Best Brownies...ever!

I did it.  I finally made brownies from scratch for the first time ever.  This might be surprising since I love to bake so much, but the boxed brownies are just so easy...and I had no idea what I was missing until I made these beauties.

  
These are super fudgy.  The frosting isn't really necessary, but it adds some extra creamy, fudgyness that I would highly recommend!  (Interesting side note: spell checker keeps wanting to replace fudgy with pudgy...go figure!)  I found the brownie recipe online and modified the frosting recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Baking Book.  

Brownies
Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 pan (I used metal).  Put a long piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, letting the parchment extend up and overhang slightly on both ends.  Butter the parchment.  (This just helps prevent the brownies from sticking to the pan.  It isn't necessary, but I did think it was worth it)
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter.  Remove from the heat and add the sugar; stir to combine.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.
3. Mix in the cocoa, baking powder and salt.  Add flour and stir just until combined. (The batter will be a bit lumpy)
4. Pour into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Cool completely in pan on a cooling rack.

Frosting

Ingredients:

• 4 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup boiling water*
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Combine powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
2. Add butter,  boiling water, and vanilla.  Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until combined.
3. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed.  *At this point I found the frosting to be too stiff so I added some more hot water.  I added at least another 1/3 cup, but since I'm not sure exactly how much, just have extra on hand and add until frosting is smooth and spreadable.
4. Frost brownies and allow frosting to set. (Refrigeration isn't necessary to make it set, but it will speed up the process.)

The finished product

Mmm...makes me hungry just looking at them!

These don't take much more effort than boxed brownies and were seriously so much better!  Even Makaila helped me make them, that's how easy they are :)

Running around in her modified apron

Who doesn't need a boot when baking brownies?!

Cleaning up is very important

Loves helping Mommy in the kitchen

Thanksgiving 2012

Ever since we got married, Trip and I have tried to cook our own Thanksgiving meal, and then meet up with family for dessert (at least when we are in Utah).  Obviously, when we have stayed with others, and when we were in Malaysia, we did things differently.  This Thanksgiving weekend, we were able to enjoy a delicious meal, visit both sets of Great-grandparents, and get our Christmas decorations up.  It was a fun weekend spent enjoying our time together as a family. 

Anxious to eat

Doing prayer hands

Learning bad begging habits from Captain Jack

Wearing Dad's dog-tags after eating Thanksgiving dinner

Cuddling and singing with Dad at Great-grammy's house

Swinging with Gramps

Helping me untangle the lights

One of Makaila's favorite books is "Pat the Bunny", so this ornament was by far her favorite

Eggnog Custard Pie

That just sounds intriguing, doesn't it?  That's what I thought when I first came across this recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book.  I just had to try it!  It turns out to be very similar to pumpkin pie, only with the flavor of eggnog.  The first time I made it was for our ward Halloween party, and since we didn't really get to try it, I decided to make another one just for us.  Yeah, it's that good :)

Ingredients

• Pastry for a single crust pie (see recipe below)
• 4 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups dairy or canned eggnog (I used dairy)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp rum extract (or 2 tbsp light rum)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Prepare and roll out pastry.  Line 9 inch pie plate with the pastry. Trim and crimp edge as desired.  Line pastry with a double thickness of foil.  Bake in a 450 degree oven for 8 mins, remove foil, and bake for 4-5 mins more until pastry is set and dry.  Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees when done.
2. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, beat eggs with a rotary beater or fork.  Stir in eggnog, sugar, rum, vanilla, and salt.
3. Place the partially baked pastry shell on the oven rack.  Carefully pour filling into the pastry shell.  Sprinkle with nutmeg. (This will help you avoid spills if you pour the filling in while it is on the oven rack)
4. Cover the edge of pie with foil to prevent overbrowning.  Bake in the 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.  Remove foil.  Bake for 15-20 minutes more or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
5. Cool for 1-2 hours on wire rack.  Refrigerate within 2 hours.  Serve with whipped cream.

Pastry recipe:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 4-6 tbsp cold water

Stir together flour and salt in medium mixing bowl.  Cut in shortening using a pastry blender, until pieces are pea sized.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the water over part of the mixture; gently toss with a fork.  Push moistened dough to side of bowl.  Repeat, using 1 tablespoon of water at a time, until all the dough is moistened.  Form dough into a ball.

On a lightly floured surface, roll into a 12 inch circle.  Transfer pastry to pie plate.  Trim to 1/2 inch beyond the edge of pie plate, fold under extra pastry.  Crimp edge as desired.

