K's Recipes Archives - Page 15 of 20

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 12, 2011

Why twelve you say? Well, because this is the Twelve Cookies of Christmas, and today we are officially 12 days from Christmas!

That’s right 12 types of cookies…I have officially gone Christmas cookie overboard. What’s worse is that I made 8 types over the weekend on top of hosting a dinner on Saturday. Let’s just say when Christmas music is playing, I can crank those Christmas cookies out!

So here we are 12 days before Christmas and I thought what would be a better present to all our readers than sharing 12 different recipes for the cookies I have made for the holiday season. Just don’t tell weight watchers that I went this cookie crazy!

What are better than 12 drummers drumming? Well, after going to my boyfriend’s shows for his band Emergency Now, I can tell you that 1 drummer drumming is powerful enough, so 12 of them would probably hurt your ears. Ear plugs would be a must! Anyways back on topic, 12 Salted Chocolate Carmel Shortbread Bars are what are better! This recipe was probably those most labor intensive of the cookies, but holy crap they are amazing. It definitely helped that I made these first. Make them!

Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars

Yield: about 5 dozen small bars
Ingredients:
For shortbread layer-
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup sugar

For caramel layer:
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp. light corn syrup
2 cans sweetened condensed milk

For chocolate layer:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips (chopped if you can’t chips)
1 tsp. light corn syrup
½ cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Fleur de sel or sea salt or Kosher salt

Directions:
For Shortbread layer:

Preheat the oven to 325° F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper so that the paper comes up on the sides. In a bowl mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Next in mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 1-2 minutes or until blended. Slowing the mixer to a lower setting, mix in the dry ingredients. Transfer the dough to the parchment paper lined baking pan and spread out evenly. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden. Make sure the crust doesn’t have any bubbles in it, if so push them down with a spatula. Move pan to a wire rack and let cool.

To make caramel layer-

In a medium sauce pan combine butter, sugar, corn syrup and condensed milk over medium heat. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted. Increase heat to medium-high and bring caramel mixture to a boil. Stirring constantly, reduce to a simmer. Continue, until the mixture thickens and becomes darker (Keep stirring and make sure the heat isn’t too high or it will burn). Pour the caramel over the shortbread layer and smooth out. Chill to harden slightly before pouring chocolate on it.

To make chocolate layer:

In a double boiler combine chocolate, corn syrup, and butter and melt completely until smooth. Pour chocolate mixture on to the caramel layer and spread so that it is even. Allow to cool for a minute then sprinkle with salt. Cover an chill until ready to cut and serve.

Sources: Annie’s Eats and Lisa is Cooking, components originally from Baked and The Golden Book of Baking

-K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on October 30, 2011

These cookies are the cookie I remember growing up with on Halloween. It was in our family cookbook and for some reason these cookies always stood out to me as the go-to Halloween cookie.

Maybe I am so partial to these cookies because of our late cat Cricket, a stray long-haired black cat, whom we had taken in and quickly found a place in all of our hearts. These cookies became even more important to our holiday traditions after owning a black cat. We often thought Cricket was an alien because he tried to act like our dogs and could sort of talk to us. I swear he would say “hellllwwoooo” when we walked into a room or “whaaaaaaaat” when you called his name (maybe not pronouncing the “t,” but you get my point.) A few years ago Cricket died from a bad heart and my mom made these cookies in honor of him. Every year since, we have made these cookies at Halloween time to honor Cricket (possibly our dog too because he once ate a whole tray of these cookies off the cupboard). These are some black cat cookies that you won’t mind crossing paths with (no bad luck here!)

Black Cat Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

candy corn and red hots

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place butter in mixer and cream together with sugar.

Add eggs and vanilla, until all ingredients are incorporated.

In a medium bowl on the side, mix together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Gradually stir in dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix well.

With the dough, form 2 inch balls, and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Take a glass, a small bowl of water, and a small bowl of granulated sugar, dip the glasses bottom in water and then dip in sugar.

Take the sugar covered glass and flatten the cookie balls, keeping the bottom of the glass well sugared, repeat for all the cookies.

Next pinch 2 “ears” at the top of the cookies, so they look like cat ears.

Then with a fork, press into the sides of the cookies to form whiskers on either sides of where the nose will be.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately add the candy corn for eyes (whites of the candy corn facing in) and a red hot for the nose. Let cool.

Makes about 3 dozen cats

Enjoy!

-Sister K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on October 17, 2011

When I visited Sister M at her rental home in Nantucket over the summer, she cooked sausage, peppers, onions, and potatoes together in what I would call a “bake.” It was a rainy day, so it was very cold when the sun set. I remember this meal being so perfect for the weather because it was warm and satisfying. It also seemed very easy to put together. This meal seemed like something my boyfriend would like so I decided to try it out. The first time I made it for him, he loved it. I have made it with sweet Italian sausage, red and yellow bell peppers, sweet onion, and red skin potatoes several times. Then just recently I made it, but changed the sausage to hot Italian turkey/chicken sausage, and the peppers to just green peppers. Both ways were really good, the turkey/chicken one was definitely a lot healthier, especially since I used less olive oil. Here is the basics on how to cook it, try different variations and find out what your favorite is.

