Weber iPhone App

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to post any new blog entries, but rest assured that we’ve been busy in the kitchen and on the grill and have lots to share.

I’ve recently discovered a tool that will be a lot of fun for any other barbecue enthusiasts like me (especially if you are also a gadget-lover). Weber, the manufacturer of the best grills available nationally, has created an application for the iPhone. For details, visit http://www.weber.com/onthegrill/.

The app includes 250 popular recipes developed by Weber. The recipes are illustrated, well explained, conveniently categorized and searchable. In addition, the app has a function that permits you to choose the recipes you will make and it generates a combined grocery list for your use at the store. As someone who consistently forgets an ingredient when shopping from memory, I find this very useful. In addition, the app includes videos and explanations of various techniques and tasks essential to successful outdoor cooking. Finally, a useful cooking timer is also included.

In upcoming posts, I’ll be reviewing some of the recipes included in the app. I can tell you from experience that Weber develops delicious recipes for outdoor cooking.

Monkey Cupcakes

I have always loved animals, stuffed ones, real ones, pictures of them, you name an animal and most likely I like it. All except one….Monkeys! I just don’t care for monkeys,  or other primates for that matter. I can’t tell you why or why not, I just don’t care for them, never have. So when Ethan saw these monkey cupcakes and kept asking to make them, I kept ignoring him hoping he would suggest something else to make or forget about them all together.

When he asked for about the 10th time this past weekend I finally gave in and made the silly monkey cupcakes for my silly little monkey:)

Monkey Cupcakes

Adapted from Taste of Home
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 box of Devils Food Cake mix
1 can of chocolate frosting
24 vanilla wafers
12 peanut butter sandwich cookies
M&Ms for the eyes
Red and black gel

1. Prepare cupcakes as directed on package

2. When completely cool reserve 1/3 container of icing (for hair) and ice the cupcakes with the frosting

3. Cut 1/3 off of each vanilla wafer for the mouth, discard the scraps (eat them:)

4. Carefully separate each peanut butter filled sandwich cookie and cut in half for the ears

5. Assemble the mouth, ears and eyes on the cupcake to look like a monkey.

6. Pipe black gel (or some of the frosting if you don’t have black gel) on the m&ms to make the eyes and vanilla wafers for the nostrils. Use the red gel for the mouth.

7. Fill decorating bag with the remaining 1/3 frosting and using tip #16 pipe on the hair.

8. Enjoy!

Low Country Boil

I have been wanting to try a clambake for years, but its always seemed like there were too many ingredients, many of which we didn’t like and some of which were too expensive for an everyday meal, so we had never tried it.

Over the weekend I was going though my Mom’s Paula Deen Celebrates Cookbook (which I ended up stealing) and what caught my eye? The recipe for a Low Country Boil. Its a more simple version of what I had been dying to make and yet it was better suited to our tastes.
It includes just a few ingredients with the main spice is Old Bay, my favorite! The other good thing about it is you can size it down or up based on how many people you need to feed.

This one is definitely becoming a regular around our house!

Low Country Boil

Adapted from Paula Deen

Ingredients:

1/4 lb fully cooked smoked sausage per person, cut into 1-inch pieces (we used andouille sausage)
1/4 cup Old Bay Seasoning, or more to taste
2 small new potatoes per person (we added more than that)
1 ear fresh corn per person, shucked, silked and broken in half
1/2 lbs large fresh shrimp per person (16 t0 20 count size) shell on

1. Fill a large pot with enough water to cover all of the ingredients add Old Bay and bring water to a boil.

2. Add sausage and allow to boil for about 20 minutes so that the sausage can flavor the water, add more Old Bay as needed to taste

3. Add the potatoes and boil for about 15 minutes

4. Add the corn and boil for about 10 more minutes

5. Finally add the shrimp and allow to cook for 3 minutes. Be sure to not over cook the shrimp!

6. When the shrimp are done drain immediately and serve on large platter. Enjoy!!!

Ice Cream Cupcakes

You see these tasty treats in all sorts of kids cookbooks and when Michelle made them last week and my kids loved them, I decided to give them a try. They are super quick and easy and the best part is that since the cupcake is in the cone they are neater to eat.

