Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup

I have often heard of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I have friends who have made it and said it was surprisingly delicious, but I have never actually done it myself. Well, I have this thing for doing things right. It's a bit of a perfectionist streak I have. If I'm not going to do it right, why do it at all. Therefore, when I make a meal, I like to go all out, and make it a nice meal. This usually includes dessert. :P

I had planned Beef Stroganoff for dinner (see previous post) and it was bubbling delightfully in the crockpot when I decided I really ought to have something for dessert. Into my head popped the idea of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I quickly looked it up online and found several recipes for it. Very common recipe, I discovered, but thankfully they all pretty much listed the same ingredients.
4 Tablespoons each of flour and sugar, 2 Tablespoons of cocoa, an egg, and 3 Tablespoons each of milk and oil. Some recipes also listed an optional 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and a small handful of chocolate chips. We were out of chocolate chips, but I did use the splash of vanilla.

Since there were four people in the house for dinner that night, I got out four mugs.



















I put in the first three, dry ingredients first, and mixed them together.




















Then I added the egg. The recipe said to mix it after the egg, but i found that that just made it pasty and sticky, so I waited until I'd added the other wet ingredients before trying to stir it.

















I added the milk and oil, and a tiny splash of vanilla (emphasis on tiny... one of the cups I added a bit too much to, and the taste was a bit off. Not bad, just not as good as it could have been >_<)

















I put the mugs on a plate and microwaved them on high for 3 minutes. I did each mug separately, since that's what the recipe called for, and I didn't want to mess with trying to do more than one at once.


























Once I got them out of the microwave, I let them sit for a minute, to cool off, then dumped them out of the mug. Add a bit of whipped heavy cream and voila! Insta-dessert!



















They tasted really good! Perhaps not as good as traditional chocolate cake, but for what they were, they were delicious. I did wish I'd had chocolate chips to put in them, or some chocolate sauce to drizzle on top, but ah well. I also am not sure they'd taste nearly as good if they weren't fresh and hot.
All in all, it was a success, and I'd definitely make it again. :)

Crockpot: Stroganoff!

When I was young, there was little in this world more repulsive to me than the mushroom. As I once told a friend "I do not favor fungi". If any of you have ever made Beef Stroganoff, you know what one of the essential ingredients is. Mushrooms. :P Because of this fact, there were few dishes I hated more than Beef Stroganoff. It literally turned my stomach.

I was a strange child. Today, Beef Stroganoff is one of my favorite foods. I still strongly dislike mushrooms, but I simply don't eat that part. The rest of it is amazing.

Therefore, I decided to make Stroganoff for dinner tonight. My mom is away for the week, and that leaves the cooking to me. I haven't done any, so far this week, since my dad works odd hours such that he is often asleep in the evening. I don't usually go through the effort to cook for just myself. Tonight he was around, however, and I planned supper. I was going to work all day, so I decided to make something with the crockpot. I love my crockpot. It was a Christmas present, and I'm very proud of it, and the various concoctions I can make with it.
So this morning, about an hour before I had to leave for work, (and being the procrastinator that I am) I began to look up some recipes for good crock-pot recipes. I didn't really know what I wanted to make, but I plugged in a couple ingredients and hoped for the best. Stroganoff was one of the first things that popped up, and I thought we probably had all the ingredients. I was right. :D

Due to my time constraints, I did not take any pictures this morning, during prep. But I shall proceed to tell you all what I did, anyway. :P

I first dug in the freezer for some beef. I knew I had seen some there, just a day or two ago, and after a bit of searching, came up with two ziploc bags full of cooked beef pieces. There was a lot of fat still on it, but after cutting it up, I came out with just over a full pound of good beef. Then I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil and tossed the meat in some flour. Then I searched the pantry for cream of mushroom soup. We had no whole mushrooms (a fact which did not disappoint me in the least. :D) so the soup would have to do. The recipe called for two cans, and we only had one. Undaunted, I kept searching and came up with cream of chicken soup, and cream of celery. After a brief moment of deliberation, I decided on the cream of chicken and put the contents of both cans on top of the beef.

Next were 3 1/2 cups of water, and 3 cubes of beef bouillon. I actually didn't have any beef bouillon, but we had dried beef granules, a teaspoon of which is equal to a cube of bouillon. In it went, with a bit of extra to compensate for the chicken soup. Then I mixed it up a bit, set the crockpot to low, and raced out the door for work.

Fast-forward to this evening, when I arrived home. Delicious smells greeted me when I opened the door (one of my favorite parts of the crockpot, by the way. ^_^) and I went in to check on it.

It looked a bit oily, due in part, no doubt, to the olive oil. :P


















I then added a pint of sour cream. I meant to add more, but we didn't have more, so a pint was all it got. Turned out a pint was enough. It looked much tastier with the sour cream in it. ^_^


















Back into the crockpot it went to keep warm while I cooked the noodles.




















I opened the bag of egg noodles and poured about half a pound into the boiling water. Egg noodles are a must, when it comes to stroganoff. *nods*


















Once the noodles were done, I dished them out, and poured the crockpot's contents on it. It looked (and tasted!) delicious. ^_^




















Next up, Dessert! :D

Pizza!

