Bacon Wrapped Scallops and Cranberry Spinach Salad

Oh my word, has it been a long time...
What a hectic summer! I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. Yard work, family weddings/get togethers, and um, auditioning for MasterChef Canada (no big deal or anything...) time just flew by and then I realized, holy crap, it's been months since I blogged. My bestie said to me the other day, "You know, it's been a while since you blogged." And she was right. It has been too long in fact. So here we go again!

These recipes are actually recipes that I thought I had shared a while ago but when I went to check on my blog a few weeks ago, this post was nowhere to be found. Much to my dismay actually because it was a particularly long one that I had taken lots of time with. So honestly, that's another reason I haven't blogged in a while, because I was ticked off at whatever glitch had deleted my entire post. I feel at this point that I've gotten over my frustration, so let's try this again..

Bacon Wrapped Scallops:

I made this recipe quite a while ago but actually this summer my friends and I had a debate about how to make bacon wrapped scallops. My one friend asked how you would cook the bacon and scallops together so that the scallops wouldn't be ridiculously overcooked and the bacon wouldn't be raw. I'll tell you the secret, cook the bacon a for a little while ahead of time. Then you wrap partially cooked bacon around the raw scallops and no one is over/under done. Brilliant.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (at the time I did not have Dijon so I used whole grain mustard)
12 large sea scallops, halved
12 sliced smoked bacon, halved
24 toothpicks
2 tablespoons brown sugar.

Disclaimer: I ended up using about 40 medium sized scallops (because it was cheaper to buy so many small ones as opposed to 12 large ones) so I actually ended up having to double the recipe. Also, this recipe is adapted from this recipe on All Recipes.

Stir together the maple syrup, soy sauce, and Dijon mustard in a bowl until smooth. Add the scallops, and toss to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and marinate at least one hour.

While those are marinating, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with tin foil. Arrange the bacon on the baking sheet so they do not overlap, like so...

Bake in the oven until some of the grease has rendered out of the bacon, but the bacon should still be soft and pliable. About 8 mins in the oven should do it. Remove bacon from the sheet and pat with paper towels to remove excess grease. Drain or wipe grease from baking sheet.

Once the scallops are finished marinating, wrap each one in a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Sprinkle scallops with brown sugar.

Bake in a preheated oven (same temp as you cooked the bacon at) until the scallops are opaque and the bacon is crisp, 10 to 15 mins, turning once.


I served this as an appetizer with Jaime's Cranberry Spinach Salad, the only difference being that I candied my almonds.

And if you're wondering,  yes, my husband and I ate all 42 scallops. No, we don't like to share all the time.
Oh and for anyone else who is curious, I didn't make it past the Winnipeg audition of MasterChef. Not gonna lie, I had a little cry when I found out but it was still such a cool and fun experience that I'll definitely do it again if I get the chance. And hopefully someone from my audition group made it to Toronto so I have someone to cheer for!

Thanks for being patient, my (three or four?) dedicated fans...

xoxo

Ash

Banana Bread Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

Okay everyone, get ready to change your pants because these banana bars are a 10 on the shit-your-pants scale. And that's all the explanation you need so go make these right meow.

Ingredients:
Banana Bread Bars:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional. But I used them. So you should too. Unless you are allergic. Please don't in that case)

Brown Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk

Directions: (Oh, I just though of New Directions and then got really sad. RIP Cory Monteith...)
Preheat your oven to 375 F. Grease a 10x15 inch cookie sheet (I saw it written as a jelly roll pan, and I had NO clue what that was. So I googled it. It's just a large cookie sheet. Am I making it very obvious that I'm Canadian?) Start with the ingredients for the bars. Beat together the sugar, sour cream, butter, and eggs in a large bowl until creamy.

As a side note, Whenever I have bananas that are getting a little on the brown side, I just chuck them in the freezer and take them out a little bit before I want to use them so they thaw out some. Once they are thawed they come out of the peel nice and easy (it's kind of gross actually).
Okay, so mix your gross bananas with the sugar/butter/egg etc. mixture along with the vanilla extract. Mix until well blended. Then add the flour, baking soda and salt and blend until just incorporated, about one minute. Stir in walnuts (which you should be using; allergies are the only exception in my opinion).

