Something Extra: Chocolate Float

The votes are in! I had so many side dishes and desserts that I haven't shared yet, here or otherwise, that I took a (very informal) Facebook poll to see what the food friends would like to see next.

And you voted: Dessert first!

I remember my grandma making this dessert all the time for family gatherings. Now that I've made it myself, I know even more why she did! Not only is it as tasty as I remember, it's very simple to make. In fact, I had every ingredient already in the cupboard. Plus, I think any recipe is made with extra love when it's made from scratch. Even better if it's grandma's recipe for a gooey chocolatey dessert.

Happy cooking!

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Chocolate Float

Ingredients

Cake:

1 cup flour

¾ cup sugar

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ Tbsp cocoa powder

½ cup milk

2 Tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup nuts (optional)

Sauce:

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

5 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 cup hot water

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2. Mix all dry cake ingredients, then stir in the wet cake ingredients.

3. Mix all dry sauce ingredients, then stir in the water.

4. Pour the cake mixture into a greased and floured 8x8 glass baking dish.

5. Pour the sauce over the cake mixture.

6. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes.

7. Enjoy warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

All the cake ingredients together.

All the sauce ingredients together.

Into the pan: cake on bottom, sauce on top.

Out of the oven: cake on top, sauce on bottom.

Happy cooking!

Something New: Homemade Pasta Sauce & Super Simple Lasagna

Hello, food friends! This week has continued to be a good one, with continually positive job prospects and new food adventures. Chase and I tried Afgan food yesterday at a local shop, and it was an unintimidatingly tasty new experience.

Today's recipe hails from a different world region entirely, although I'm not sure about it's Italian authenticity. Still, by playing off this recipe, and mixing in some of our favorite flavors, Chase and I created a homemade pasta sauce that we're sure to make again.

Plus, the linked recipe makes one of the easiest lasagnas we've ever attempted. Yes, an easy lasagna!

I was skeptical of the idea of not cooking the noodles first, but consider me convinced. The foil and sauce essentially create a steamer bag. The good news: I don't lose 30 minutes pre-cooking lasagna noodles! The bad news: Simplifying lasagna might move me up a dress size. I hope my thighs will forgive my taste buds.

Happy cooking!

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Homemade Pasta Sauce & Super Simple Lasagna

Homemade Pasta Sauce

1 lb. ground beef

1 cup diced tomatoes

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup shredded carrots (optional)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomato

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1 bay leaf

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

½ tsp cumin

Directions

1. In a large pot, brown the ground beef.

2. Add onion and carrots and cook until onions are translucent. Add mushrooms and tomato paste and cook another 3-4 minutes.

3. Stir in fresh tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, garlic, and spices. Bring to a boil.

4. Once the sauce reaches a boil, reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 40 minutes.

5. Remove the bay leaf and serve over pasta or lasagna.

Super Simple Lasagna

1 ½ cup chopped fresh spinach

1 pound whole milk ricotta

1 pound (16 oz.) shredded mozzarella, divided

1 box lasagna noodles

approx. 5 cups of your favorite pasta sauce

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine chopped spinach, ricotta, and half (8 oz.) of the mozzarella.

3. In a 9x13 pan, layer your lasagna: Sauce, uncooked noodles, cheese mix, sauce, noodles, cheese mix, etc.

4. Once you have about a half inch left in the top of your pan, add one last layer of sauce. Then sprinkle the other 8 oz. of mozzarella on top.

5. Cover the dish with aluminum foil, using toothpicks to hold it away from the mozzarella if necessary.

6. Bake for 40 minutes in the oven. Remove the foil and cook for another 5 minutes.

7. Serve.

Everything chopped and ready for the pot.

Into the pot.

Ready to be dished out.

Spinach and cheese mixture.

It might be too warm for clothes layers, but it's never a bad time for lasagna layers!

Out of the oven, ready for plating.

Happy cooking!

Something Old: Crunchy Parmesan Chicken Strips & Honey Mustard Dressing

It's been a pretty great week up here. I had a job interview on Friday and got an offer! And then tonight Chase and I made our own pasta sauce from scratch, and it was, well, mmmmm! That recipe will be up Thursday.

For now, enjoy something from the archives. These chicken strips are so straightforward that my younger sister, who is both a picky eater and shy about cooking, has made them more than once. For her, that's saying something! Hope you enjoy them as much as she and I do.

Happy cooking!

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Crunchy Parmesan Chicken Strips & Honey Mustard Dressing June 28, 2009

Chase and I didn't get around to cooking on Father's Day evening last weekend, as he was out of town being a good son and I was in town being a bad daughter but a good student.

Anyway, Chase was craving something crunchy this time around, and we had buttermilk left over from Garrett's birthday cake, so we found this recipe on the Food Network site.

We decided that we really didn't want to dip chicken in a vinaigrette, though, and found a fantastic, and super easy, recipe for honey mustard dressing instead.

