than the original. So easy as well. Everybody wins.

Recipe from cupcakeproject.com

PS The only things I made in this episode were the iced tea (go me!) and the oreos. So, thank you Mister Mustard for your yummy lunches and dinners!

Pizza Pinwheels

Pizza Pinwheels REMIX







Chocolate for the Missus, cheese for the Mister.

I got this recipe in Grade 10 Foods class (6 years ago!).
Sorry, Mrs. Bygness, I'm giving your recipe away.

This recipe is amazing. It is so versatile; you can make anything out of it.
When I want baking powder biscuits, I just use the dough without the toppings.
When I want cinnamon buns, I spread butter (or margarine) on the dough, add cinnamon, sugar and raisins.
When I want nommy cheese biscuits, I add grated cheese and spices.
When I want chocolatey biscuits, I spread coconut butter (though regular butter would be fine), add cocoa powder, a touch of sugar and chocolate chips.

Seriously, do what you like with this and it will turn out delicious.

I haven't tried the original intention for this since I made it in Grade 10, but I bet it was good too.

Pizza Pinwheels

375 ml flour
15 ml baking powder
1 1/2 ml salt
60 ml chilled margarine
150 ml milk (In the original it adds: 50ml milk powder. We made our own milk!)

40 ml pizza sauce
grated cheese
vegetables chopped very small
(sliced meat cut into strips, if you wish. I was a vegetarian by then)
spices (I don't know exactly what this was supposed to mean, but I guess pepper, oregano, basil... improvise!)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. (We used metric for the measurements, but not the temperature...)
2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3. Cut in margarine into flour mixture using a pastry blender until mixture is mealy.
4. Gradually add milk to dry ingredients, stirring with a fork until dough forms a soft ball. Knead 6-8 times, on a lightly floured counter.
(If making plain biscuits, at this point, make into small balls, or cut out circles, and bake)
5. Form dough into a circle shape. Using a rolling pin, roll dough out into a rectangle (to about 1/2 cm thick)
6. Spread with pizza sauce (or butter or margarine or coconut butter or whatever!)
7. Sprinkle with cheese, vegetables, (meat) and spices.
8. Roll up like a jelly roll.
9. Using a piece of string or fishing line (I use dental floss), cut into as big of biscuits you want.
10. Place in slightly greased muffin tin.
11. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

(You can tell this recipe was intended for beginners)

They just WORK. Every. Time.
It's also nice for The Mustards, because we only cook for 2 and the recipe does not make that many.

I found this recipe over at edible-moments.blogspot.com which is very very similar to this one here, but her's look more like "real" cinnamon buns. I'll give that one an audition tonight or tomorrow. The icing looks like a very welcome addition as well!

Mister Mustard is getting very hungry; he's burried in an English essay and I'm making mexican.

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup & Brownies

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup




If you take a gander at the (adapted) recipe from smittenkitchen.com, you'll quickly say to yourself
"woah, Missus Mustard, what did you do to it?"
Yeah, yeah. My aforementioned compulsion of recipe changing sometimes gets the best of me. This soup and yesterday's, ahem, adventure of using up the rest of the canned pumkpin I used for this soup to make muffins (no this, no that plus too much pumpkin and applesauce makes for some funky (though still edible) muffins) are just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Usually I can follow my nose and turn out spot-on, though radically different than intended, dishes.
But sometimes. Sometimes...

Lessons learned: PRECOOK DRIED BEANS. Soaking alone is not enough.


Dessert: brownies. With Reese chips.
Recipe adapted from doughmesstic.blogspot.com
They turned out so-so. Much better the day after, though.