Spread the batter evenly into the pan (it should come up right to the top of the sides of the pan) and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown on top.
Okay, while that sucker is in the oven, start making your frosting.
Put the butter in a large saucepan and heat over medium heat until boiling. Let it turn a delicate shade of brown...

... and then take it off the heat immediately. Make sure you don't let it burn! It's called BROWN butter frosting, not BURNT butter frosting.
Once off the heat, add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk. Whisk together until very smooth but still thick.

Once the bars are out of the oven...

... Use a rubber spatula (or a yeetzlapel, for all my fellow Mennonites. Bad spelling, I know) and spread the icing on while the bars are still warm! I know that sounds weird (well, at least it did to me) but it's important! The icing will not slide off, don't you worry your pretty little head.

Now, you can let that cool off a bit before you dive in. And once you do, be warned, you will not be able to stop.

Just look at those things!! Ugh, I can't even handle it.

Don't say I didn't warn you...

xoxo

Ash

Recipe found via Pinterest on Life's Simple Measures

Rice Pudding

This post is dedicated to my Grandma Annie.

Rice pudding is something that really reminds me of my Grandma Dueck. She made this for me and my brother (and I'm assuming all of my cousins as well) all the time. I remember eating this warm, creamy dish with a whole whack of cinnamon on top. If you can take a particular dish for granted, this is one that I definitely did. Once we were older and she moved out of her house into her condo, I can't remember ever having it again however time has not dimmed the memories of eating rice pudding in her kitchen at the house at the end of River Road South. Sometime last year, after my Grandma had passed away, my husband saw the rice pudding was on sale at the grocery store. We picked some up and I realized I had forgotten how much I liked it. And then all the memories of having it at Grandma's house came flooding back to me and I thought, "This is nonsense, I am Annie Dueck's granddaughter, I'm making this from scratch." So that's exactly what I did...

Creamy Rice Pudding:

Ingredients:
3/4 Cup uncooked white rice
2 cups milk, divided
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup golden raisins (my Grandma never made it with raisins but I happen to love them so I though, what the heck)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
(as a side note, I changed the method with this recipe, for the original recipe's method follow the link above)
First, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil in a saucepan. Once the water is boiling, stir in the rice. Reduce heat to low and cover, simmering for 10 mins or until all the liquid is absorbed.
Next, in a clean saucepan, combine the cooked rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt.

Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, at leeaaaasst 20 minutes, if not longer. Once you have it at a consistency you are happy with, stir in the remaining half cup of milk, beaten egg and raisins. Cook two minutes more, stirring constantly.

Once those two minutes are up, remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Serve topped with a little bit of cinnamon if you so desire.

That's also the same bowl that I used to eat rice pudding out of at Grandma's place. So it was really the only bowl I could eat it out of this time. Miss you every day, Grandma.

xoxo

Ash

Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup Featuring Ham, Gruyere and Apple Paninis

Have I mentioned how much I love Giada De Laurentiis? Because if I haven't (which I'm sure I have) I love her so much. I think I might be in love with her. That skinny bitch. No seriously, I love everything about her, even that she can stay so skinny and beautiful when she cooks such rich and delicious recipes. I love to cook too and I sure as heck can't stay that skinny. Anyway, today's recipes are brought to you directly from Giada. I saw her make these recipes on her show Giada at Home a couple of years back and I decided to cook exactly what she made that show all on one day and it was probably one of the best days of my life. No joke. The soup complimented the paninis so perfectly, this will be your new favorite "comfort food" (no offense to tomato soup and grilled cheese, but we play for keeps over here at Food Talk at Five).
Anyway, enough rambling, let's get to the recipes...

Creamy Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup: Courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis.

