Foodie Night In: Cereal Clusters

I'll be the first to admit it. I fall for the buy one get one deal all the time. I usually find myself in the supermarket with my very innocent list of only things I need. Equipped with my coupon organizer (Yes, I have one and I'm only 23!), I always end up seeing something that I have a coupon for AND it's buy one get one free. How can I say no? Well, I don't and this is how I ended up with two huge boxes of Multi-Grain Cheerios. I finished the first one for breakfast about a month ago, but the other box kept looking at me from atop the fridge just asking to be opened. So, I accepted the challenge and decided to make cereal clusters. Now there are a million different ways to go about this. First off, you need a binder to keep the cereal together, honey, peanut butter, chocolate are perfect for this.

I wanted something semi-healthy, so I chose honey. Then I added in some chopped almonds and some cinnamon and sugar in a large metal mixing bowl and added in the cheerios at the end. Here is a rough estimate of the ingredients, since there is no baking you can take out or add in anything you want really:

3 Cups of Cheerios

1/3 of Organic Honey

1 Teaspoon of Cinnamon

1/2 Cup of Chopped Almonds

1/3 Cup of Sugar (this can be omitted, since the honey is sweet enough)

 

Once everything is mixed all you have to do is line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spoon the amount of mixture you want into clusters. Put in the fridge for at least an hour. Mine didn't really hold well together, I think I will add in some corn syrup next time :) Remember, you are not bind to any of these ingredients. Switch out the cereal, add different nuts/dried fruits, or combine more spices together. There are endless possibilities! Take a look at this recipe that was just a little more successful:

3 Cups of Wheat Bran Cereal

1/2 Cup of Crunchy Peanut Butter

1 Bag of Semi Sweet Chocolate (what's that? About 10 ounces, probably?)

Process was pretty much the same, except I melted the chocolate and peanut butter together in a double boiler. Then I added the cereal to it, spooned it out on parchment paper, and refrigerated for half an hour. Took these to work and none were left!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Quick Irish Soda Bread Recipe!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I awoke this morning with an urge to try out my new recipe for a quick and simple Irish Soda Bread! Check out the ingredients that I am more than sure you have in your pantry right now!

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1/2 Tablespoon Sugar

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

2 Teaspoons Caraway Seeds

1/3 Cup Rolled Oats

1 Cup Water

1 Tablespoon White Vinegar

Mix all the dry ingredients first and then add the water and vinegar to the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix, by hand, for about 1 to 2 minutes (it won't look pretty, but it will be done) place in a greased cake pan, score the top and pop into a 400 Degree Farenheit oven for 25 minutes. So easy and quick!

Right out the oven, cooling on cutting board

First Slice

Foodie Night In: Chocolate Soufflés!

Sometimes you just can't get a recipe out of your mind. It simmers there, in that dark OCD recess of

your mind, until you finally say to yourself, "That's it! I've had it with you! I'm going to once and for all get rid of you!"--by actually making it. So, I came home from work with one word on my mind: Soufflé. But what kind? Savory or Sweet? I had many choices, but I rummaged around my kitchen a bit and decided to make a sweet one. I had all the promising essentials to the beginning of a great dessert. Lots of eggs, sugar, chocolate chips and vanilla. This was going to be easy, right? But wait! What was I thinking? Aren't soufflés probably the number one dessert bakers mess up all the time? Sometimes they don't rise, ending up in a disastrous and embarrassing crater of a cake.

Ah, but who cares? If I pull this off, I will have all the culinary glory among my friends and family. Plus, I can just hide/delete all the pictures I took with my I Phone. It was a win-win situation. I put all fear aside (because soufflés can sense that, you know) and started out by printing out a recipe and modifying it slightly. Blasphemy in the baking world, I am aware of that. I wanted more chocolate, more vanilla (I can never get enough!) and less sugar and eggs. This is what I ended up doing:

3 Extra Large Egg land's Best Egg Yolks
6 Extra Large Egg land's Best Whites
3 Tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon of Vanilla
1/2 Cup of Sugar, more for sprinkling ramekins
1/2 of Unsalted Butter
The juice of half a small lemon
10 ounces of Semisweet Chocolate

First I used a pad of butter to coat the ramekins (Duh, you don't want any of that soufflé sticking to the sides). Then I sprinkled each ramekin with some sugar until it was completely coated. Put some
sugar in the bottom and swirl the oven safe dish around and around, so it covers the sides too. I set all of them in the freezer and then pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure to have your oven rack on the lowest shelf possible, giving your soufflés room to puff up.

Now on to the actually baking part. Bring an inch of water to a boil in a small sauce pan. Put your chocolate and butter together in another bowl and put that on top of the sauce pan, once it boils. Stir occasionally until all has melted. Then in another bowl or mixer (have you hired a dishwasher yet?)
put the water and egg yolks together and beat for about 5 minutes. The chocolate should be done melting, so add your vanilla in there now once you take it off the heat. The egg yolks should be a little frothy and then add the lemon juice to that. Now you are going to add the egg yolk mixture to the chocolate. Fold it in gently because, after all, we want this concoction to be light and airy. Once that is done, you have got to get started with the egg whites. This is fun!!! Put the 6 egg whites in a bowl and beat until they have soft peaks. Then fold half of it into the chocolate and yolk mixture and then add the rest until it's all fully incorporated.

Everything folded in!

Take the ramekins out of the freezer and quickly ladle or spoon out the mixture. It makes about 7-8 servings. Make sure you leave some room for the soufflé to puff up, so don't fill them up all the way. Put the ramekins on a tray (easier to deal with) and put them in the oven for 20 minutes. Once you take them out serve them immediately! They fall flat quickly. Not kidding. Dust with powdered sugar if your clogged artery heart desires! Then sit back and revel in all your glory :)

The Right Opinion: All Food is Necessary

There are many people in this world that I just cannot stand. DMV workers, people who lie and cheat, attention whores with Mohawks and fans of Dave Matthews Band...just to name a few. But the cake has to go to people who disrespect food. Of any type. I know there are some foods out there that are strange and so foreign to us that we cannot even imagine how we would ever want to eat {insert atypical food here} to sustain our health. Pig Rectum, stinky tofu, larvae--these don't sound appealing to some, but you must remember something, these foods have a) kept a civilization alive, b) have been fed to hungry children when parents had no idea where their next meal would come from, or c) have been ingrained and passed down in family traditions. So who are you to turn your noise at a food just because you didn't have to eat it or did not grow up with it? I suggest the next time you want to obnoxiously exclaim, "Ew! That's gross!" take a step back, put yourself in that person's shoes and maybe try the food before you say it's disgusting. Now, of course, there are exceptions. If you do not eat a certain food due to dietary or religious reasons then you have a legit excuse to turn down the food--POLITELY.

In some parts of the word, this food is weird!