Pop tarts

Have I mentioned that my friends love me? Well, if they don’t they should… it’s just logic. The food from the cafeteria gets old, fast, and that’s when my boredom and love of real food kicks in. Since I don’t want to eat it all in one sitting (because yes, I could do that) I give the majority of what I make to my friends. And they’re more than happy to take it. So like I said, my friends should love me. Tonight especially, tonight I decided to make something that has definitely been done before but probably isn’t considered by many college students when the vending machine is so close by. But it was worth it… so worth it. I made homemade pop tarts. This recipe has been circulating around the internet for a while which means I’ve wanted to make them for just as long.

I finally got around to it tonight after the ingredients have been sitting in my fridge for about a week now. I don’t know why I put off making these for so long, but I shouldn’t have. I could have made five batches by now and I wouldn’t think twice about the ten pounds that I’d have gained. This recipe is so simple and quick that I guarantee you that anyone can make it as long as they have a cookie sheet to bake them on. Did I mention that they’re delicious? Because they are, they really, truly are. They’re warm, flaky, gooey and just all around delicious… what more could you want from a pop tart?

Here’s what you’ll need:

• One package of any premade croissant package
• Any filling you want. I used nutella, strawberry preserves and cinnamon sugar.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, or whatever the cooking instructions of your croissants say. Cover your baking sheets in parchment paper so that the dough doesn’t stick to the sheet and fall apart when you try to take it off. Next, open the package of croissant dough and break apart into squares (they’ll come in triangles so if you can try to keep two of the triangles together when you’re unrolling the dough). Use a rolling pin (or one liter soda bottle in my case) to roll out the dough and help seal together the perforations in the dough. This also spreads out the dough so that it doesn’t get too puffy or flaky and you have more surface area to spread the fillings in.

After that, cut the pieces of rolled dough into squares. If you’ve rolled out two triangles together just cut them in half. Then, apply the different fillings of your choice and fold in half. Use a fork to seal the edges of the pop tart closed and poke holes into the dough so that the air has a place to escape when its baking. Then place onto baking sheet.

When you’ve finished putting together all of the pop tarts place them in the oven and bake according to the directions on your croissant package. Take out of the oven when they’re golden brown and let cool for at least 5 minutes.

You can serve them right out of the oven or wait a while. They should stay for at least a day if you can keep them around for that long!

Granola with Cranberries, Raisins and Almonds

It’s official; I’ve hit that point in the winter where I’m sick and tired of all things winter. Snow, indoors, clanging pipes, ice, and yes, even hot chocolate. Especially after it was about sixty degrees here in Massachusetts on Friday I’ve got absolutely no desire to see snow any time soon. So today, in protest of winter, I decided to make something that’s not traditionally associated with any season, let alone winter. I decided to make my own granola. It’s something that I’ve wanted to make for a while and when I found the recipe last night I couldn’t wait (the fact that I had all of the ingredients only added to my excitement to make this recipe.

Granola from stores is surprisingly expensive for what it really is, and being a college student with about $3.78 in my bank account paying $4.50 for a 10 ounce bag of granola is not really feasible for me. And after making this recipe I don’t see why I’ll ever go back to paying so much for granola, it’s so simple and you can really do whatever you want with it!

The granola itself takes about 45 minutes to make, but it’s so incredibly easy and it tastes great. It’s crunchy, sweet, a little salty and it’s healthy! Who doesn’t want that in a snack?

Here’s what you’ll need: (Adapted from “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking”)

2 cups rolled oats

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt*

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole almonds

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup dried cranberries

* I used 1 teaspoon of salt and it was too salty, which is something I never say, so for safety’s sake I’d lower it to ½ a teaspoon so that it doesn’t overpower the granola

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Mix the oats, salt and the cinnamon together. In a separate bowl mix the oil, brown sugar, and vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients onto the oats and mix them together with your hands. The best way to do this is to grab fistfuls of the ingredients until all of the oats are covered in the honey mixture.

Spread the combination of ingredients onto the baking sheet that you placed aside. Be sure to spread out the mixture evenly, but leave a few clumps like you would find in store-bought granola. Place baking sheet into the oven for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, take the sheet out of the oven and flip the granola with a spatula. Add the almonds and bake for fifteen minutes flipping the granola half way through.

When the sheet has cooled add the mixture of raisins and dried cranberries into the granola and put into an airtight container.

I promise you’ll love this recipe and you can mess around with the ingredients to make the granola however you like. You could add chocolate chips and peanuts to make it more like a traditional trail mix. You could even add more cinnamon and dried apples to make it like apple crisp! The possibilities are endless, so give it a try!

Baked Gnocchi

Sometimes I don’t know if there’s anything more appropriate as winter food than baked pasta. It’s cheesy, its gooey, its hearty and it’s just delicious. Just thinking about it now makes me salivate… a lot.