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature (salted is fine too, just cut down on the salt later)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
3 large or 6 small shallots (I can never find large ones, so I always use 6 small)
2 to 3 cloves minced garlic
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
2 pounds (about 2-3) sweet potatoes, peeled, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 (6 inch long) stems fresh rosemary
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I always use low-sodium, something I learned from Giada)
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Directions:

Chop up all your sweet potatoes first, this part takes the longest and you'll need to have them ready to chuck in the pot when the time comes.

The recipe says to use an 8 quart stock pot, I use a dutch oven, so use whatever tickles your fancy or whatever is in your cupboards. In your chosen pot, melt butter and oil together over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and garlic, season with salt and pepper and cook until the shallots are soft, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes, rosemary and chicken broth and add a little more salt and pepper to taste.

Bring this mixture to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 20 to 25 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, turn off the heat and remove the rosemary stems. Most of the rosemary leaves will probably be left in the soup, don't worry, you'll take care of them in the next step. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth and thick. If you don't have an immersion blender, just put the soup into a blender in small batches and pour back into the pot until everything is blended up nice and smooth. And thick. Whisk in the mascarpone and maple syrup. Season with more salt and pepper to taste.

Keep the soup warm over low heat until ready to serve. Okay, onto the paninis...

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons unsalted better (let's be honest here, most of us use regular salted butter, so just go nuts)
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
1 Tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves (or dried, but in a smaller quantity)
8 (1/2 inch thick) slices white bread (or whatever bread you want)
1/2 cup whole grain mustard
2 cups shredded Gruyere
8 slices Black Forest ham

Melt butter in a skillet and add apples and thyme. Sautee until the apples are soft, about 4 minutes, then cool for 5 minutes. Preheat panini press. Spread 1 tablespoon of mustard on each slice of bread. Add 1/4 cup of cheese on four of the bread slices and top with 2 slices of ham. Top with apples.

Add the remaining cheese on top of the apples and top with the remaining four bread slices. Place in the panini press and grill until the cheese has melted and the bread is golden and crispy, about 5 to 6 minutes.

(Not the best picture, I know). Here they are, all nice and squished :)

There you go. A perfect Sunday lunch. When Giada made these she also made Oatmeal, Cranberry and Chocolate Chunk Cookies. You should make those too. You won't regret it.

Now, I'll take this time to promote a new business venture I have started! As of a couple of weeks ago, I officially became an It Works! Consultant. I wanted to make some extra money and my beautiful friend Chantelle hooked me up with the business and I couldn't be more excited! Want to be slimmer and more toned in 45 minutes? Then I'm your girl! I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it really is as close to magic as you can get! Check out my website ashleyolynick.myitworks.com for more info and send me a message if you want to know more about our Ultimate Body Applicators or about becoming a part of this awesome company!

Take care my faithful followers, I love you all..

xoxo

Ash

Enchilada Pasta Casserole

Manitoba weather sucks. It's April 15th today, and we're having a snow storm?? Jeepers. I'm stuck inside my house today so it's a perfect day to cook/blog so to cheer myself up despite the reeeeeeediculous "spring" weather I'm going to share another of my favorite ever recipes.

On a scale of one to shit your pants good, this is shit your pants. It's classic comfort food and it's Mexican!! yay! (disclaimer: this is the only picture I took of this delightful dish, I was very busy making other things as well so I only thought of it after it was all said and done.)

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef (in this picture I had used ground turkey, works good too)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 ounces of cream cheese (a little more than half of a regular block)
1/4 cup sour cream
1 can (10 oz.) enchilada sauce (red sauce)
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese, divided
(I generally just use whatever cheese I have on hand, sometimes marble, sometimes jalapeno cheese, sometimes a mix of the two)
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed (yeah, I usually forget to thaw my corn kernels when I make this recipe so don't make yourself feel bad if you forgot too... we could make a support group for people that forget things... of that nature)
1 can (4 oz) green chiles
12 ounces egg noodles (I think it's a 280-ish gram bag? something like that)
salt and pepper, to taste.