Lazy Perogy Casserole

Kim's been knocking "momming" out of the park these past few weeks that I've been working at inContact. One area that she's been doing amazingly well at has been in the kitchen. Now don't get me wrong, Kim's always been a good cook. However, as of late she's been out doing herself again and again. 


One of the dishes that she has tried a couple of times and has really perfected lately is Lazy Perogy Casserole. If you've never had a perogy, you really need to fix that. Basically they are raviolis that are stuffed with a mashed potato + awesomeness mixture of sorts. This casserole recipe replicates the flavors without all the work of stuffing individual pasta pockets. Tasty and awesome, FTW. 

Lazy Perogy Casserole

Ingredients 

• ~15 lasagna noodles
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 3-4 cups mashed potatoes (however much it takes to cover the pan)
• 1 tsp onion salt
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese (plus extra to sprinkle over the top of the casserole)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 1/2 finely chopped onion

Directions

1. Cook noodles (or use awesome shortcut). Drain, rinse, and set aside. 
2. Combine egg, ricotta cheese and 1/2 tsp onion salt. 
3. In separate bowl, combine potatoes cheddar cheese, remaining onion salt, salt, and pepper. Set aside. 
4. In a frying pan, melt butter and sautee onion until soft and yellow. 
5. In a greased 9x13 casserole dish, layer in the following order: 
1. 5 noodles (or however many it takes to cover the pan)
2. Ricotta mixture
3. 5 noodles
4. Potato mixture
5. 5 noodles
6. Onions
7. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over top if desired
6. Cover with foil and bake in oven at 350 F for 30 - 40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. 
7. Spoon into bowls or onto plates and top with sour cream and/or green onions. Enjoy!

Eating Solids

We started Makaila on rice cereal at the beginning of the month.  So far, she is not a fan.  I am thinking we might switch to oatmeal soon and see if that suits her tastes better.  Here are pictures of her first time trying cereal:

Every time we've eaten rice cereal since then she makes similar faces.  Kind of funny and sad all at the same time.

Peanut Butter Nutella Fudge

I spent the Thanksgiving holidays trying out new recipes and making some goodies.  This one was so good that I had to make a second batch just to make it through the holiday!  It went that fast :)

I got this recipe from the Cake Duchess.  She has a lot of really good recipes that I want to try; I would recommend visiting her site.

And now the fudge...

Chocolate Nutella Peanut Butter Fudge

Butter, for greasing pan
1 (14 oz. ) can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz. high-quality bittersweet (60% cacao) chocolate chips
1 cup Nutella, room temperature
3 tablespoons peanut butter (*I tried adding an extra tablespoon which was good if you want the peanut butter flavor to be stronger than the Nutella)
3 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Sea salt, approximately 1/2 tsp

Grease the bottom and sides of an 8- by 8-inch baking pan with butter. Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overlap on the sides.

In a medium glass or stainless steel bowl, stir together sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, bittersweet chocolate chips, Nutella, peanut butter, and butter.

Form a double-boiler by setting the bowl on a medium pot of gently simmering water. The water level should be low enough that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir until the chocolate chips are melted and the mixture is smooth, 5 to 7 minutes.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan, spread the top smooth with a spatula, and sprinkle with sea salt.

Refrigerate until the fudge is firm, at least 2 hours.

Run a knife under hot water, dry it off, and run it around the edges of the pan to loosen the fudge. Using the overhanging parchment paper, lift the fudge out. Peel off the parchment paper. Cut the fudge into 3/4-inch squares. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil.

Makes approximately 50 3/4-inch squares.

Lemon Squares

Absolutely delicious!

I found this recipe on my friend, Dana's blog.  It looked so good, I just had to try it out and it did not disappoint!  These are a great little treat and they don't take very long or much effort to make either.  If you want the recipe follow this link here and you can get it straight from the source  :) 

Strawberry Banana Cupcakes

I came across this recipe a long time ago and then forgot all about it.  Recently, I rediscovered it when I was looking for something new to bring to a party.  I thought they turned out pretty well and they aren't bad as cupcakes, but I think next time I will not frost them and just have them as breakfast muffins.  They stand alone really well, and were more dense like muffins than cupcakes anyway :)

Banana Strawberry Cupcakes

Makes 20 Cupcakes 

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup vanilla sugar (or substitute regular sugar, which I did)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• grated zest of one lemon
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1 cup of chopped strawberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir the eggs and the oil. Add the bananas, strawberries and lemon zest.
4. Add to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Spoon into cupcake papers, about 3/4 full
5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. 
6. Cool on a wire rack and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting

(This is my standard recipe)

Ingredients

• 4oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 stick butter

1. Mix together.  Can add more vanilla or sugar to taste.

--

If you try these out, let me know what you think!

