Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Oat Blondies

Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Oat Blondies made with Applesauce
Ingredients
3/4 cup Peanut Butter
2/3 cup Applesauce (if you want to be naughty, and make these chewier, use butter one for one)
3/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar (I used splenda)

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup oats
1/4 cup wheatgerm (optional)
1 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup milk

~ 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions

-Cream together your peanut butter, applesauce and sugars.
-Add eggs one at a time.
-Add vanilla.

-Mix dry ingredients together.
-Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, alternating with milk.

-Fold in chocolate chips.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 325F/160C


And they are healthy, too! I'm on this low fat kick at the moment to help reduce my chances of getting a bad case of a condition I had with my first pregnancy called Cholestasis.

Cormac's Chicken Caesar Salad with Bruschetta

Now and again, I enjoy sitting on the couch and letting Cormac make the dinner. I carved up a chicken we bought a few weeks back and froze the thighs/legs/wings, and that meat made for delicious chicken caesar. I have recipes for each little bit here.

Chicken for Tearing Up
Ingredients

2 thighs and legs
2 wings
Knob of Butter
1/4 cup red wine
1 tsp brown sugar
Fresh thyme
Sea salt and black pepper

Directions
Melt the butter on medium heat.
Place the chicken pieces in the pan of melted butter for 2-3 minutes on each side.
Deglaze with wine and brown sugar (combined).
Season chicken while cooking with thyme, salt and pepper.
Total cooking time roughly 10-15 minutes. Keep pan and juices aside for bruschetta.
Place in oven on olive oil greased pan at 400F/200C covered for 25 minutes.
Tear off the bone into pieces for your salad.


Bruschetta
Serves two

Ingredients
1 Large Tomato, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 basil
Large ciabatta roll, halved.

Directions
Add all ingredients to the pan you cooked the chicken in.
Cook for 2-3 minutes, don't let the garlic burn!
Remove from heat.

Ciabatta cut in two, grilled under toasted.
Dip the cut side in the butter/oil left behind in the pan.
Top with tomato/garlic mix.
Grill again for a few minutes.
Top with fresh basil if desired.


Caesar Dressing
Ingredients

1/4 cup good mayonnaise
1/4 good olive oil (or all mayo)
1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup Parmesan, shredded
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Blend! Add milk if needed to thin to your liking.


Salad assembly
We used fresh lettuce, spinach and a small bit of rocket from our garden. Topped with chicken, bit of corn cut from the cob, homemade croutons, dressing and Cormac added a few cashew nuts to his own. Traditionally, add extra Parmesan and pine nuts! ENJOY!

Blueberry Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

So I've got a bad habit of making food items outside of their desired season. First I'm hitting you with pumpkin cinnamon rolls, now I'm on about muffins. I even made the applesauce from scratch (just boil them up with a touch of cinnamon, lemon juice and vanilla!) and the house smelled like autumn. In Ireland, its easy to forget its not truly summer, its just, a little warmer than the rest of the year.

Blueberry Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients
10 ounces or 2.5 cups cake flour (or -2 tbsp for each cup using all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup oats
1/4 cup wheatgerm (optional)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon (depends on how much you like cinnamon, my applesauce had some cinnamon already so I stuck with 1/4 tsp and it was just enough of a pinch).

1 cup sugar or 3/4 cup Splenda (yes, I used Splenda-- I'm going to get cancer but hey, I'll look good!)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup yogurt
1/2 cup applesauce (if you don't have applesauce, you can use a vegetable/sunflower/canola oil here instead, but it won't be as healthy!)

1-2 cups blueberries

Demerera sugar for sprinkling on top

Directions
- Mix sugar, vanilla, egg, yogurt and applesauce well.
- Sift flour
- Combine dry ingredients
- Add wet to dry, and fold together until the whole mixture is wet. The key will fluffy muffins is not to overmix.
- Fold in blueberries.

Now, I use a handy dandy ice cream scoop/large cookie dough scoop to fill my cups. After you fill your cups, sprinkle a bit of demerera or vanilla sugar on top of the muffins. This will melt down and make a bit of a crunchy, shiny, sweet



Bake for 20 minutes at 350F/180C. Smear with butter while warm and enjoy! See that pan with all the staining? Well used! These silicon muffin cups are the business, just to let you all know. I'm happy to make my cupcakes for the family in them as well!

My daughter Jane turns 2

It's her party, and she'll stick her fingers in the hip surfboard cake mommy made for her if she wants to.