Directions:

     Preheat over to 350 degrees. Boil noodles and set aside. Brown your beef in a large skillet and drain the fat. Then add the chili powder, cumin and cayenne and mix it up. Add in the cream cheese and mix it around until melted. You actually have to break up the cream cheese a bit and stir it around so it melts and combines with the meat properly. The first time I made this I just plopped the block into the pan thinking it would melt without any help and went about prepping other stuff. When I checked the pan again a minute or two later the cream cheese had actually started getting brown on the bottom, like a piece of Halloumi cheese, so yeah, mix that stuff up.
     Combine the sour cream, enchilada sauce, half of the cheddar and half of the monterey jack cheese, corn kernels, green chiles and mix that up. Pour it over the beef mixture and let that simmer for 2-3 minutes. You should have cooked and drained your pasta at this point so add the cooked pasta to the pan and mix it up until everything is nicely coated in the sauce.
     Add the pasta/beef mixture into a greased baking dish and top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese has melted. Serve with some chopped fresh parsley on top if you feel like it. I have served this with my cornbread (shared a while back on this blog, you can find it here) and with a nice salad.

You're welcome. Stay tuned for next week's DOUBLE FEATURE!!!

xoxo
Ash

Apple Bavarian Torte

Today I am going to share one of my all time favorite desserts. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com a few years ago and I've made it a million times since. It's been amazing each and every time. Simple and sweet and an apple lover's dream.

Ingredients: (divided into crust, filling, and topping, respectively)
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour

1 package cream cheese (8 oz)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 apples - peeled, cored and sliced (I like using Granny Smith apples because they are nice and tart)
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sliced almonds

First, preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.
Next, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla and flour (this is the crust). Press the crust mixture into the bottom of a springform pan (I have a 10 inch, but you could also use a 9 inch).

Super easy. Now, with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, blend cream cheese and sugar (this is the filling). Then beat in the egg and vanilla. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the crust.

There ya go. Next, toss your chopped up apples with the sugar and cinnamon (this is the topping).

Add these on top of the cream cheese. There's not enough cream cheese to bind all of these apples onto the dessert so they just sit nice and pretty on top of the torte.
Throw that (well, no, don't actually throw it) into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 400 degrees F and bake for another 25 minutes. Then sprinkle some almonds over top of the torte and bake until just lightly browned. Let cool, then cut into slices.

Ta da! I served mine with some caramel sauce drizzled over top however the caramel recipe I used is one that I will not use again so I figured it's no use to share it! As soon as I find a caramel recipe that I like you bet your ass it'll be on here.

Also, just as a little FYI, I've been tinkering around with my blog a little more (you may notice the Pinterest button on the bottom, yay!) and I think I've changed the settings so that anyone can comment. So go ahead and comment away! You don't need a google account to do it! Please tell me what you think!

Until next time...

xoxo
Ash

Hot Italian Sausage Stuffed Shells

Happy Easter Monday everybody! I happen to have this day off (no, I don't work for the government, I work this Saturday so this is my "weekend" technically) and have been pretty productive today. My floors are all clean, furniture is dusted, and bathrooms are sparkling. I'm on my second load of laundry and started on my last bit of studying. My mind started to wander (naturally) and of course the thing I decided I wanted to do most right now was blog! So lucky you! Today I'm going to be sharing one of my original recipes. It was adapted from a recipe that my friend shared with me ages ago that I changed around and added a bunch of stuff too. I've started to make it a habit to write things down as I make stuff up because when something turns out great I want to share it exactly as I made it. Keep in mind that I'm a home cook with absolutely no training but a good imagination. So here goes...