Sausage, Pepper, Onion, and Potato Bake

Preheat the oven to 425

Ingredients

1 package of Italian Sausage Links (Mild or Hot, Pork or Poultry)

2 Bell Peppers (any Mixture of Red, Green, Yellow or Orange)

1-2 Sweet Onions (more if you love onion)

3-4 Red Potatoes (about 1 lb)

1 tbsp on Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Start by cutting up peppers into 1 inch pieces. Next cut the onions and potatoes into wedges. Place all of the vegetables in a glass 9×13 pan (or two if you feel like its too crowded). Cut sausage links into 1 inch chunks and spread out in casserole dishes. Drizzle the olive oil evenly over vegetables and sausage, then sprinkle with salt an pepper. Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes, turning with a spatula mid-way through. Cook until sausage and potatoes are fully cooked.

Enjoy!

-Sister K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on October 10, 2011

I am going to be honest, I have been a bad bad blogger this last year. I have been meaning to blog more and ended up not blogging at all!! I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to all of our readers and I am going to try to be a better blogger!!

With that being said, I believe the last I left off with everyone I was moving in with my boyfriend. The move went well and we are so happy with our apartment and living with each other. We recently ran into a little problem with flooding after Irene and had to be rescued by boat from our house because the flooding got so bad! After the rescue, we were displaced for almost 3 weeks, waiting for plumbing and electricity to be fixed! Thank god my boyfriend’s parents live in the area and took us in for the whole time, as well as our apartment not getting affected because we live on the second floor. Below is a view from our window of the river waters coming in. It was crazy and we hope that it was a once and a lifetime experience! (Also you may be confused about a house being in New York City, but I moved to the New Jersey suburbs when I moved in with my boyfriend. Don’t worry, I am still in the city everyday to go to work.)

When we got back into our house we decided to throw a party as sort of the House Warming Party We Never Had/ We Survived Irene Party. I really got into the theme and had the food, drinks, music, and decorations themed around Hurricanes and boat rescues. You are probably wondering what this entails, don’t worry I won’t leave you hanging.

Lets start with the drinks, I served pitchers of hurricanes, which I found a recipe for on Food Network’s website by the Neely’s. I garnished these drinks with pineapples, maraschino cherries, and umbrellas. We also served beers, which we had on ice in a giant blow up duck. (Isn’t he cute, he even quacks!) I also had blue jello shots with Swedish fish floating in them.

For food I made a bunch of appetizer and snacks that went with the theme like rye “boat” dip, pinwheels (which looked like tornadoes), and white trash. In bowls around the party I had goldfish crackers, life savors, gummy worms, and Swedish fish. I made a few other things that were not really themed but easy to put together. I kept the appetizers pretty simple because I had just gotten back into my apartment and wanted to keep things easy on myself.

Where I let my creativity shine was in my party favor which were cut out cookies in the shapes of sailboats and umbrellas, which I bagged in clear cookie bags and gave to everyone as they left. While I was “displaced” from my apartment I started reading blogs my mom had introduced me to. One of the blogs that I have fell in love with and have started to read daily (and just about cook from daily!) is Annie’s Eat. My mom and I are seriously obsessed with this blog. Annie makes these great cut-out cookies and decorates them so beautifully with royal icing. She gives a whole tutorial on her blog on how to decorate cut out sugar cookies with royal icing. I took my first attempt using royal icing, which I intend to practice so don’t judge me yet!

My boyfriend was in charge of the music, which he did an awesome job on. Every song was themed to storms, rain, hurricanes, and of course boats. We had lifeguard floating devices and goggles which made for really great and funny pictures from our guest. In all the party was really fun and helped me and my boyfriend recover from the dramatic month. Enjoy!

-Sister K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on February 14, 2011

I like to bring my lunch to work to save money and to eat healthier. A lot of times I bring leftovers from dinner or Lean Cuisines/Smart Ones. The frozen meals are easy to pack, but I don’t like to eat them every day because of the high amount of sodium they have. I am always in the search for easy healthy recipes to make and bring to work. My favorite recipe to bring is the Black Bean Burrito Bake from Cooking Light. It makes 4 servings and they are soooooooo gooooooddd. I replace the light sour cream with fat free sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, flour tortillas with low carb whole wheat wraps (2 PointsPlus) and monterey jack with reduced fat shredded Mexican cheese. With these changes, the burritos are only 7 Weight Watchers PointsPlus.

After making them I put them in plastic containers and have them ready in the fridge to take to work. I bring additional salsa to put on top of them after I reheat them in the microwave for 2-2:30 minutes.

Enjoy!

-K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 16, 2011

On New Years Day, my friends and I decided that instead of a big New Years Day dinner, we just wanted to do appetizers all day. We love playing games so sometimes like to have all day game tournaments (with games such as Clue, Apples to Apples, Catch Phrase, What’s Yours Like, Uno, Jenga, Scattergories, Guesstures, and Boggle… We have a large game shelf!).