I used boxed cake mix and whipped butter cream canned frosting dyed to the colors the kids choose. I filled my frosting bag trying to keep the green on one side and the purple on the other so that it would swirl when piped and I was pretty pleased with how they came out.

Ice Cream Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from Joy Cone
*Makes 24-30 cupcake cones -I only made 10 and then used the remaining batter for 12 regular cupcakes.

1. Preheat Oven to 350º
2. Prepare cake mix of your choice according to directions.
3. Fill Ice Cream Cones approximately ¾ full.
4. Place filled ice cream cones in a cupcake pan. Some recipes recommend wrapping the bottom of each cone in tin foil to help keep them upright.
5. Place in preheated oven and bake 15 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.
6. Cool Completely and then frost and decorate.
   *I used my Wilton 1M tip filled half with green icing and half with purple and piped the icing staring on the outside and working my way in mounding as I went around.  The kids then topped with sprinkles and enjoyed:)

   *If you are making the full recipe into cupcake cones you will most likely need two cans of frosting

Adventure in Sugar Cookies

I am not normally a big cookie baker, but figured I would take a stab at it.  So I did some research on-line, checked a book out of the library, bought a highly recommend book on the art of cookie decorating and thought why not, I can do this. OMG who knew Cookie decorating was an art and hobby all of its own? I mean it makes sense I guess, I just never put that much thought into.

I had already told our daycare provider that I would make Mickey Mouse Cookies for the Disney World themed parents night out, so I was committed, otherwise I probably would have passed. After being unable to find a Mickey Mouse Cookie cutter I decided I would just do basic round sugar cookies with Mickey Mouse on them. Easy enough.

These cookies turned into quite a project! I needed the cookies for Friday night so I figured I would make them Thursday and decorate them during the boys nap on Friday afternoon, trying to keep them as fresh as possible.

Thursday evening I mixed up the dough got it in the fridge and pulled it out to cut and bake after the boys were in bed. I don’t actually own any cookie cutters, so I used my round dough cutter to make simple circles. After rolling and cutting,  rolling and cutting I decided that I could easily make Mickey Mouse by using my dough cutter for the head and experimented until I found that one of my shot glasses made perfect circles for the ears. I put them together and had large Mickey Mouse shaped cookies.

The next afternoon I started the fun part of decorating them. I had never made Royal Icing before and was excited to try something new. It came together pretty easily and the only issue I had was getting it thin enough. I think it probably could have been thinner, but after adding what seemed like a ton of water I figured it was usable and just needed to start decorating.

According to what I had read the basic idea is to outline the cookies and then fill them in using a technique called flooding. My icing was a bit too thick to “flood” anything and after trying to pipe it all on the way the book showed I ended using my small decorating knife and smeared the red on the round cookies leaving a bit of cookie showing all around. I stuck those in the fridge to set and got to work on the Mickey Mouse ones.

I had decided to outline Mickey Mouse and then frost them in just black and keep them simple. Ok, the cookies were much bigger then I thought and after trying the “right” way of decrorating them with the outlining and piping I  ended up piping just the outline used my decorating knife to fill in the main part. As they sat there I decided they looked a bit plain so I used a little red and some of my reserved white and put bows on some of them so that I had Mickey and Minne cookies. The icing was not as smooth as expected, but for my first stab at decorated sugar cookies I was pretty pleased.

I then pulled the circles back out so that I could pipe Mickey onto them.  I have little to no artistic drawing ability, so there were a few minutes of panic as I tried to figure out how Mickey was getting on those cookies. I ended up using a wide open tip and piped three circles in black and TADA Mickey! Which was great except there was a lot of room left around Mickey, so I threw the rest of my white icing in a piping bag and piped stars around him.  These ended up super cute, but I didn’t get very good pictures as I was literally running out the door.

The whole project kind of evolved as I went along, but it worked and I was pretty pleased with how they looked and they tasted awesome! I love the look and idea of decorated cookies, but the time it took to do this one batch was much more then I normally have, so I put my cookie decorating book on the high shelf and will think twice before I volunteer decorated sugar cookies again.

Cranberry Zucchini Muffins

The night I made the bundt cake I cut the ends off two zucchini and only needed one. Well I couldn’t let the other zucchini go to waste so I quick, quick went though my cupboards and recipes and decided to give Martha Stewart’s Zucchini and Cranberry Muffins a try. I changed the recipe a bit and was very pleased with how they came out. My husband ate one right out of the pan and said they were hot, but great. Cooled or even the next morning they are even better!