Hot Italian Stuffed Shells

Ingredients:

Olive oil
2 Italian sausages, casings removed and crumbled (I used hot but you can use mild or whatever you feel like)
Box large pasta shells (I used exactly 27 of them in this recipe)
2 1/2ish cups tomato sauce, divided (I used my own homemade sauce, so go ahead and use whatever you want)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tomato, diced
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
4-6 fresh basil leaves
2-3 oz goat cheese (I used half of a 130 gram package)
White wine (just a splash)
1 cup Parmesan cheese, divided
1 cup Mozzarella cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Start by pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees and getting a large pot of salted water boiling. Once the water is boiling, add your pasta shells and cook just enough so that they are pliable but not all the way cooked through. This won't take very long. Drain the pasta shells and set aside. Next, heat some olive oil in a pan on medium-high heat. Add the garlic to the pan and saute for 1 minute. Then add the Italian sausage and saute until almost cooked through, not more than 5 minutes. Add some of the tomato sauce, chopped spinach, chopped basil, goat cheese, white wine and half of the Parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until cheese has melted and mixture is heated through.

You don't want this mixture to be too watery as this will be going inside the shells and you want it to stay there, so you can add less tomato sauce to start and then add more if you feel it's necessary. The amount of tomato sauce was the one thing I didn't write down as I just added as much as I thought it needed and didn't think about being specific. Once the mixture is heated through, spray a 9x13 inch (approximately) baking dish with cooking spray, spread the a good amount of tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish and start to fill your pasta shells. Remember that the pasta shells aren't totally cooked through at this point and you'll need enough sauce to essentially cook the pasta shells all the way through, I would say add anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish. Place them in the baking dish and keep going until you don't have any filling and/or pasta shells left.

Cover this sucker with the rest of the Parmesan and the Mozzarella  and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted.

And there you have it. You can serve this with a nice salad and some crusty garlic bread on the side.
Stay tuned next week for the next update of Food Talk at Five.

xoxo

Ash

Pumpkin Pie Bites

Hey everybody!!! I'm baaaaaaaacckkkkkkk!!! Thank you all for your patience as I have been studying my brains out trying to get my blasted degree finished. I'm not quite done yet but as of tomorrow I have exactly one month left!!!!!! I can hardly believe it!!! There are already so many exclamation points in this post!!!! There may be a few more busy moments for me as I get things wrapped up but I'm so close to the end and figured, well what the heck, let's get back to the fun things in life. Which of course, include blogging. So for my first post back, I'm going to share a recipe I made at Thanksgiving (yes, that's how behind I am so I'm sure you can all understand how excited I am to be almost done with my degree!! The first one that is ;) okay, where were we...)

Pumpkin pie bites. The perfect holiday treat. They're excellent for those gatherings where you're all just standing around and eating all evening (which is pretty much how all of our Thanksgiving/Christmas gatherings go). They're super easy, super cute, and super delicious. The conclusion you can draw from that last sentence is that these are going to be your new favorite as I used the word "super" three times in a row. Enough said.

Ingredients:

2 refrigerated, ready to roll pie crusts (I used Pillsbury)
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature (one block)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and ginger mixed together. Here's how to make your own pumpkin pie spice.)

Tools:

3.5-4 inch cookie cutter (or round cup. Which is what I used. If you can believe it, I don't own a cookie cutter).
Mini-muffin tin
Rolling pin

First start by pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees Celsius. Then take the dough out of the wrapper and take a rolling pin and roll out even more (the dough doesn't need to be thick and you can get more pumpkin pie bites this way). Once the dough is rolled out, start cutting out your circles.

Keep balling up your leftover dough and rolling it out again until you really can't get another circle out of it. As you go along, place the dough rounds into a greased mini-muffin pan. I did 12 at a time, alternating cups so the dough wouldn't overlap. Like so...

Once you've cut out all of your little pie crusts, whisk up one egg and apply a little bit of egg wash to the tops of the crust. Now you can start making the filling.
Mix the cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin,  two eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until combined. When I made this I had a little trouble getting my cream cheese mixed in smooth, so the next time I make it I think I will mix the cream cheese and eggs together first, then add the rest of the ingredients. Someone try it out and let me know how it works.
Spoon a little bit of the mixture into each of the crusts, almost to the top, but not quite. The filling will puff up a little bit so you don't want to fill the crusts right to the top before baking.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until crust edges are golden brown. Take the little pies out of the pan and set them on a wire rack to cool. Repeat for remaining pie crust rounds.

