Cooking in Pajamas

I always see recipes for stuffed mushrooms around the holidays or Super Bowl. They make great appetizers and finger foods. Plus there are endless varieties of fillings you can make. Spinach and cheese is pretty classic and always awesome. Oddly enough, I rarely make them on special occasions. I prepare them as a side dish to a weeknight meal. Sometimes, they are my whole dinner. There are always leftovers and I love having them for lunch the next day or as a mid-afternoon snack.  They are filling and packed with nutrition. You can even prepare them a day in advance and store the uncooked stuffed mushrooms in the refrigerator. When ready to eat them, pop them in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms With A Kick.....click here for recipe.

I had a piece of Pine Nut Tart at KR Steak Bar a few weeks ago and have not been able to get it off my mind.  A Pine Nut Tart (or Pie) is the Italian, sophisticated cousin of a traditional pecan pie. The pine nuts are creamy and have a mildly sweet, nutty flavor.  Pine nuts are naturally high in monounsaturated fat which give them an incredible buttery texture.  It makes for a decadent and complex pie that everyone will rave over. I like to serve it at room temperature with a scoop of vanilla or coffee ice cream.

Click here for the recipe.

Artichokes are officially in season in early spring. Once I start to see artichokes in the stores, I start to excited.  Many people are reluctant to purchase fresh artichokes because it can be intimidating to prepare and cook it  Here is a great tutorial. Plan on steaming one artichoke as a practice. It will take the pressure off when you are planning on preparing it for your family and friends. 

This particular dish from Giada De Laurentiis is a real showstopper. Once you get over your initial fear of prepping fresh artichokes, the dish is super easy.  You start off by doing a basic trimming  and steaming of the artichoke. Then you prepare a simple filling and remove the choke. Once the choke is removed you scoop the filling into the center, sprinkle on herbed bread crumbs and bake.

Baked Artichioke With Gorgonzola and Herbs
recipe courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis

Wow..it has been a month since my last post. Time flys by so fast.  

I haven't been in the kitchen much in the past month.  First, my kitchen was closed while we were painting it. Then, I had some minor surgery, and couldn't do too much in the kitchen.  This week, I decided to slowly venture back into the kitchen.  I began with some simple and easy things.  I made a coffee cake over the weekend (total cheat...I used a base of yellow cake mix and vanilla instant pudding), a simple roast chicken dinner last night, and this morning I was craving chocolate chip muffins....which are one of my favorite foods.  

Since I couldn't find my usual recipe (I need to organize my recipes better), I went to my favorite source for baking recipes, King Arthur Flour.  That is where I found this muffin recipe.  Bonus: it is made with whole grain flour!  I had purchased King Arthur Organic White Whole Wheat Flour at Publix a few weeks ago, and hadn't yet tried it. This recipe uses the White Whole Wheat Flour, but you would never guess they are whole grain muffins.  

How could you not love meringues?  Let's look at the facts.

They are quick and easy to make. You can get two trays of these cookies in the oven in about 10 minutes.  The only special equipment needed is a hand held mixer.  I like to pipe the cookies onto the baking sheets with a pastry bag, but a regular plastic bag with a corner clipped off works just as well.  When I am feeling really lazy, I just use a teaspoon and dollop the meringue onto the sheet.

An entire batch costs about $1.50 to make. Look at the ingredients.  Four eggs, less than a cup of sugar....  These cookies definitely do not break the bank.

They only have 10-15 calories per cookie. I won't go as far as to say they are healthy, because they have a decent amount of sugar.  But when you are just craving cookies, and nothing else will satisfy you, these aren't too bad.

There are an endless variety of ways to flavor them.  I love this version made with coconut, but these are your cookies, so flavor them like you want.  Replace   the coconut with any flavoring, or just make them plain. Some ideas to individualize the meringues:  

• add in any flavor extract....peppermint, almond, lemon, banana...
• sprinkle the top with toasted nuts....almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, even pine nuts
• add in mini chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, crushed peppermint candies, sprinkles, cocoa powder, a few teaspoons of Jello powder
• add in a few drops of food coloring to make beautiful, pastel colored cookies

Coconut Meringue Cookies

4 Egg Whites
2/3 cup of Superfine Sugar *
½ tsp of Cream of Tartar
¼ tsp of Salt
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Shredded Coconut (1/2 cup - ⅔ cup)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl with a hand held electric mixer, whisk the egg whites until they become a little frothy, add the cream of tartar and salt and mix it in until combined.

Slowly add the sugar and beat the mixture until the egg whites become thick and glossy and the sugar has dissolved.

Spoon mixture into a plastic bag and squeeze out most of the air. Cut off one small corner of the bag and pipe cookie-sized dollops of meringue on to cookie sheets, about 1 inch apart. (If done correctly, the cookies will stay in those exact shapes when finished.)

Sprinkle the top with some coconut and bake them for 1 hour and 15 minutes making sure to rotate the baking sheets half way through baking. Turn the oven off and let them cool and dry out with the oven door shut for 3 hours.

Store them in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple weeks!

*To make Superfine Sugar, run regular white sugar in a food processor for two minutes.