Too Much Chocolate Cake

I made this cake weeks ago, for New Years. I haven't gotten around to posting it, but really, what's a better day to post a delicious cake like this? It's Mardi Gras a.k.a. Fat Tuesday! It's the perfect day for a delicious Too Much Chocolate Cake!

So chocolately. So delicious.

All my ingredients. Note that the recipe calls for chocolate chips and because a review I read, i used mini chocolate chips. Good idea.


Mixing


Mixing.


And more mixing.


It was a THICK mixture and I plunked globs of the stuff into this bundt pan. (Fun fact: got that pan from a yard sale.)




Out of the oven. Mike eyes the cake. "Hey," he says, "should you cut the excess off the top so the cake sits flat?" Well, no, because I had put the cake on a plate (which is a bit concave) instead of a cake platter (which, I assume, is flat).

Insert sad face here. He wanted to eat the extra bits o' cake. :)


I held a mesh strainer over the cake and poured the powder sugar in. It made a nice dusting on top of the cake.


And voila. Delicious NYE cake. And me, before I got ready for our little party. (Here's an after. ^_^) 

What I would have done differently? Nothing. It was amazingly delicious. Rich, but not too rich that I couldn't cut myself a huge slice. It stayed nice and moist for several days until it was gone.

I probably ate half that cake and it was nice.

You can find the recipe here. :)

Brown Oyster Mushroom

My brother in law stopped by this evening bearing a gift.

That is an enormous clump of brown oyster mushrooms he found growing near downtown. The brown oyster likes cool damp weather like we've had recently. Needless to say, we'll be eating mushrooms with every meal for the next week. They're great for you and will be good in soup and on pizza.

It measures over 12 inches across. I wish I had a kitchen scale to weigh it, I'm sure it's several pounds. We'll eat what we can, share some, and then dry the rest. Thanks Leo!

Eating Healthier is More Expensive...

A lot of people might say that eating healthy is too expensive and that's why they don't do it. Well, we're trying to eat healthy AND slash our grocery budget at the same time. We've found we actually save money when we eat healthier--especially when we eat vegetarian. 

I stumbled across the other day and thought I'd share: 

vs.

These graphics go along with an interesting article from the New York Times called "Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?"

Thin crust pizza dough

Making your own pizza crust is super easy. I tried several recipes to make my own healthy thin crust, and this is my favorite.

I tried mixing the ingredients with a KitchenAid mixer and also by hand. It really doesn't take much to mix and doing it by hand wasn't difficult. I found the key to kneading and rolling dough is to not skimp on the flour. As a precaution, I like to cover every flat surface in the kitchen with flour. Because it makes such a mess, it only makes sense to do several batches, one after the other and then freeze the extra. Pizza dough freezes well, just cover it in flour and put it in a large zip lock bag. Just take it out of the freezer a couple hours before you need it, or put it in the fridge the morning of.

I usually substitute 1/2 cup of wheat flour just to add some whole grain. Too much wheat flour and the crust is just too dry for my taste. Here's some other modifications I tried:

For five-grain crust:
Substitute the 1 cup of wheat flour suggested in the recipe.
Add 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup whole oats, 1/8 cup flax seed, 1/8 cup millet.
I found it's easiest to add these ingredients in the middle of adding the flour.

For garlic crust:
Add 1 tablespoon minced garlic while you're adding the flour. Yum.

For Italian crust:
Add some Sicilian, Italian, or whatever seasoning you like while adding the flour.

After rolling the dough, I bake it for 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees. You know it's good when the dough gets a big bubble or barely starts to brown. Just don't cook it all the way yet. Pull it out of the oven and add mozzarella, veggies, mushrooms or whatever you like and drizzle some olive oil over it. Or go the Mediterranean route and use pesto, olives, sun dried tomatoes, capers and fresh mozzarella. Put it back in the oven until the cheese melts and starts to brown (about 10 minutes). I use a regular ole pizza pan. Curious how this would grill or pan fry.

Far as cost goes, homemade pizza dough is super cheap. I'd guess about 50 cents each (depending on what you add). By comparison, Publix's yummy five-grain dough is $3.50 a pound (makes one pizza). A typical freezer pizza is $5 to $8 dollars and isn't nearly as healthy. Healthy frozen pizzas are usually more expensive and taste like cardboard. No matter how you look at it, you come out ahead.

Fajitas

Mike and I are often on the hunt to perfect a certain dish.