The appetizers we decided to make were Pigs in a Blanket, Layered Taco Dip, and Buffalo dip. Yes, I know- these are very simple appetizer recipes that you have all probably made. We planned it that way because we all went out in the City for New Years Eve (open bar from 9-2am, if you know what I mean) and wanted something fun and tasty that we wouldn’t be spending the whole day in the kitchen preparing.

Lets start with the Taco Dip. This is a recipe that my family has been making for years, I am pretty sure it is the classic 80’s layered taco dip. I know there are many versions of this dip often called 7 layer taco dip or such and such layered taco dip. I don’t like when there are too many layers with the beans and the meat and the olives. I love, love, love the simple version. You want to know what recipe is? Well keep reading because I am going to give you my families take on the dip (we didn’t make this recipe up, I am sure many of you have the same recipe)

Layered Taco Dip

Ingredients

8 oz. block of light cream cheese

1 cup of light sour cream

1 packet of Taco Seasoning (such as Old Ol Paso or Ortega’s- both found in the Hispanic section of the grocery store or where you would get the taco shells)

1 jar of salsa (my go to salsa is Tostito’s medium salsa, but you can use whatever salsa you love, if you don’t like the chucks of tomatoes you can use a jar of taco sauce which is basically salsa without the chucks)

Shredded iceberg lettuce

2 small or 1 large tomatoes chopped

Shredded Light Cheese (I used Sargentos Reduced Fat 4 Cheese Mexican blend)

The first step it to get the cream cheese block at room temperature. Once the cream cheese is softened, combine with sour cream and taco seasoning until smooth. Spread the mixture out onto a 9×13 inch pan evenly. Saran Wrap the 9×13 inch pan and let it set by refrigerating it for an hour.

After an hour or right before you are ready to serve it, spread the jar of salsa evenly over the top of the cream cheese/ sour cream mixture. Next put the shredded iceberg lettuce on top (you can use as much as you want, I put on about 1 1/2 – 2 cups), followed by the chopped tomatoes. Finally you sprinkle the shredded cheese on top of everything until it looks pretty covered (about 1 1/2 cups also). Now the dip is all ready to be served with tortilla chips! MMMmmmmm!

You are probably wondering about the other recipes. Pigs in a Blanket are very simple! It basically cut up hot dogs or cocktail wieners wrapped it part of a crescent roll. We buy regular hot dogs and cut them up into thirds of fourths because they taste better than cocktail wieners. Then we take the crescent roll dough and unroll it, the pre-cut triangles in the dough are is cut in half, and we wrap each dough piece with a piece of hot dog in the middle (it like rolling a small crescent roll around a hot dog). To cook them you follow the recipe on the crescent roll recipe, until the crescent rolls are golden brown. Once they are ready you can serve them with mustard of ketchup! Yumm!

Next we made Buffalo Chicken Dip. I had never made this dip before but I have had it at Superbowl parties before. After finding the recipe online, we decided to make it without the chicken (we have had it both ways before). It was good and everyone really liked it. If I were to make it again I would try it with the chicken and use the mozzarella instead of the crumbly blue. I love blue cheese but if think the mozzarella would make it more creamy and less blue cheese tangy. We served it hot with tortilla chips, but you can also serve with cut up veggies and crackers. Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think!

All of these recipes were very easy to make, and even easier with helping hands in the kitchen. If you are having a party or a Superbowl party these would all be classic great ideas!

Enjoy!

-Sister K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 10, 2011

My roommate and I wanted to make a new recipe last night with either beef of seafood. We found a recipe we were interested in in this month’s Cooking Light. The recipe was called Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash. I have heard the term Tagine before but wasn’t sure where it was from. After doing some research, we found out that it was a Moroccan dish. The couscous recipe that is shown with the recipe looked good but we wanted to use the quinoa we had so we made the Quinoa with Roasted Garlic, Tomatoes and Spinach (which I have previously posted about) to go on the side. The dish was delicious and we are so happy we tried something different. We were worried about being able to find beef shoulder roast in the grocery store, but my grocery store actually had it.

My favorite part of the recipe was that I got use my new dutch oven that I got for Christmas and most importantly eating it (for dinner and lunch)! MMMMmm make it! You will thank me later.

The ingredients

Browning the beef and onions

The beef is browned, and ready to add the garlic.

Adding the squash, after cooking for 5 minutes with the diced tomatoes and broth.

After simmering for 15 minutes the Tagine is ready to go!

Served with chopped Cilantro on top.

Enjoy!

-K

Posted by Keelin Hollenbeck on December 7, 2010

My first post ever about a year ago was about Buckeyes, a cookie my family makes every Christmas season. They are a pain to make but everyone always loves them. I just made them this week, I split them into two days, the dough the first day, and the chocolate dipping the next. Try them for yourself!

Here are some pictures to help you!