This isn't good advertising for my business! However, it was too cute not to share. She loved it, of course. She was picking out bits of marshmallow fondant to eat. I did cry though (hormones, I blame) when I saw the disaster zone, as I had been exhausted (7 months pregnant now!) and forced myself to get it done the day before so I didn't have to worry about it on the day of her party. So is life!
When the birthday girl is this cute, you forgive! We were lucky, sunshine and a great party-- and no complaints about the finger holes while everyone scoffed down the cake! This was vanilla with vanilla buttercream, two layers and covered in marshmallow fondant. Simple.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

So, I know its summer and all and making a pumpkin anything is a bit taboo, but hell, sometimes we want it, don't we? I'm 6 months pregnant, and even though I'm fighting a chest infection and have no appetite, I wanted to make these babies. You'll want to make them, too.

told ya.

Now, first a note. I'm in Ireland and I know some of my reader's won't have access to canned pumpkin. I simply roast up a butternut squash. Same taste-- some would argue its even nicer than pumpkin. Most canned pumpkin, you'll be interested to know, is actually squash anyways. Simply cut your squash in half, and cut each half in half (that's four pieces)-- scoop out the seeds and place flesh down in a pan. Fill that pan with 1/2 inch of water. Put it in your oven, HOT. I'm talking 400F/200C or so. Cook for 30-45 minutes (until the skin starts to brown and pucker a bit). Then you scoop out the innards, voila, you have your pumpkin/squash. You'll want 1/2 cup of that so you'll have lots left over for a nice bowl of soup or some muffins.

The Rolls
Dough Ingredients
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup pumpkin (canned or fresh) or butternut squash
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
1 package active yeast
3 ounces (or 2-3 packages) of instant vanilla pudding/custard

1 1/2 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cup bread (or strong) flour


Filling Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp margarine

Directions
Heat milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted, remove from heat.

Mix pumpkin/squash, salt and sugar.
Add in vanilla pudding/custard powder
Add in milk/butter
Add beaten egg
Mix in yeast

Sift flours
Slowly add flours to your mixture to form a dough.

Leave this to rise in a greased bowl in a warm place for about an hour.

Roll dough into a rectangle however thick you like, mine ends up a little less than 2 ft long by 12 inches.

Take your butter and margarine (I'll be honest, I don't measure this out I just take a small handful of each, but the estimate is probably close. You can't really have too much. Margarine will help keep the filling gooey as butter will be somewhat absorbed into the dough as it cooks) and smears it all over the dough. I use my hands. Get messy. Then I use the butter/margarine on my hands to grease my pan.
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle all over the dough.

Now roll the dough up longways to make more rolls (if that makes sense). I use a piece of string to cut the rolls so they don't smush down, but of course you can use a knife-- about 1 inch thick.

Place them in your greased pan and allow to rise for 30 minutes. You'll get maybe a bit more than 12 rolls.

Bake at 350F/180C for 20 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered/icing sugar, sifted
dash of lemon juice, optional but helps lift that tang!

Directions
Mix butter, vanilla and cream cheese... and lemon juice if you want.
Slowly add in powdered/icing sugar, add more if you want a thicker icing. This will be glaze like.

Smear all over the hot, delicious pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Devour them.

Homemade Spinach Pasta with Garlic Parmesan Sauce and Battered Chicken

Homemade Spinach Pasta and Battered Chicken Breast

Okay. I have a confession. With as much as I've baked and cooked I've never made my own pasta. I was intimidated as I have no pasta roller or press. I have made plans to buy the attachment for Big Red (the kitchenaid), and I may well ordered from amazon now to have delivered to the states during our visit (have I mentioned we are about to head off to Florida for a month to visit my family? Sun tan, here we come).

I don't even need to write up a recipe, this was so easy.

For each person you are cooking for, mix
1 egg
3/4 cup flour
pinch of salt

In my case, I added in 1/2 cup of spinach (not per person) and a heavy handed sprinkle of garlic powder.

Mix the egg and spinach first, then add your flour. Either use your dough hook or knead by hand into a ball and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Cut the ball in half or thirds, and rolling out the dough (or use your pasta roller, lucky you!). Let it rest for another 30 minutes or so. Then cut into slices. I was impatient and busy baking cookies at the same time, so I just cut it after I rolled it.

Then, lay it out to dry for an hour. When you are ready, boil it like you would your dry pasta! It cooks much quicker.

Now. Sauce!

Garlic Parmesan Sauce

Another quickie. I cooked for three people, so I cut one head of garlic in half, chopped off the top end to expose the bulbs, smother in olive oil and wrap tin foil around the bottom. Sick it into a hot oven (200C/400F), and cook until the garlic starts to brown/caramelize.
I than squeezed out the cloves into a garlic press and it oozes straight out. I added about 1/2 cup of Parmesan and 1/4 cup milk. Simple and much healthier than whipping up an Alfredo sauce. I would have loved to have Alfredo, but I thought in combo with the battered chicken I was about to make, I'd take it easy.

Battered Chicken

Now, I use Sunflower Oil. I convince myself this is healthy. I put on about 1/2 cup to heat up in a pan on medium-high heat.