Anyway, the reason I’ve been craving baked pasta lately is because of my sister in law Amy. My boyfriend and I went to visit her and my brother in Orlando over our winter break to see my new niece. During our visit Amy made baked rigatoni for dinner one night, and it was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a while. I kid you not. Since then I’ve been dreaming of different types of baked pasta: baked spaghetti, baked penne, baked ziti and recently baked gnocchi. (For those of you who don’t know what gnocchi is it’s basically a little pasta dumpling usually made out of potato, flour and a few other ingredients. If you’ve never tried them you should. They’re to die for.)

So I set out to make baked gnocchi and all things considered it was a success! It was a bit cheesy, but you’ll never hear me complain about that! Give this recipe a try, it’s incredibly simple and it’s perfect for weeknight dinners when you don’t want to put a lot of effort into dinner. It’s everything you could possibly want after a long day at work or in classes. It’s warm, its hearty, it’s cheesy, it’s satisfying, it’s a little sweet because of the tomato sauce, but it’s salty and creamy because of the cheese. You should try this recipe, it’s just that good.

What you’ll need:

• 1- 1 pound box of gnocchi
• 8 ounces of ricotta cheese
• 12 ounces of mozzarella cheese
• 12 ounces of tomato sauce
• Two tablespoons of parmesan cheese

First, cook the gnocchi according to the instructions on the box (typically when they’re floating you’ll know they’re ready.)

While the gnocchi is cooking, mix the 8 ounces of ricotta cheese, ¾ of the mozzarella cheese (8 oz) and ¾ of the tomato sauce (8 oz) in a bowl.

When the gnocchi is cooked place it in the bowl with the cheese and sauce and mix together with a spoon or spatula. Don’t use your hands since the pasta will be incredibly hot.

When the gnocchi, sauce and cheese are mixed pour into an oven-safe dish (I used a 9” pie dish, but you can use whatever you’d like.) Sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella and the tomato sauce onto the top of the mixture and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Let it sit for a few minutes when you take it out of the oven and then serve. Add the parmesan cheese to taste.

Homemade Oreos

I’m in one of those slumps again—the “broke college student that would rather go to the dining hall and eat than cook things for her food blog” slump. You know the one… right? No? Oh, well I need to get out of it and not only cook things, but post some of them too! So here goes nothing:

The semester started up again last Wednesday on the 26^th but thanks to the lovely and wonderful weather in New England we had a snow day on the second day of classes. So of course I took advantage of this wonderful rare occasion and decided to bake something for my residents before our first floor meeting (granted, this was mostly to bribe them into actually showing up to the floor meeting) but at least it worked!

I found this recipe thanks to a habit of mine that I’m trying to break: hungry food blog roaming. That’s right; when I’m hungry the most productive thing I do is look at food blogs. I don’t do work, I don’t read for classes, I don’t fix things that are broken; I just look at food blogs. I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen a while back and I’ve been dying to use it. I love Smitten Kitchen, it’s one of the first food blogs that I started reading and one that I try to stay as up to date with, and everything that the writer, Deb, posts looks so amazing.

After reading her post on these homemade Oreos I knew I had to try to make them and I figured that there wasn’t a better time than my first floor meeting of the semester! All things considered the recipe is easier than I expected and everyone that tried them really seemed to like them. My friend and fellow RA Erin definitely did.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the cookies:

• - 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• - ½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder*
• - 1 teaspoon baking soda
• - ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• - ¼ teaspoon salt
• - 1 cup sugar
• - 1 ¼ sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - 1 large egg

For the filling:

• - ½ stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - ¼ cup vegetable shortening
• - 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• - 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt.

With an electric mixer mix in butter and then the egg.

Continue to mix until the ingredients fully incorporate and become dough.

\

Roll into small balls and place onto cookie sheets that are lined with parchment paper. Flatten the balls of dough down with hand.

Place in oven and bake for about nine minutes. Turn the sheets around halfway through so that the cookies will bake evenly.

For the filling, place the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl and mixing on low speed. Slowly mix in the sugar and the vanilla. When all of the ingredients are mixed together turn the mixer to high and beat the filling for 2-3 minutes so that it becomes light and fluffy.

Once the cookies are cooled take the filling and place about a teaspoon’s worth of filling onto one cookie and spread it evenly. Place a second cookie (without the filling) on top of the cookie. Continue this process for the rest of the cookies.

The cookies are a mix between oreos and whoopie pies. They’re delicious, but also incredibly rich. Enjoy!

*For those of you who don’t know what Dutch process cocoa powder is, this will explain it to you so you’re not trying to figure out what it is at the grocery store (it happened to me!)

Red Velvet Cake Balls

During the winter I tend to go a bit baking crazy. Maybe it’s because I’m always cold and hanging around the oven warms me up. Or it could just be my instincts telling me to bulk up for the winter. Regardless of what it is, something inside me tells me to make delicious, fattening, sweet, gooey, messy and wonderful goodies, and I happily abide. This winter, this recipe gives me good reason to go baking crazy.