He's got steaks to a tee and I think they're better than almost anywhere else. We ate several salmon delicious dinners looking for the perfect way to prepare salmon.

We now find ourselves seeking the perfect fajita recipe. We know it exists. We had the best fajitas ever at Taqueria Ixmiquilpan. And then, wouldn't you know it, we had the best fajitas ever AGAIN at Viña Del Mar, one of the restaurants at our resort in Mexico. The fajitas were so good we got them two nights in a row.

I came home with a renewed vigor to figure out how to make the perfect fajitas at home. I started where I usually start: allrecipes. I found this popular marinade and went to town.

Mixed up the marinade. Didn't have a good size plastic bag, so I used a tupperware instead. Anyone know if this affects quality?

24 hours later and ready to cook. Except I used a yellow onion, not red, and added some green peppers to the mix.

I didn't have a recipe to use when cooking the fajitas, so everything was me guessing. I sauteed 1/2 a yellow onion in a bit of oil.

Chopped up 1 red bell pepper and grabbed some green bell pepper from the freezer. Tossed those into the mix. 

After cooking them, I removed them from the pan and set them aside to cook the meat. Wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do, but its what I did.

Cut the meat into strips and cook.

Add everything together and cook for a bit longer.

Steamed some corn tortillas in the microwave and then covered them to keep them warm.

Our simple spread. Fajitas, tortillas, chips & queso. 

Mike likes to eat his without the tortillas.

I like mine with. :)

Result? These fajitas were NOT the fajitas I've been searching for. However, they're the closest I've ever come. I think the liquid smoke in the marinade was possibly something that edged me closer to those coveted delicious fajitas.

One of my problems was that the meat was too dry. I think, perhaps, next time I should cook the meat first and then add the vegetables and let everything finish together? I feel like I cooked the meat for just a little too long.

Also, when we've gotten the BEST fajitas either here in Greenville or in Mexico, the food has been a bit darker in appearance. Is that a product of cooking them on cast iron? I feel like I should cook these on cast iron. And I would, too, if SOMEONE had brought down Mom & Dad's old cast iron pan like she had promised.

Or maybe it's some special fancy and/or secret fajita sauce that no one has told me about.

Do you have a favorite fajitas recipe? Or some fajita making secrets? If you're willing to share them, I'd love to hear it!

Mexican Burritos

Mike came home from the grocery store with an Amy's burrito. Just to try. He tried it. He liked it. And he thought, "Hey, I can make this myself!"

The following photos are actually comprised over two different batches of burritos. We made some on the 29th and enjoyed them so much that we made some on the 30th to freeze for later tastiness.

Batch 2 was made with both fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes. Batch 1 was just canned tomatoes. While you're doing the prep work, cook 1/2 cup long grain white rice.

In the pan: pinto beans (1/2 can), MI sweet corn, tomatoes w/ chilies, green peppers.

Mix it all together. Add some cumin and chili powder. Enjoy the delicious smells in the kitchen.

 

Mix in that 1/2 cup rice you cooked earlier. Cook for a few minutes.

Steam a lo-carb wheat tortilla in the microwave. Put some of the burrito mixture on it.

Add some shredded cheddar cheese, of course. What's a burrito without cheese?

Roll it up. 

Cut it in half so you can share your experiment with your lovely wife. ;)

 

Tomorrow. Do it all again and make several to freeze.

When we talked about what we would have done differently, one thing came up: used fresh ingredients instead of canned. The only two canned ingredients were the tomatoes--and we used fresh the 2nd time around--and the pinto beans. Next time we'll add fresh cilantro and lime.

The following day, Mike popped a few in the microwave. How did the frozen ones taste after reheating? Delicious and just as good as the hot-from-the-skillet ones.

If anyone else makes their own healthy burritos, we'd love to hear your recipes!

(Just to clarify, these burritos were made in 2011 and the ingredients are not part of our January Challenge.)

Red Lentil Soup

 
After holidays full of caramel corn, chocolate cake and Irish cream, it's good to fill my belly with something healthy. This afternoon we made our favorite Red Lentil Soup. I always modify the recipe based on what's on hand and this soup is pretty hard to mess up.

This time I added a cup of organic long-grain brown rice from Swamp Rabbit Grocery. I didn't add any additional liquid, the result is a heartier soup. Also I added some corn, a half tomato and a parsnip that were leftover from other things. I didn't have any fresh parsley, but no worries. I use the Better Than Bouillon organic vegetable base instead of broth. It has good bit of sodium, so use sparingly and don't add the salt from the recipe. The magic ingredient is the cumin. It gives the soup a warm buttery flavor. And cumin is great for you.