Aren't those just straight up adorable?
Top with whip cream and/or chocolate shavings to finish them off.

Until next time....

xoxo

-A (So good to be back!!!)

Quick Update...

Hey everyone!

I know it's been a while since I've posted, I'm sorry!! School is keeping me so busy but I will officially be done as of April 25th and graduating shortly thereafter!! I'm so excited for that day! I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still thinking about you and taking a short break from blogging is breaking my heart and I hope you can all bear with me until the spring. I'm planning on posting my weekly meal plans (I've had lots of questions about meal planning and I am a BIG believer in it so I'll make you one too) along with AT LEAST one recipe a week, maybe more since I'll have so much time on my hands once I don't have any homework to do! I hope to get a post or two in before then but I can't make any guarantees. Please stay tuned my friends! I'll promise I'll be back as soon as I can be.

Pecan Pie Cheesecake

I love cheesecake. Every type, flavour, whatever, I love it. Then this cheesecake came along and now I think I'm straight up in love with cheesecake. I've made this twice now and by the time the last piece is gone, I'm already ready to make another one.
I made this first at Thanksgiving and I think I this may have been a defining moment in my status as a baker/cook amongst my extended family. My brother told me later that after my cousin had his first bite he said, "What the eff..... I almost said f*** this is so good!" So, I guess that about sums it up. Also, I found this recipe on Pinterest, for original click here.

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Crust Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted.

For the crumbs, I couldn't find any vanilla wafers in crumb form so I just bought a box of nilla wafers and crushed them up in my teensy food processor (I got the mother of all food processors for Christmas and I am SOOO EXCITED ABOUT IT!!!!!). Ahem, anyway, chuck your nilla wafers into a food processor thingy if you have one or just put them in a plastic bag and smash them all up into fine crumbs.

I did two batches of exactly that amount of nilla wafers (I would say there are about 20 in there, so maybe 40 nilla wafers in total?) and whizzed that up.

There is the first batch. So yeah, times that by two, like I said above.
Mix up the crumbs, brown sugar and melted butter and then press into the bottom of a greased 9 inch springform pan. Bake in your preheated oven for about 6 minutes, then set aside. While the crust is baking you can start making your pecan filling.

Pecan Filling:

1 cup sugar
2/3 cup dark corn syrup (I don't know if "golden corn syrup" classifies as "dark" because I couldn't find anything that said "dark" so I just used the golden kind. Worked fine if you ask me)
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all the above ingredients in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly. And by constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY. There is so much sugar in that pot that if you let it sit for even just a couple of seconds, it's in danger of burning. So make sure you've gone pee or whatever you need to do because you will be standing by your stove for at least 8 straight minutes. So anyway, stir until thickened (8 minutes is usually enough time) and then pour over crust.

Set that aside. Now you can make your cheesecake filling.

Cheesecake Filling:

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (If I know I'm making a cheesecake one day, I will take the cream cheese out of the fridge or freezer the night before and just leave it out on the counter until I'm ready to go.)
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 eggs
2/3 cup heavy cream (aka whipping cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. With a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, beat cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Add the brown sugar and flour and beat until fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating fully after each addition. Stir in cream and vanilla. Pour over pecan filling.

Woo! Action shot! Okay anyway, once the cheesecake filling is poured over the pecan filling, put it in the oven and bake for one hour. Once that hour is over, turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven for one more hour. DO NOT open the door to the oven. The blogger who posted this recipe that I used said that instead of a full blown water bath, she just filled a pyrex dish with very hot water and then put that on the bottom rack of her oven and put the cheesecake on the top rack and her cheesecake came out without a crack. Yeah, that didn't work with mine. Though the colour was perfect, you will see there was a crack in mine. Also the second time I made this I took the cheesecake out of the oven sooner and I still had a crack in it. So whatever. I came up with a solution that I will share shortly...

