can you modify too much?

i love browsing food blogs. looking at yummy food pictures and reading over the recipes. but even when i find a recipe i'm dying to try i can't help but think about the changes and/or additions i could make to the recipe.

found a new blog and tagged about half the recipes i shuffled through, but this one caught my eye- 1) b/c it's bread, 2) b/c it had sour cream (still some leftover from my fish taco birthday lunch), and 3) b/c i really needed to stress bake

i've also never cooked with american sweet potatoes. if you've seen or tried korean sweet potatoes, they don't look the same, and they certainly do not taste the same. i'm definitely still a sucker for korean sweet potatoes, but i'm guessing b/c these are so orange much more nutrient rich. 

the recipe comes from averie cooks, and i've made several changes to not only make it healthier but also to fit the taste buds of m&d who are not the most spice happy people out there. 

Sweet Potato and Pecan Bread

Yield: 1-9x5 loaf

Ingredients:

about 1 1/2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (2 medium or 1 very large), roasted

2 large eggs

1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt

1/4 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 tsp baking soda

1 T + 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

pinch salt, optional and to taste

¼ c chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F. Spray and flour one 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside.

Roast sweet potatoes in the oven at 400F for about 35 minutes or until when poked with a fork gives easily. Mash sweet potatoes with a fork. Allow them to cool momentarily so you don't scramble the eggs.

Decrease oven to 350F

To the sweet potatoes, add the eggs, yogurt, sour cream, vanilla and whisk until combined; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients - flour, sugars, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, optional salt, and whisk to combine. Pour the wet sweet potato mixture over the dry ingredients, and stir to incorporate.

Turn batter out into prepared pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes for a 9x5 pan, or until top is domed, golden, loaf is springy to the touch, and cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow bread to cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning it out and gobbling it all up.

loved the pecans in it, b/c i roasted the sweet potatoes the decrease in sugar was definitely worth it (you wouldn't get quite the caramelized goodness if the potatoes had been microwaved and more sugar may have been needed). oats changed the texture of the bread, but since i haven't tried the original yet, i'm quite happy with my nommy bread :)

happy baking

it's all about balance

happy weekend! for those of you who celebrate easter, happy easter! the sisters were home for my bday celebration. so lots of food fun were of course required. found this image of easter bunny rolls on pinterest and s4 jumped right on it! 

the actual execution of bunnies was a bit more challenging than anticipated. haha. sort of alien-esque bunnies.

birthday lunch included fish tacos- cod double breaded w/ garlic, black pepper and salt, topped with pico de gallo, cabbage, guacamole, hot sauce and lobster dip (the tacos needed a chipotle sauce and i had gotten the lobster dip packet from the vermont country store, delicious, let me say). 

i had a hard time choosing a bday cake, and wanted to test out this recipe, so bday left perfect excuse not to get questioned about ingredients i buy :) this is a french silk pie from here, one of the many random recipes i've found probably while browsing at work. i love the vitamix we got for M for xmas/bday. so nice to be putting good use to it. this pie is delicious, so smooth and creamy, just like chocolate mousse. highly recommend!

French Silk Pie (serves 8-10)
13 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup boiling water
2 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 12.3 ounce package silken tofu, drain out water
1 T maple syrup, grade B
1 9 inch prepared chocolate crust or homemade
fruit (optional)
whipped topping (optional)

Directions
Make the coffee with the water. Melt the chocolate chips with the coffee and vanilla in a metal bowl over simmering bowl or in a double boiler. Stir frequently until completely melted. Add the tofu, chocolate mixture, and maple syrup to a food processor or blender. Process until smooth and pour into the chocolate crust. Refrigerate for 2 hours and top with fruit or whipped topping.

As a thank you gift to my sister's friend, this is the other end of the spectrum of sweets. this is thin mint gooey cake bars from picky palate. made a couple changes due to laziness in buying ingredients, but also b/c couldn't find the andes mints! still trying to figure out where they are in the grocery store...these are definitely decadent and little bits go a long way. 

Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars (9 x 9 pan, makes 16 squares)

Ingredients

1 yellow cake box mix

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

1 can condensed milk

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

About 1 1/2 sleeves of thin mints, half of them crushed (leave 6 whole)

Combine cake mix, butter and egg. It helps to do it by hand. Press half the dough onto the bottom of the well sprayed pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips and drizzle 1/3 of the condensed milk on the layer. Press the remaining dough as a second layer and sprinkle the crushed cookies on top. Lay the whole cookies on top (however you want to fashion it) and pour the remaining condensed milk on top. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes (this is really thick dough so it needs a long time to bake) or until the top has become golden and crispy. 

also made smittenkitchen's thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. they all got wrapped up and/or eaten before a picture could be taken. but they are really tasty. the thick, chewy part definitely comes out better baked on parchment paper rather than on silpat.

molasses madness

did you know that if you boil molasses at least three times it is called blackstrap and loses all its sweetness? i mean the robust molasses i got from grandma's molasses was pretty darn unsweet (think burnt sugar, it was also the color of burnt sugar) but this stuff makes unbelievable ginger cookies w/ some spice fun. i'm having too much fun w this molasses stuff. and on wikipedia. haha. someone stop me!