Who doesn’t love cake? Anyone? Exactly. But I know for me, I like smaller pieces of cake since bigger pieces can get overwhelming. These red velvet cake balls are delicious, perfect, bite sized balls of cakey goodness that are a real crowd pleaser. I made them for a party my parents threw and when I say everyone asked for the recipe I’m not joking. Everyone asked for the recipe: men, women, people that love cooking, people breaking their New Years resolutions (because of these cake balls.) They were a hit. I even promised my best friend Kat some, but by the time she got to my house they were gone… this recipe makes about fifty cake balls and they had all been eaten. Did I mention that that they were crowd pleasers?

What you’ll need (recipe from Bakerella.com):

One Box of Red Velvet Cake Mix (You can make it from scratch, but I got lazy and just used the mix).

16 oz can of cream cheese frosting

Chocolate bark (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips and Bakers semi-sweet baking chocolate)

Did I mention that the directions are super easy:

Bake the cake following the directions on the box. Once they come out of the oven (after you’ve inserted a toothpick in and it comes out clean) let them cool completely.

Once the cake is cooled completely crumble the cake in a bowl and mix with the cream cheese frosting. Make sure they’re completely mixed and then use a cookie dough baller (or your hands) and form the mix into balls.

Place the balls into the refrigerator for a few hours so that they can harden. I left them overnight because I frequently have difficulties being coordinated enough to dip things in hot chocolate, so I wanted them to be extra firm when I did dip them.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler (whether it be a makeshift one or a real one). When the chocolate is completely melted remove the balls from the refrigerator and start dipping them one at a time into the chocolate. After you've dipped them, place them on wax paper and let them cool. You can find an explanation of how to dip cake balls in chocolate here.

Let the balls cool and serve!

Egg Drop Soup - Stracciatella

My parents went out of town a few weeks ago and left me in charge of the house. This, of course, means cooking for myself. I don’t mind cooking, but sometimes cooking for one can be a pain. Sometimes you have so much left over you don't know what to do with it and other times you eat so much you end up in a food coma for the weekend.

While sitting at home, cuddling with my dog I was thinking about what I should make myself fod dinner that night. I was craving soup, but I wanted something simple and homemade. I decided to make myself some Italian egg-drop soup (also known as stracciatella). This is a very very simple soup that’s easy to make, whether it's for one person or four.

All you need is:

2 cups of low-sodium chicken stock

1/3 cup of parmesan cheese I used a lot of parmesan cheese for this recipe, but that’s because I love cheese (In my opinion the more cheese the better).

1 eggs

Salt and pepper

First, start by bringing the two cups of chicken stock to a boil and then lower to a simmer.

While the stock is boiling mix the parmesan cheese and the egg together until they’re completely mixed.

(this is before they were mixed)

Finally, while the stock is simmering, slowly pour the egg and cheese mixture into the soup and stir it while you pour it in. Let it cook for about two minutes and then add salt and pepper to taste.

For some variations on this recipe you can add peas, spinach, parsley or any combination of vegetables that you’d like. I chose to add a bit of nutmeg which added more depth to the flavor of the soup. But feel free to play with it, and enjoy!!

Muddy Buddies

It’s official. I’m the worst food blogger ever. It’s been what, five months since I’ve posted something? That’s unforgivable. But at least I have a reason… or an excuse rather. This semester has been crazy as far as school work is concerned But I promise I’ll get better about posting!!

Anyway, I’ve got a great really easy recipe that anyone can do. And believe me, I mean anyone. They’re called muddy buddies, and they’re delicious. Their name isn’t the most appealing, but that’s clearly just so that people that don’t know what they are stay away so that you can have more for yourself! Muddy buddies are basically just chex cereal that you toss with melted chocolate, peanut butter and butter and then coat in powdered sugar. They’re completely amazing. I must have eaten at least half of the recipe by myself, and my friends were more than willing to have some as well.

Here’s the recipe:

9 Cups of Rice Chex – I chose to use rice chex because their texture is light and fluffy, which makes a big difference for me

1 Cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips

½ Cup Peanut Butter

¼ Cup Butter

1 ¾ Cup Powdered Sugar

Step 1: Measure 9 cups of the chex and place them in a large bowl

Step 2: Measure the chocolate, peanut butter and butter and place in a medium sized microwave safe bowl.

Step 3: Microwave the chocolate, peanut butter and butter for about one minute on high. If you’d rather melt them over a stove top you can. If they aren’t melted after the one minute, stir them and place back into the microwave at 10 second intervals.

Step 4: Pour the melted ingredients in with the cereal and mix them together thoroughly. This step is kind of annoying, but you need to make sure that every piece is coated so that the powdered sugar can stick to them.

Step 5: When the melted ingredients and the chex are mixed completely put them into two separate one gallon freezer bags and pour half of the powdered sugar into each bag. If you pour too much don’t worry about it, once the muddy buddies are completely coated the sugar will just stick to the bag.

Step 6: Pour the muddy buddies out onto a piece of parchment paper and let them cool completely. Once they’re cooled you should put them in an airtight container so that they don’t get stale.

That’s it! They’re easy, delicious and definitely a crowd pleaser! Enjoy!!