Here are the recipes with the modifications we made:

Crunchy Parmesan Chicken Strips

1 ½ lbs chicken tenders

1 cup buttermilk

¾ cup Italian-style seasoned bread crumbs

1 ½ cups Parmesan cheese

3 Tbsp olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

2. Line two large baking sheets with aluminum foil and brush the foil with olive oil.

3. Pour the buttermilk in a large bowl. Add the chicken tenders and stir to coat. Set aside and let stand for 15-30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, make the honey mustard dressing (below).

5. Mix bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese in a separate bowl.

6. Remove the tenders from the buttermilk and dredge them in the bread crumb mixture, pressing to coat completely. Place the tenders on the prepared baking sheets.

7. Drizzle the tenders with the remaining 2 Tbsp of oil.

8. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes, until golden brown.

9. Serve with honey mustard dressing.

Honey Mustard Dressing

2 Tbsp yellow mustard

3 Tbsp honey

¾ cup Miracle Whip (or mayo)

2 Tbsp orange juice

2 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and stir well.

2. Enjoy.

3. Refridgerate between enjoyments.

Conclusion: This was almost impossibly tasty for how easy it was. The whole thing took only half an hour, and was all but foolproof. Not only that, the chicken was crunchy and not at all greasy, and the honey mustard was probably the best I've ever had. Great simple summer food. Make this meal!

Buttermilk bath for the chicken.

All of the ingredients you need for Honey Mustard Dressing.

Mixing the dressing.

The chicken finished its bath and rolled around in some crumbs.

Out of the oven, ready for plating.

Simple but delicious. Happy cooking!

Something Extra: Baking Powder Biscuits

One steak does not a dinner make

Nor chicken breast a meal

Fruit and greens can spice things up

But these biscuits are ideal

Bad poetry aside, no dinner is complete without a side dish or two. And rather than spend a Thursday post on sides, I'm adding a post on Friday. No promises that they'll appear every week, but when they do, there will be Something Extra for the blog and for your table.

These biscuits appeared on my childhood dinner table all the time. I loved when my mom made them, and my sister and I would take turns cutting out the dough with the squiggly biscuit cutter. They're easy to make, require only staple pantry ingredients, and are tasty little bites with any entrée.

If you've never kneaded dough before, this video teaches the "fold, push, turn" method. Don't worry, though. This recipe only requires you to knead a dozen turns, not 8 minutes!

Happy cooking!

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Baking Powder Biscuits

Ingredients

⅓ cup shortening (stick Crisco)

1 ¾ cup flour

2 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

¾ cup milk, approx.

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Mix all dry ingredients. Then, cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry cutter.

3. Mix in most of the milk. If the dough is still very sticky, stir in the rest of the milk. The exact amount will depend on the humidity that day.

4. Flour your counter space and hands. Gather the dough into a ball, place on the floured counter and sprinkle with flour.

5. Knead the dough ball 12-15 times.

6. Once the dough is kneaded, pat or roll the dough out until it is about ½ inch thick.

7. Using biscuit cutters or the rim of a small cup, cut out the biscuits and place on a baking sheet. My mom usually used her 2-inch diameter biscuit cutter, but you can cut whatever size (and shape!) you want.

8. Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes (for 2-inch biscuits).

9. Serve.

After cutting in the shortening, the mix should look crumbly.

The dough will look like this after adding the right amount of milk.

Form the dough from the picture above into a ball for kneading.

After the dough is kneaded, it will look a lot smoother.

Flatten out the dough and cut it out. For fun, we made our biscuits square.

Out of the oven, ready for serving.

Perfect with a little butter and jam. Happy cooking!

Something New: Cheesy Broccoli Ham Casserole

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Last weekend was fairly busy for Chase and I. He was reading for classes and I was filling job applications. We both know that when days like that happen, it's better to cook something tried and true. Nothing is worse at the end of a crazy day than cooking something new, only to be left disappointed and hungry.

So we opted for Cheesy Broccoli Ham Casserole. We've made many times before, but somehow, the recipe never ended up as a Facebook note. So for you, it's Something New.

Added benefit: Lest anyone think this is a site for fancy puff-pastry-origami recipes, I thought a simple casserole recipe would add a great balance to week one.

Happy cooking!

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Cheesy Broccoli Ham Casserole

Ingredients

1 cup cubed ham

1 pkg. frozen broccoli (12 oz.)

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

½ cup Cheez Whiz

1 cup (dry) Minute Rice

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cook rice and broccoli according to package directions.

3. Once those are cooked, combine rice, soup and Cheez Whiz in a large casserole dish.

4. Add broccoli and ham and mix well.

5. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Serve.

All the ingredients you'll need.

Rice, soup and cheese together.

All together now.

Ready for eating. Happy cooking!