I pounded out two chicken breasts and cut them into large pieces. Salt, Pepper, White Pepper the pieces.

For the batter:
1 cup flour
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp Adobo seasoning (you can just use a smashed up chicken bullion or well, omit, but it gives a nice taste)
1 tsp ground black pepper.

Add milk until you get a batter consistency.

-Dip the pieces into the batter, and carefully place into the oil once the oil is hot. Cook a few minutes on each side. MAKE SURE the oil is hot BEFORE you put the chicken in. If its not hot, your chicken will be very soggy, nasty and oily.

I like to dry freshly fried items on newspaper. This drains the oil out of the chicken like nothing else, and it just tastes crisp.



Enjoy!

Soft-Baked Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from fellow expat Laura English Painter's recipe!



1 1/4 cup plain flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (if you use salted butter leave this out)

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter (I was low so I threw in a few tbsp of cashew butter)
1/2 cup sugar (I used half splenda, so we can all get cancer)
1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla (I'm known to be quite generous with vanilla when it comes to cookies)

optional:
Maybe, 1/2 cup chocolate chips? More? Whatever you'd like.

Directions

Preheat oven to 190C/375F

1. Sift flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.
2. Cream butter, peanut butter, sugars.
3. Add egg and vanilla to creamed mixture.
4. Throw in your chocolate chips now (I just crushed up a bit of a left over dark chocolate bar)
5. Slowly add the flour mixture.

I used a small scoop to make the perfect small cookies. Just remember these make better small cookies, so don't be too generous when scooping on to your pan.

Bake for 6 minutes (mine needed 7, could be my oven).
Take then out of the oven and leave to cool for 1 minute on the pan. Then move to cooling rack.

I think these are best the next day. They will seem as though they are not done on the inside. If you leave them, they will be like soft bake the once they are entirely cooled!

Pepperoni Pizza with Mushroom Sauce

Pepperoni Pizza with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients:
Jamie Oliver's Basic Bread Recipes:

• 1kg/just over 2lb strong bread flour
• 625ml/just over 1 pint tepid water
• 30g/1oz fresh yeast or 3 x 7g/¼oz sachets dried yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 30g/1oz salt

This will make enough dough for three large pizzas. This is a great bread recipe, and its very very versatile. Thanks Jamie, you stud.

Sauce
6 plum tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup tomato puree
1/2 cup water
1 heaped tsp oregano
1 heaped tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp black pepper and a dash of salt
4 chopped chestnut mushrooms

I would normally use a can of tomatoes but I didn't have any left. Thus the puree- but it worked out so well! Puree the tomatoes and garlic, add to sauce pan with the rest of ingredients, adding the water little by little until you have the consistency you like.

Topping
Whatever you want.
I used a layer of sauce, a fine layer of parmesan, a layer of torn up fresh spinach, a layer of large thin pepperonis, a layer of shredded and soft mozzarella (I was cleaning out the fridge with these pizzas!) and more parmesan. I added more mushrooms and onions to Cormac's pizza.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 375F/190C or until its as crispy as you like it. The best pan for pizza is the kind with holes in the bottom, I find, or straight on the rack!

Sultana Scones

Buttermilk Sultana Scones

Ingredients
2 cups (225g) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup of butter
2 tbsp of sugar (preferably caster sugar, fine grain)
1/3 cup of sultanas/raisins/cranberries/blueberries whatever you fancy
2/3 cup buttermilk

Directions
Sift together flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until its crumbly.

Stir in the sugar and fruit of your choice.

Slowly add the buttermilk and mix together-- just until its mixed. Don't over mix. If you over mix, they will not be as delicate and tasty. I'm warning you now.

Knead until a soft dough, and roll out the dough a little less than an inch thick. I like them on the thicker side. Cut them out with cookie cutters-- I use a round cutter, or the top of a cup will do. I get about 12 out of this recipe.

Bake on cookie sheet at 230C/450F for 8-10 minutes

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato Curry with Chicken
adapted from Vegan Planet

1 small chopped onion (which I omitted because I hate onion, to Cormac's dismay)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 large red pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 3/4 cup stock (I used fresh chicken stock from Easter roast chicken)
1 can of tomatoes
2 medium sized sweet potatoes, cubed.
dash of sea salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
Approx. 1 cup shredded chicken.

Directions:
Heat some oil in a pan, saute onions for 5 minutes. I skipped this part.

Add curry powder, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne.

Add red pepper, garlic and ginger. Stir around for 30 seconds.

Add tomatoes and chicken stock.

Add sweet potatoes. Cover.

Simmer for around 30 minutes. I took out my trusty hand blender and smoothed out the mixture. Add in the chicken, dash of salt and brown sugar. Simmer another 20 minutes (I put on the rice after this). I served this over brown basmati rice. Delicious!