Buttermilk and eating the whole refrigerator

I didn't know much about buttermilk in the past, when I saw it in the dairy case I assumed it was in line with heavy whipping cream or the yogurt you can't actually eat. You know, one of those ingredients you get for making one recipe and then you have this fattening cream leftovers in your refrigerator that you feel too guilty to eat, and just as guilty throwing out a week later. So, not so long ago I looked up buttermilk, and found this amusing explanation by Mr. Breakfast. Buttermilk is lower fat than milk, thick like yogurt, and great for making things soft and fluffy.

So back to this morning, Dan and I are going home for the holidays we are trying to clean out the freezer. We had trouble about 3 months ago when we were out of town and one of the circuit breakers popped and so our electricity was off for a least a couple of days. The refrigerator and freezer were full of spoiled food, it was a real mess. The freezer never fully recovered. We had the maintenance man look at the circuit breakers but he wasn't able to see any problem. So we are going to do our best to eat everything we can before we leave, just in case it happens again while we're gone.

For the frozen blueberries in the freezer, I made these this morning. The only changes I made was to substitute 1/2 cup canola oil for the butter, added 1 tsp of vanilla, and the blueberries are what really make it great, so I used closer to 2 cups instead of 1.5 cups. It made roughly 16 normal muffins (with big tops). This recipe is nice because it really is just a vehicle for blueberries, not overly sweet or too oily like store-bought blueberry muffins.

To go along with

what seems like a news blog turning into a food blog, I have further resigned to myself the fact that I'm scared to cook red meat. Also, the fact that red meat, can in fact, smell fear.

Friday night I tried to make this sirloin tips over pasta recipe, and it really was almost un-salvageable. Luckily, Dan is tall, and was very hungry after driving back from Buckeburg, because the smell (it was too much red wine or something) after two hours of me standing around it and giving it the occasional stir, was almost too much. It ended up being ok, but it looked like something they would serve at the cafeteria at work here, not really a compliment. Perhaps I used the wrong type of beef.

Tonight we are hopefully redeeming the Katherine & Daniel Kitchen's culinary standard - we bought everything to bake salmon, an easy favorite.

Other than that, we have been doing typical weekend stuff, with a few preparations for the holidays thrown into the mix. It's right around the corner already!

More cookies!

Hooray! Dan's back this weekend. Okay, he's back every weekend, thankfully, but it's the holidays and I like making him stuff, so there. I like this recipe, I make the cookie batter, then I divide it, then add white chocolate and cranberries to half, dark chocolate and walnut to the other. Everybody wins.

CRANBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
CHOCOLATE WALNUT COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 3/4 cup cranberries
• 1 bar good quality white chocolate (candy bar)
• 1 bar good quality dark chocolate (candy bar)
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream the shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture.
   
3. Divide in two. Stir in the cranberries and the white chips to one half, walnuts and dark chocolate chips into the other half.
4. Drop cookies by heaping spoonfuls onto unprepared cookie sheets. Bake for 7 to 15 minutes (dependent on cookie size) in the preheated oven. Take cookies out of the oven when they are light brown and not yet set. It creates a softer cookie. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before removing to cool on wire racks.

I used 1/2 butter and 1/4 oil to make the fat more healthy. This time I used about 3/4 whole wheat flour as part of the flour, just to see how it would taste.

PB Cookies

So I guess we should have a section called 'Basic Baking 101', we tried yet another simple recipe over the weekend. All of these ingredients everyone probably has at home. These are good with a glass of milk. Enjoy.

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Roll into balls and place onto a unprepared cookie sheet. Press with fork to flatten cookie and to create criss-cross pattern.
   
3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Shorter time window for cookies will be soft and chewy, longer for crispier cookies. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes and Dan and I both like them quite a lot so I'm sharing the recipe:

VANILLA CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 9x9 inch pan or paper cupcake pan.
2. In large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, slowly, then the vanilla.
3. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally add the milk to the batter, it should become smooth. Pour batter into the pan.
4. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven for the cake. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch and turns a golden color.