Apple Tasty

I'm a huge fan of apple anything and baked apples are one of my favorites.  Make it quicker and easier by just slicing off the outside and throwing away your core.

This is a serve-one size (fairly large), but can be multiplied for however many people you want.  Great with a glass of milk.

Ingredients:
1 apple, roughly diced
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp pecans (or walnuts, really your choice)
1/4 cup crumble mix (see below)
1 tbsp butter



Directions:
Lightly coat a small baking dish (like a custard cup) with butter.  Toss apple with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts, and pour into dish.  Melt butter and stir in with crumble mix, then pour over apples.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or microwave on high for 5 (crust will not get crisp)


Crumble mix

1 cup instant oats
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp brown sugar

Comforting Rice Pudding

Known in the cookbook I picked up the original from as Skansk Grot (yum...), this stuff is the perfect tasty breakfast food for the holidays since it makes a massive batch.  It's good hot, cold, and reheated.

Ingredients:
1 large apple (I like golden grimes or delicious, but pick what you like best) diced
1 tbsp butter
1 cup white rice (do not use brown  DO NOT USE BROWN!!!!!)
1 cup water
3 inch cinnamon stick OR 2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 cups milk
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup raisins (I like gold because they're prettier)
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Rub butter all over the bottom and sides of a LARGE saucepan (I use a spaghetti pot).  Let any leftovers melt onto the bottom.  Add rice, water, and cinnamon to the pan and heat over medium.

When the mixture boils, drop to a simmer and cover for 10-15 minutes or until the water has been absorbed.

Pour milk into saucepan, turn up the heat and stir until it begins to simmer.  Turn back down to low and add everything else except the vanilla.  Stir gently.

Cover the pan and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.

Hot Lava Cakes

I found a recipe for Cabernet Sauvignon Lava Cakes from McCormick Spices in one of my recipe magazines. Made it, tried it, made a face, and began pondering what was wrong and what I could do to fix it. Chatted with my friends at work and Kate suggested that maybe a little heat would be good (Rachel just said "Too strong!")

So I made three more batches with varying degrees and types of spices before finally settling on the recipe below. They're meant to be served hot, but they taste just as good cold, though there is sort of a suggestion of "Did you stuff this brownie with frosting somehow?"

Ingredients:
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (I used Godiva): either use chips or chop up a bar
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1 tbsp of reduced sweet red wine*
1 tsp vanilla extract (not the fake stuff, please)
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
6 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more, if you want)^

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425.

Put chocolate and butter in a large microwavable bowl and microwave for 1 minutes or until the butter is totally melted. Whisk it to death (aka, until you don't see any lumps) Add wine and vanilla and whisk again. Add confectioners sugar and whisk until the lumps are gone or nearly so. Add in eggs and whisk until fully incorporated. (!!!!!Read Below!!!!!!) Add flour and spices and whisk again. Try not to lick too much off your fingers, no matter how delicious it is.

Butter 4 custard cups (or juice glasses, if you have no custard cups) well. Pour batter into the cups and smooth the top with a spatula. Set all four on a cookie sheet. Bake 13-15 minutes (they should puff out of the cups a little and the top will look like a baked brownie, but they'll jiggle when you shake the pan) Let set for 1 minute, then run a knife around the edge of the cup and flip upside down on a plate to serve.

To reheat: put on a microwavable plate and microwave for 30 seconds.


IMPORTANT: if you don't get all the egg beaten in properly, you could come across a portion of the cake that has a huge hunk of cooked egg (and nothing else) in it. It is disgusting

*To reduce wine, pour a full bottle into a saucepan. Simmer until it's about 1/4 of the original volume

^Do you remember when you bought your cayenne? If the answer is no, please buy some new cayenne: the older it is, the less heat it has.

Quick and Easy: Squish

Sometimes I just want some cookie dough. But... we don't have any and I don't really have any desire to cook any.

Thereby I began making Squish (Which is what I told my then 4 year old sister it was when she asked) which tastes not at all unlike spicy cookie dough and also does not contain raw egg which I hear is allegedly bad for you.

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter softened (best option) or melted (also acceptable)
1 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Cloves
Allspice
Ginger

Directions:
Squish the butter and sugars together. Add two shakes each of the spices (or to taste), then enough of the flour to form what appears to be cookie dough. Eat!