Cranberry Zucchini Muffins

adapted from Martha Stewarts Baking Handbook
Makes 12 muffins (she says you should get 10)

• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 medium zucchini)
• 1/2 cup cranberries fresh, frozen, or dried
  *if using dried cranberries up the amount to 3/4 cup and soak in warm water while you prepare batter, drain prior to use
  1. Pre-heat oven to 375°  Grease standard muffin pan with cooking spray

  2. Pull your eggs out of the fridge and put them on the counter or in a bath of warm water to bring to room temperature.

  3. In a small bowl mix your dry ingredients together, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside

  4. Mix your eggs, sugar, applesauce, vanilla, and shredded zucchini together.

  5. Add the flour mixture to your wet ingredients and mix until just combined, do not over mix!

  6. Stir in Cranberries

  7. Spoon equal amounts of the batter into the muffin cups.

  8. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, turning the pan half way though cooking. Muffins are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

  9. Transfer the pan to a wire rack, let muffins cool for 3-5 minutes and then tip the muffins in the pan and let them cool completely.

  

The Great Doughnut Experiment

My friends and I were having a yard sale and wanted a good breakfast treat to enjoy during the sale. We all enjoy baking and cooking different things and decided doughnuts would be a fun experiment. None of us had made them before and the original plan was for us all to get together the night before and make one batch. Well due to children, husbands, schedules etc… it turned into everyone make a different recipe and we will see which one we like the best.

Pam chose to go ahead with the planned yeast based fried donuts, Michelle chose a yeast based baked doughnut and I chose a non-yeast based chocolate fried doughnut. Talk about three different results! Aside from the rising time it seemed Michelle’s were the quickest to make and while they were a bit heavy due to the fact they were baked they were yummy, especially the glaze.

I knew mine were doomed from the get go when the dough did not come together.  I added extra flour to at least be able to call it a dough and put it in the fridge (as per the directions) not sure if I would even have anything to fry. In the end I was able to roll and cut the dough and went ahead and moved forward with making the glaze that would be used on the finished product. Even the glaze didn’t come together as per the recipe, lets just say I will not be cooking from this book again, but after a few quick modifications I again had something usable.

Pam ended up at my house to help me and brought her doughnuts along so that we didn’t waste oil. After fighting to get the temperature right the doughnuts finally started to come together. They puffed up and looked great! Pam dipped and decorated while I fried. In the end they came out looking great, but I just didn’t care for them at all. The texture and taste was off, but again they looked awfully pretty!

Pam’s doughnuts were in my opinion the best. It was the most complicated of the three recipes, but also made the most traditional glazed donuts. Hers puffed up beautifully and after getting the very quick fry time down she fried those suckers up one after the other while I glazed and sprinkled. They were so good that when you closed your eyes while eating them warm you could almost imagine yourself at Krispy Kreme.

When we finally had them all lined up it was 12am and our yard sale was starting in 7 hours. Talk about exhausted!

I really liked being able to try three variations at the same time, I find it easier to compare recipes when I can sample them together. And anything done with friends is always worth a try!
Sadly since it was so late and Michelle was at her house I don’t have pictures of hers:(

Pumpkin Zucchini Bundt Bread

This my be my new favorite quick bread recipe. It is so delightfully yummy! I kept eating it this morning and finally had to wrap half of it up and freeze it before I ate the entire thing in one sitting. The pumpkin and zucchini flavors compliment each other perfectly and with two sticks of butter in the batter, it just melts in your mouth, I mean come on how could it not?

I was sick of using regular loaf pans and decided to bake mine in a bundt pan. If you are watching your waist line and don’t want to be tempted by this yummy delight, use loaf pans, that way you have one to devour and another for a friend.

Pumpkin Zucchini Bundt Bread

Makes 1 Bundt Cake, or 2 Loaves

• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup butter melted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (about 1 medium zucchini)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

  
  1. Pre-heat oven to 350°  Grease and lightly flour the Bundt Pan, be sure to get the entire pan including the tube.

  2. Pull your eggs out of the fridge and put them on the counter or in a bath of warm water to come to room temperature.

  3. Melt the butter (I just use my microwave setting) and let it sit while you prepare the rest of your batter.

  4. In a small bowl whisk the dry ingredients together, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cloves; set aside

  5. In a mixing bowl fitted with a flat paddle mix the eggs and sugar on medium speed until combined. Add pumpkin, butter, and vanilla mix to combine.