Happy Birthday to me!

It's been a few weeks since my birthday, but it's never too late to post about the celebration :)  Mom and Steve timed their departure so that they didn't leave until after my birthday, so we were able to celebrate together.  We didn't do anything big this year, just went out to dinner with the Clark's on Saturday and had a relaxing day playing games on Sunday.  It was nice to just spend time together.  This is my last birthday before I have a baby, so it was really nice to take advantage of sleeping in and being lazy :)

I know I am wearing the same thing in a lot of these posts, but the shower, towers and birthday dinner were all on the same day, so not much I can do about that.

Thanks to those who celebrated with me!

Independence Day

Celebrating the 4th of July is always fun, but when you are not living in America, it doesn't always happen (for obvious reasons).  That doesn't mean we don't remember it, it's just not easy to make a big deal about a holiday that the country you are residing in doesn't recognize.  Well, this year we ended up celebrating more than we thought we would and we had a great time thanks to Carl and Paula Curtis!  They hosted a dessert potluck on Monday and invited a bunch of us over.  That afternoon, Trip and I went over to help Scott Sanders make his famous Peanut Butter Chocolate cookies and I made Strawberry Banana cupcakes (recipe to follow soon).


At the Curtis' house, we read part of the Declaration of Independence and played a trivia game.  And, of course, we ate.  Here are a few pictures that I managed to take.

Group shot

I love the look on Trip's face here

As things were winding down...so a lot of the food is gone

It was nice to get together with friends and celebrate the freedoms that we were lucky enough to be raised with.

Babymoon part 3: Cambodia again!

The last temple that we went to was Angkor Thom.  There was another temple that we were going to try to see, but my pregnant body could only do so much in two days!  Angkor Thom was spread out over a huge area and had several different structures throughout the complex.  These are the ruins of the old palace compound, if my memory is correct.

The monastery.  Same basic structure as the temple at Angkor Wat

The face carvings here are really well preserved

Some ruins that we walked past on our way between main structures

I don't know why, but I really like this picture

One of the main entrances to the palace compound

Of course there was a lot more to it than what I have shown, but since it was fairly similar to Angkor Wat, I tried to stick to more unique pictures.  After all the walking around we did that day, we were ready for a break and some relaxation!  Mom, dad, Trip and I headed for the pool while Steve took a nap and we just let the water wash away some of the stress of the day.  Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera with me so no pictures of that.  But I did take pictures of dinner that night!  We ate Cambodian BBQ, which is kind of like a grill and soup combination.  You boil the veggies in a ring of water that surrounds the grill in the center.  All the juices from the meat run into this ring, so your veggies get some flavor too.  It was pretty good.  We also decided to be daring and sample some of the local meats that they had available.

Trip pointing out the snake and crocodile meat.  We also had kangaroo, beef, and chicken

Our favorites turned out to be kangaroo and ostrich.  Mom, Dad, and Steve all had ostrich and let us taste it

They also had goat meat available, but that just didn't sound like it would be good, so we didn't end up getting any.  The next day, we went out to a floating village.  The people live along a river and lake.  The houses are built on stilts and during the rainy season the water comes right up to their doors.  It was dry season while we were there, so we had to boat out to the lake to see some of them actually floating.  On our way, a bunch of the children in the villages and boats would come out to wave to us.  So cute!

Fishing is how the locals eat out here so they have to fish daily

Part of the floating village from a distance

One of the floating houses up close.  It's not an easy looking lifestyle, but it is pretty chill

Ladies coming to sell clothes to the village

Random pigs...and probably someone's dinner

Traditional boat, that is also selling fruit door to door

On our way back from the floating village, we had Di stop at some roadside stands.  He was kind enough to introduce us to some local "treats".

It's hard to tell what I am holding because the car was bouncing too much for a clear picture, but that is a fried cricket.  And yes, I ate it  :)

You can see the cricket better in this picture.  Trip really liked them and ate several.  They kind of tasted like french fries

How to eat a cricket, by Trip Baker

We also tried a snack that is rice, coconut milk, sugar and beans cooked in a bamboo stick.  It was pretty tasty.

Trip with his spoils

That night we went to a dinner and dance show.  The dancing was pretty cool and definitely different than other cultural dances I have seen.

The dancing is fairly slow paced and more about hand and feet movements

This video is of the traditional dance that is depicted in most carvings in the temples.  The singing was done live as was the music.