Red lentil soup ranks pretty high up there far as healthiness. Adding the long-grain rice to the lentil creates a complete protein. It's full of fresh vegetables. It's vegan but so tasty. The cost for a pot of this soup (approximately 6-8 bowls) is about $8. This is the perfect soup to start a new year.

A Challenge for the New Year

The word I'd use to describe this past year is "FULL". Full of friends, full of both work and play, full of love and learning. And full of good food. We're learning to be better stewards of everything God has blessed us with. Especially our time, relationships, possessions and bodies.

Us with Tiffany's family in the Tennessee mountains

Last year, Tiff and I went vegetarian for a month and what a life-changing experience that was. We still like our meat, but that month opened up all kinds of delicious and healthy foods. It radically altered our approach to choosing what we eat, and precipitated a big shift towards eating a plant-based diet.

So this January, we're going to try another challenge. So often, I hear eating healthy costs more. This month, we're going to try to eat healthy for under $200 for the month. We typically spend $400-$500 a month on food (can you tell we like to eat and share food?), so this will take some doing. Now we aren't exactly starting from scratch, we have some canned goods, rice, beans, in our freezer are a couple frozen chickens and frozen vegetables, and in our winter garden are peas and salad greens. We have a little money for eating out, so those meals won't come from this budget.

[source]

According to my math, spending $200/month for two people means spending an average of $1.58/meal per person. Unhealthy alternatives such as our old staple Tombstone pizzas cost about $1.50/meal per person (on sale). Ramen with an egg on top is probably less than $1. So the trick will be to eat HEALTHY for about that same amount. So the fun starts today, we'll let you know how it goes and let us know if you have any meal ideas.

Growing Mushrooms

My family is a bit mushroom obsessed. My brother, especially. He hikes in the woods searching for delicious mushrooms. He started this insanity. My mom has harvested puffball mushrooms from her front yard to sauté them in a stir fry. My dad chopped down a tree for logs to grow shiitakes.

While looking around at The Fresh Market a couple of weeks ago, we stumbled across this oyster mushroom growing kit from Back to the Roots. Mike sounded like a kid in a toy store when he said, "Oooh! Can I get this!?!"

We've been growing shiitakes out of logs on the side of the house. Those took a lot of work to get started (did you see that bit above about chopping down a tree?) and has taken months to see a single mushroom. To grow oyster mushrooms out of a little box sounded a whole lot easier. Who was I to say no?

The mushrooms grew so fast, it was crazy! This was taken a few days ago. We have already harvested the mushrooms and feasted on them! In fact, he harvested the mushrooms this morning and I wasn't around to get a good photo of the final product. I think I took a few shots of more fully grown mushrooms on film, so we'll have to wait and see. 

Just saw this on their website. We didn't know about the program in time, but if you get the mushrooms, you can take advantage of this!

OUR NEW PROGRAM: Post a picture with your kit fully grown on our facebook page and we'll send you a free replacement bag or donate a kit to an elementary classroom of your choice to support youth sustainability education! Join the Movement!

Mike says it's not really worth paying $20 for the kit just to grow $6-$12 worth of oyster mushrooms, but Mike is hoping to reuse the selum (sp? and also I think that means mushroom organism) to hopefully grow more. We'll have to consult our mushroom expert (aka my brother).

Looking for a delicious dish to make with your mushrooms? We're awfully fond of Wild Mushroom Crostini.

Homemade Pizza

Lately, Mike has been in the search for the perfect pizza. Tonight's dinner was his latest attempt. Though, I suppose I shouldn't really say "attempt" because each try has been deliciously successful.

 

Mike made tonight's garlic-y crust from scratch. The crust smelled super garlic-y before I was cooked but tasted perfect. I'd tell you more details, but he's playing MW3 and a good wife doesn't interrupt that. ;)

The pizza was topped with: Publix shredded mozzarella, a red onion, green peppers from the Farmer's Market (that we froze after we bought them and pulled out of the freezer for the pizza), a locally & hydroponically grown tomato that was picked this morning, and oyster mushrooms that Mike grew out of a box.

Yes, it was delicious. 

For those of you who might be curious, Mike washed his down is Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale while I had Twomey sauvignon blanc.

By the way, thanks for stopping by the inaugural post of The Kuechen Blog.