  6. Gradually add the flour mixture into pumpkin mixture and mix until just combined, do not over mix.

  7. Stir in the zucchini and nuts, pour into the prepared pan and cook for 60-65 mins or until a toothpick or wooden skewer comes out clean and the bread starts to pull away from sides.

  *If using two loaf pans bake for 45-50 mins

  8. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto the rack to finish cooling. When cool dust with powdered sugar.

Soft Homemade Pretzels

One afternoon my best friend Michelle and I decided it would be fun to try a  new recipe.  We pursued our cookbooks, the cooking blogs and sites and found one for homemade pretzels and decided to give it a try. We figured we spend all of that money on mall pretzels wouldn’t it be great if we could make pretzels for the kids?
These turned out better than we could have ever thought and were easy.

You do have to leave time for the dough to rise,  but they are well worth the wait. We have now made them three times and each time we have done something different with them and each time they have been immediately gobbled up.

Soft Homemade Pretzels

(Makes 12)

• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup sugar +1 teaspoon sugar divided
• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 4 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup kosher salt, for topping

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center; add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water.
3. Knead (use your dough hook on your mixer) until the dough is smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes.
4. While mixing lightly oil a large bowl. After kneading place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Spray baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
6. Make a bath for the pretzels by combing the baking soda with the warm water and stir until baking soda is mostly dissolved.
7. When the dough has risen, turn out onto a lightly floured surface pat  into a rectangle shape and divide into 12 equal pieces (a pizza cutter works well). Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape.  Keep the ropes long and the pretzels thin as they poof up during baking.
8. Once all of the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution shake off excess water, or blot on a paper towel to remove excess water,  and place on the  greased baking sheet.   Sprinkle with kosher salt and pop in the oven.
   *If you are making cinnamon sugar pretzels skip the salt
9. Bake in preheated oven for 4min, spin the pan around and bake for another 4-5 min until golden brown.  Remove from oven and let cool on a baking rack. They are best when eaten warm right out of the oven, you could even brush them with melted butter.
   

   * Cinnamon Sugar Variation:

   • While the pretzels are baking melt two sticks of butter in a bowl
   • Mix 1 cup of sugar and 4 teaspoons of cinnamon
   • After the pretzels have slightly cooled dip them in the melted butter and cover with cinnamon and sugar mixture.
   • Sit them on a baking rack to finish cooling or devour immediately

Rainbow Cupcakes

These cupcakes are just fun! Fun to make and fun to eat.  Beware if you give them to young children the floor will look like Rainbow Brite exploded!

These may be my best looking cupcakes yet!

Start by lining your standard cupcake pan with paper liners and set aside. I used white so that the colors would show though.

Mix up your standard vanilla cupcake recipe.  I used a recipe  from a cupcake book of mine and in the end I thought they were a bit dry so I don’t want to put that recipe up. You do want a recipe that gives a slightly thicker batter so that the colors don’t run together.

After you get your batter mixed do your best to evenly divide the batter into small bowls that equal the number of colors you want in your cupcake.  You could use team colors, school colors, favorite colors etc.. I divided mine up into the 6 rainbow colors, and let me tell you that was stretching it! I will probably make a double batch next time and end up with an odd number of cupcakes or look for a recipe that yields more than 12 cupcakes so that you have a bit more batter to work with.

Dye the batter to your desired colors. I used the Wilton Gel Dye and I LOVE how vibrant the colors are.

Then put a blob of each colored batter into the liners and fill each until they are about 1/2-2/3 full.

(I apologize for the funky hue and color distortion in the next two photos, I don’t have my photo editing software available)

Cook according to your recipe and watch the colors bloom before your eyes!

When they were completely cool I piped on a yummy homemade cream cheese frosting using my Wilton 1M Star tip and topped with rainbow sprinkles.  The cream cheese frosting while super yummy can be a little soft, you could also pipe on a buttercream frosting.

Can we all say YUM!