gingerbread cookies are probably in my top 3 cookies (i think chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin round out my top three, although right now i'm on such a baking high i can't even think of another kind of cookie...oh boy, someone stop me)

but i used simply recipe's molasses spice recipe b/c after reading that i should chill the dough overnight for gingerbread men, i went for the more instantaneous gratification :). these babies don't look anything like simply recipe's version, no crackle, no poof, but my sisters called them "crack cookies" so i guess that was a ringing endorsement. good thing i had lots of coworkers to share the drug addiction with. the dough was very sticky and the cookies puddled out to be very thin (it was an all around vote that the cookies baked on the silpat were much nicer than those on the aluminum foil- more crisp but in a light airy way). these cookies are very delicious! gingery, buttery with a nice rich flavor which i'm thinking comes from the combination of all the spices with the molasses (nom nom). the only change i made to the recipe was using raw sugar in place of brown sugar (i still can't find my brown sugar from thanksgiving so i think i'm on strike for buying more until it shows itself). i also made these cookies much smaller to get about 4-5 dozen cookies. these cookies spread, so only put about 8 cookies per cookie sheet. bake about 5-6 minutes.

today, got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic right on my way home from work (i'm hoping this wasn't remnants from new year's eve fun and people forgot how to drive) but i passed 3 accidents. so de-stressing meant thinking about cookies to bake- aka, tool around with the cookie recipe to make it healthier and also more cakey (i like my cookies crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside!)

for the 2nd version i took out an entire stick of butter, 1/4 c of the sugar (the raw sugar), and put in two large spoonfuls of plain yogurt. the dough still came out incredibly wet and i had an even harder time rolling it in sugar (it was more a ploop into the sugar bowl then covering it in sugar and balling it up and shaking off as much sugar as possible). but these cookies were much poofier and cakier. also, less greasy. which i appreciated. these need to bake a bit longer to get the crisp on the outside, about 7-8 minutes is perfect texture in my opinion. 

in case you didn't get enough molasses in your life, i got one more goodie for you- spice molasses pumpkin bread adapted from circle b kitchen who adapted it from bon appetit. i made quite a few changes (out of pure laziness of not wanting to get more ingredients and nutritional preferences). plus, i only made 1 loaf.

Spiced Molasses Pumpkin Bread (1 loaf)

1/4 c white sugar

1/4 c plain yogurt

1/4 c robust molasses (I used Grandma's Molasses)

1 large egg

10 oz pumpkin puree

1.5 c flour

1/2 tsp group allspice

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 c raisins

1/2 c toasted walnuts, chopped

sprinkle of raw sugar, optional but recommended

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter one loaf pan.

Mix the sugar, yogurt, pumpkin and molasses in a large bowl to blend. Mix in the egg.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, spices, baking soda, salt, and baking powder. Stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture in two additions. Mix in the walnuts and raisins.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan, sprinkle with raw sugar and bake 40-50 minutes.

since i took out all the fat from the recipe the sprinkled sugar on top helps to give the bread some crust. this bread is delish- moist from the pumpkin and raisins and the toasted walnuts fit perfectly with it. eummm, too bad i'm not as productive about the rest of my life when i get stuck in traffic. happy baking :) i really need to stop baking late at night so you can see the actual yummy color of the food!

wct- savory monkey bread and pumpkin soup

food today was a hit and a miss. kind of like my week. but at least the week is almost over. been living out of my car and crashing at my friend's place (thank you thank you thank you!) i think i would have gone crazy with the commuting. so feeling tired and burnt out which usually means i want something toasty and greasy. after my friend mentioned garlic parmesan monkey bread and we watched a marathon of "chopped" (i love that show!) i was definitely set to make it. and just like the usual sweet monkey bread, the savory version does not disappoint.

 toasty, flakey, garlicky, cheesey goodness. and super quick and easy. recipe at the bottom!

i figured i should balance it out with something healthier and more nutritious (since that is my future work, hopefully) so it's with a baby arugula salad and pumpkin soup...now this pumpkin soup, i don't know if it's because i tried to combine two recipes or if it's because i used an uber healthy mayo-clinic recipe as the basis of the soup so i got something very brothy with absolutely no butter...then again, it might just be that b/c i've never had pumpkin soup i have no idea what it should taste like.

it's so darn good it needed an up close and personal. look at all that parsley! drool...

Garlic Parmesean Monkey Bread (serves 5)
adapted from all-recipes
1 Tblsp and 1.5 tsp dried parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
dash of salt
1 Tblsp, 1/4 tsp butter melted (the 1/4 is to coat the pan...not that it seemed to help)
1 egg
1 can Jumbo Safeway buttermilk biscuits
1/4 cup Parmesean Cheese

Grease a large loaf pan (I greased a bundt pan and when putting the pieces in realized the pan was too large and didn't get a good layering action, so use something smaller). Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, mix parsley, garlic, salt, melted 1 Tblsp butter and egg until blended. Cut each biscuit into 4 and dip into the mixture. Make a layer in your dish, sprinkle with cheese. Repeat layer and cheese sprinkling. Cover loosely and bake about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

* I think I want to try the pillsbury biscuits next time, these had bits of butter in the dough already to begin with and I think it made my bread a little too buttery (although really can that crispy buttery taste go wrong?). Also, everything stuck completely to my pan, it may to do with the fact that I couldn't get a full layer of biscuit before sprinkling with cheese. 

Pumpkin soup
I combined Mayo Clinic with Simply Recipes
I don't even want to write the recipe that I ended up with b/c I wasn't pleased with the end result, but I ended up with the soup from Mayo and the spice from Simply Recipes. It definitely needed/wanted the cream and/or butter that the spicy soup had.