I have a pizza recipe, given to me by a friend, and further modified to suit my family's taste.


















It is a favorite with my family, and when we celebrated my brother's birthday this past week, he requested pizza for his birthday dinner. He also asked that I make a couple extra crusts and some sauce for him to take to a party he was going to the next day, and then he would assemble it there.

I started with the yeast, setting it to dissolve in the warm water and honey.

















Then I started on the flour mixture, adding olive oil and various spices and cheeses. We were out of cheddar cheese, so I had to make due with just the parmesan.


















I took the towel off of the yeast, to find it bubbling over the top of the mixing bowl. The number of pizza crusts I intended to make called for a quadrupling of the recipe, when previously I'd only tripled it. Looking at the full bowl of flour, and the full bowl of yeast/water, I wasn't sure both would fit when I added them together!


















Thankfully, they did fit, and after kneading the dough for a while, and adding a bit of flour to get it to the correct consistency, I set it to rise on the counter.


















While the dough rose, I floured 6 pizza pans. I wasn't sure how many pizzas the dough would make, but I knew it would make at least 6.


















Then I floured the rolling pin, and put flour on the table, so I could roll out the dough.


















I love rolling out pizza dough. ^_^

















Some like thick crust and some (me!) like thin crust. :P


















When all was said and done, it turned out there was enough dough for seven pizzas. Having only six round pans, I used a cookie sheet for the seventh. Then I set aside two to give to my brother, put the sheet pizza in the freezer to make later, and packaged up the remaining four to assemble the next day, when we would need them.


















Next I had to make the sauce. Sauce completely makes the pizza, in my opinion, and I use a special recipe that my mom taught me to make the sauce. Using a basic tomato sauce base, I add various spices and seasonings until it's just right. Mmmm! :)


















Then I grated up some mozzarella cheese, and a bit of cheddar cheese to put on top. In my opinion, vegetables have no business being on a pizza, and we were out of any sort of meat to put on. Plain cheese is the preferred topping in my house, anyway, so once the cheese was grated, the pizzas were all ready to put together the next day!


















Next day came, and I pulled the crusts, sauce and cheese out of the fridge to put together. First the sauce. Slather it on, it's oh so good!


















Then add the cheese. Lots of cheese, but not too, too much. Cheese is amazing, but don't want it to overwhelm! ;)























Bon Appétit!

Summer Harvest

A friend of ours with a large garden recently gave us lots of vegetables. Zucchini, Squash, and many Cucumbers.



















In an effort to cook all of them, I decided to challenge myself to make a full meal using at least one of those vegetables in each dish.

First up were the cucumber pickles. A favorite of mine since I was little, it's been awhile since I've made them. Slicing up all the cucumbers was easy, but then I realized we were out of onion. You simply cannot make cucumber pickles without onion and it looked like I'd have to make a trip to the store before I had planned to.
Instead, my sister's garden came to the rescue! She had planted onions that year, and I managed to dig up eight of the tiny vegetables to use. :)

After I set the cucumbers and onions to drain, I went off to the store to purchase the rest of the ingredients necessary to complete the meal.
Upon returning, I added the vinegar and sugar to the cucumbers and put them in the fridge to chill.



















On to the Summer Squash Bread!
I had two kinds of summer squash, so I grated up about a cup of each.



















The bread recipe called for nutmeg and cinnamon. After mixing all the ingredients, I took a small taste. It was rather delicious! I was going to put it in the regular bread pan, but decided to use a special bread pan acquired at a garage sale a few months back. It was designed to give bread that braided look.

In to the oven it goes!



















Moving on to the zucchini brownies, I decided to chop the pieces of zucchini smaller than I had the summer squash. I mixed up the whole concoction and had a taste. Not bad! A bit crunchy, but I figure the zucchini pieces will probably soften once they are baked in the brownies.



















The bread took longer to bake than I had hoped, but I think it may have been the fault of the pan. They finally finished, however, and it looked amazing!



















A quick taste proved the look true, and it quickly got added to my recipe book for future baking days.
The zucchini brownies did not take nearly as long to bake, but they were not quite the success I had hoped for. They came out, instead, rather flat. The taste was alright, but nothing phenomenal. Upon further examination of the recipe, I discovered that I had forgotten the baking soda. Explains the flatness. :P

























After those things were all ready, I started in on the main course. I diced up what was left of the squash and zucchini, and set it to steam on the stove



















I decided to add some fresh garlic, even though the recipe didn't exactly call for it. I have never cooked fresh garlic before, so I decided to just slice it up and saute it with the chicken.



















Then I put another pot of water on to boil, and added my pasta, while I used the front burner to saute the chicken and garlic in oil.


















20 minutes later, I took the veggies off the stove, drained the pasta, and cooked the last piece of chicken. With no further injuries than a few slight blisters from boiling olive oil, I considered my job well done. Quickly, I combined the pasta, veggies, chopped chicken and garlic.



















Then I added cubed mozzarella cheese, minced garlic, more olive oil, some sun-dried tomatoes, and parmesan cheese, and put it out on the table with the bread.




















I consider it to be rather a success, after having tasted it. I felt very Italian tonight. ^_^