Okay, actually two cracks. Not so bad as it's not like it was right down the middle but because I'm a perfectionist there was no way I was going to serve the cheesecake with an obvious crack in the side. I, I just, I can't. It's not in my blood. So here was my solution. A chocolate ganache. Brilliant!! For the ganache, I used about 8 ounces of semi sweet chocolate chips (1 cup) and about 1/4 to half a cup of heavy cream.  I put those together in a microwaveable dish and then microwaved for short increments (about 10 seconds) stirring in between each until the chocolate was smooth and runny. Then I poured that whole thing over the cake.

And what a delicious dessert it was.

Pecans in a chewy, caramel-y layer with cream cheese and chocolate on top. Yeah, I can totally see why my cousin almost dropped an eff bomb.
The second time I made this cake, I did a chocolate ganache again, but I didn't use as much cream so the ganache was much thicker and once I cooled it, it became kind of a hard crust topping which I also quite liked.

Also, I didn't have enough pecans the second time around and though the cake still worked the pecan layer ended up being really hard to cut through given the concentration of "caramel" to the amount of pecans. Whatever, it was still delicious.

It's a snow day today (for me anyway, I live outside the city and my boss was kind enough to not make me brave the highways today) so I'm actually trying to be productive! Studying and blogging in the same day? I never thought that would happen!

Take care folks, and stay warm

- A

Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup

Who doesn't love an awesome bowl of awesome soup on a cold, blustery day in winter? Or really, any day for that matter? My husband and I started a tradition of Soup Sunday's a while back and though we don't make soup every Sunday it is probably my favorite day of the week to do so. You have lots of time (usually) to just sit around and let things simmer as opposed to other days that are filled with work/errands/other stuff. I try not to plan too much for Sundays as I reserve those days for family, church, and of course, making soup!

This is another recipe I found on Pinterest and when I did a Google search to try to find the recipe that I used, I found that there really are a million different variations. I looked at a few of them and some of them are pretty much the same but what really appeals to me about this recipe was that it used a slow cooker. And it was so easy and not to mention delicious. It made a large batch as well so my husband and I were eating this soup everyday for lunch that week. So here goes:

Ingredients:
2 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes, with juice
1 cup each, finely diced celery, carrots and onions (the Holy Trinity of soup making as I've heard this combination of vegetables referred to before)
1 teaspoon dried Oregano, or 1 Tablespoon fresh Oregano (dried herbs are much more potent than fresh herbs)
4 cups chicken broth (I prefer to use low sodium)
1/2 bay leaf
1/2 cup flour (all purpose is fine)
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup butter
1.5-2 cups half and half cream, warmed
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:
add tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, chicken broth, oregano, basil and your bay leaf to a large slow cooker.

Like so. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook for 5-7 hours on low until vegetables are soft. I think I cooked for 5 hours only and the vegetables were cooked. You can leave the soup in the slow cooker on warm until just before you're ready to serve.
About 45 minutes before serving, prepare a roux (the same idea as for the Alfredo sauce in my previous post). Melt the butter in a sauce pan over low heat and add flour. Stir constantly with a whisk for a few minutes (the original recipe says 5-7, I say maybe 4-5). Slowly add in one cup of hot soup. Stir that up until smooth. Then add another 3 cups of the soup and stir again until smooth.

See how it's nice and thick and lumpy? Chuck that back into the slow cooker with the rest of the soup and give it a little stir. Add the Parmesan cheese, warm cream and salt and pepper. I had tasted the soup before adding the salt and pepper and I found that due to the Parmesan cheese the soup was salty enough for my liking so I didn't add any extra salt. Maybe a little more pepper instead.

Action shot! Anyway, once you have the last of the ingredients in, give it a taste and adjust any seasonings as you find necessary. Cover the soup up again and cook on low for another 30 minutes.

And there you have it. I served this with buns and garlic and herb butter. A perfect Soup Sunday if you ask me.

Take care folks,

xoxo

-A