Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownie Cups

I found this recipe in the Kraft Food & Family magazine. I didn't follow it exactly, because I practically never follow a recipe exactly. Mainly, it called for a brownie mix (13x9 inch pan size), which I didn't have, so I made my own brownies.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownie Cups

for brownies:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine
• 6 T cocoa
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1 T vanilla

Combine cocoa and sugar; cream mixture with margarine. Add eggs; mix well. Add flour and mix. Add vanilla. Spoon batter into 20 paper-lined muffin cups; set aside.

for cheesecake:

• 1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Beat cream cheese, sugar, egg, peanut butter and vanilla with mixer until blended. Spoon 1 rounded Tbsp. into center of batter in each cup, pressing down slightly into batter. Bake 30 minutes at 350° or until centers are set. Remove from oven and remove brownie cups to rack to cool. While they are still hot, place 4 or 5 chocolate chips on the top of each brownie cup. When chocolate chips begin to melt, use a knife to spread them over the top of each brownie cup.

I added the chocolate chips to the top because the original recipe called for Cool Whip and cherries on top, and that just didn't seem right to me, but they just needed a little something on top. I also changed the name from Brownie 'Babies' to 'Cups' because calling them babies made it sound like they should be made in the mini muffin cups, and they are definitely full size. And they are definitely yummy - I don't think you can go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.

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Turkey Lo Mein

I found this recipe in a magazine several years ago. Of course I modified it to suit my tastes! It's really easy to make, and we all like it, so we have this quite often.

Turkey Lo Mein

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces ground turkey
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 2 packages (3 oz. each) chicken flavor Ramen noodle soup (with seasoning packets)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 6 cups coarsely shredded romaine lettuce

Directions:

1. Put turkey, onion, carrots and garlic into a large skillet. Cook over medium-high heat 5 to 6 minutes, stirring often, until turkey is lightly browned.
2. Break noodles into skillet. Stir in seasoning packets, water and peas. Bring to a boil, cover and cook 3 to 5 minutes until noodles and vegetables are almost crisp-tender.
3. Stir in lettuce. Cook uncovered 3 to 4 minutes, stirring almost constantly, until lettuce is wilted, noodles are soft and carrots are crisp-tender.
4. Serve over rice.
   

Pass the soy sauce and chow mein noodles!

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Whole Wheat Sourdough

I've been making sourdough bread for a while, and after reading this article, Sourdough Bread and Health, I started thinking there's more to it than just the taste. Maybe I shouldn't just be using white flour. Don't get me wrong, I really like my all white flour sourdough bread, and I'll still be making that, for one thing it goes really well with spaghetti, but adding whole grains should really make a healthy bread. So I started experimenting and came up with a bread I really like.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

The night before you want bread:

• Bring sourdough starter to room temperature and measure out 1 cup
• In large bowl mix starter with 1 cup lukewarm water, 1 cup whole wheat flour, and 1/4 cup 7-grain cereal (or 2 T 7-grain or 10-grain cereal, 2 T wheat bran, and 2 T to 1/4 cup oatmeal - or any combination thereof - or whatever grains you have, want, like)
• Mix well, cover, and let sit overnight
• Be sure to replenish your starter by adding 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup flour and letting that sit out overnight, too
  

The next morning:

• The mixture should be nice and bubbly
• Mix in:
  2 T brown sugar, 1/2 t. salt, and 2 T oil
• Mix in 1 cup whole wheat flour
• Then add 1 cup unbleached flour, mixing in as much of the flour as you can with a spoon (recently I have been adding whole wheat flour for this 2nd cup of flour and only using unbleached for kneading)
  
• Knead on a floured surface until you have a smooth, elastic dough, adding flour as necessary
• put into greased bowl, cover and set in warm place to rise (about 2 hours)
  

When dough has doubled in size

• Punch down and turn out onto floured surface
• Cover and let dough rest for 10 minutes, then shape dough into a ball
• Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more cornmeal; cover with the other end of the towel, or another towel.
• Let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
• About a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450°. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 5 to 10 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

I think this is the best bread ever! I say that a lot, because I really like bread, but the whole wheat flour and the brown sugar give this a really nice flavor, as well as the flavor of the sourdough. I love the crust that forms because of baking it this way and the cornmeal embedded in the crust. It's good sliced with butter. It's good toasted. It's good when used to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I love it all!

Besides flavor and health, I just like making sourdough because it's so much fun to make bread without adding packaged yeast. It's like magic! Here's an article that explains How Sourdough Bread Works that I thought was pretty interesting. Not that I want to take away the magic, but it's also fun to know how things work.

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Friendship Cinnamon Rolls

I make cinnamon rolls quite often, but they're usually for the weekend. This week, however, I made them on Tuesday. They weren't my usual cinnamon rolls, though. Beth had brought home some Amish Friendship Bread starter, which she made bread with and divided into additional starter just like she was supposed to. But she failed to give any of those extra bags of starter to anyone, except me. The day came to add flour, sugar and milk to the starter, and I refused to do it for all of those extra bags, so we put them in the freezer for later.

Image by bcmom via Flickr

When it came time to add to and separate my own starter, I didn't really feel like having additional bags of starter, and I didn't really want to pass them out. So, instead of adding milk, flour, and sugar to the starter I had, I just measured it out. The bread recipe calls for 1 cup starter, and I had about 2-1/2 cups, so I figured I could just divide that and make 2 batches. I made one recipe (2 loaves) of the traditional Amish Friendship Bread, and I made cinnamon rolls from the other half of the starter. I had a recipe that I had tried another time, but I didn't follow it exactly, so I'm posting my version.

Friendship Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:

In large bowl, combine:

• 1 cup Amish Friendship starter
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups flour

Let sit at room temperature overnight or 10-12 hours. You'll know it's ready when it's all bubbly and has risen up the bowl. Stir down.

Combine:

• 3 t. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
• 1 t. salt

and add all at once to the larger bowl. Mix well, then add as much of 3 cups of flour you can mix in with a spoon. Turn dough out onto a well-floured counter and knead in enough additional flour that it is no longer sticky. Cover with a cloth and let rest for about 30 minutes.

Divide dough into two halves; roll each half out in a rectangle about 12x8-inch. Brush dough with soft butter.

For each half, combine:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 t. cinnamon

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over dough. Beginning at the wide side, roll up, and seal seam. Cut each roll into 10 slices. Place in greased 13x9 inch pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place till nearly double (about 30 minutes to an hour). Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until done.

FOR ICING: In a small mixing bowl stir together powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in enough milk to make a smooth icing of drizzling consistency. Drizzle over rolls. Serve warm or cool.

The original recipe also called for 1/2 t. baking soda and 1 t. baking powder, but it really doesn't need it. The only leavening is from the fermentation of the original starter. These rolls are a little more filling than my usual cinnamon rolls. I can only eat a couple at a time, so they've lasted all week. Beth and I have been enjoying them for breakfast. I guess I can forgive her for bringing home, and keeping, all that starter in the first place.

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