Aunt Marylyn's Brownies

These brownies are near and dear to my heart, and the hearts of many in my family...they are a recipe passed to us by my Great Aunt Marylyn who is an amazing lady, she was gracious enough to share with us all. Now, fair warning, if you are diabetic, turn away now...not only is this totally tempting but it might put you into a sugar induced coma just reading the ingredients! These are a great frosted brownie but are delish without the frosting too.

Aunt Marylyn's Brownies

2 Cups White Sugar

1 Cup Butter, melted

3 Tbsp Cocoa, stirred into the sugar

3 Eggs

1 1/2 Cups Flour

1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

2 Tsp Vanilla

1 Cup Chopped Nuts (optional)

1 Cup Chocolate Chips (optional)

1 bag small marshmallows

1. Mix sugar/cocoa mixture, sugar and eggs together. Slowly add flour and baking powder to the mix. After all has been combined, add vanilla and desired add-ins (chopped nuts or chocolate chips). 2. Turn onto a 13X9 floured and greased pan and bake in a 350 degree (preheated) oven for 30 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and add marshmallows over the top and return to oven and bake for 5 minutes, or until melted.

4. Cool slightly and add icing.

Icing

3 Tbsp Margarine

4 Tbsp Cream

2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1/3 Cup Cocoa

1 tsp Vanilla

1/2 tsp Salt

Mix margarine, cream, powdered sugar, cocoa, vanilla and salt together until smooth. Spread over brownies once they are slightly cool.

Quick and Easy Chicken Tacos

Lately I feel like I'm running a spiel on the best of Cooking Light (no, I don't have an endorsement from them! but how great would that be?)....tonight is an old favorite from the May 2008 issue, Chicken and Mushroom Tacos. I have modified mine (which unfortunately makes it less healthy, but the original can be found here), it's a great Monday night dinner, easy and quick, very little prep and very little clean up. This time around I used some chicken that was in the fridge (cooked) but I have used roasted chicken and even the frozen, pre-cooked chicken...here is my version:

Ingredients
Cooking spray
1 3/4 cups thinly vertically sliced onion
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic
1/4 cup Madeira wine or dry sherry
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast (about 8 ounces)
8 (6-inch) flour tortillas
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup light sour cream

Preparation
1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion; sauté 2 minutes. Add jalapeño; sauté 2 minutes. Sprinkle sugar over onion mixture; sauté 1 minute. Remove onion mixture from pan.
2. Return pan to heat; recoat with cooking spray. Add mushrooms and garlic to pan; sauté 1 minute. Add Madeira to pan; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 2 minutes. Uncover; cook 2 minutes or until liquid evaporates, stirring frequently. Stir in onion mixture and chicken; cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated. I added salt, pepper, and a little bit of crushed red pepper at this point.
3. Warm tortillas according to package instructions. Spoon about 1/3 cup chicken mixture onto each tortilla. Top each tortilla with 2 tablespoons cheese; fold in half. Serve with sour cream.

The tortilla in the photo is one of the coolest things I can find at the grocery store (yes I'm very easy to please when it comes to new and cool things)....you buy them in a 'raw' form and then put them on a griddle and they cook. Just like fresh tortillas from a restaurant or home, but so much easier!

Now, since this was relatively healthy (all except the flour tortillas), I did have to eat one of the deliciously gooey brownies I made yesterday....yesterday was a great meal as well, I did ribs, sweet potato fries and roasted green beans, unfortunately the photos were disastrous so I won't be posting this one until I can re-do it. However, the brownies I will post shortly!

Veggie Pakoras on a chilly January night

Today Jackie (my sister) and I spent much of our day shopping at the Domain, one of Austin's high end retail centers, it's beautiful but because it's all outdoors with lots of walking it was pretty chilly today at 44 degrees! After our shopping excursion, we hit the grocery store and came home, what to make, how about a warm veggie fritter (ala Cooking Light) and some frozen Coconut Shrimp (not so healthy but very tasty). We put away the groceries and I got started on the veggie pakoras, which I have been wanting to try since I saw them in the December 08 issue of Cooking Light (another fabulous find in the same vein as my earlier 'light' fried fish post).

Vegetable Pakoras

3 oz all-purpose flour (appx 2/3 cup)

2 tsp Madras curry powder

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup water

1 large egg, lightly beaten

3/4 cup (1/4 inch) diced peeled sweet potato

1 cup (1/4 inch) diced cauliflower

1/2 cup finely diced onions

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely diced (somehow I managed to not have this so I subbed 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes)

3 tbsp peanut oil

mango chutney - as a dipping sauce

1. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, curry powder, cumin and salt, stirring with a whisk. *If you sub something for the jalapeno that is dry (i.e. pepper flakes), add them with the dry ingredients. Combine 1/3 cup water and egg, stirring with whisk. Add egg mixture to flour mixture; stir until smooth. Cover; let stand 10 minutes.

2. Place sweet potato in a small saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until just tender. Drain and cool to room temperature. Add sweet potato, cauliflower, onion, cilantro, garlic and jalapeno to flour mixture; stir until well combined (batter will be very thick).

3. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 1/2 tbsp oil to pan, swirling to coat. Drop 2 tbsp batter into pan, and flatten slightly with the back of a spoon. Repeat procedure to make 6 pakoras. Reduce heat to medium, and cook 4 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove from pan; drain on paper towels. Repeat procedure with remaining oil and batter. Serve with chutney.

My recommendation for the chutney (and what I used) is something Dee-licious my mom made around the holidays, Spiced Mango Chutney, it was excellent with both the pakoras and the shrimp. The beauty of this dinner was that my sister, who isn't really apt to walk into an Indian restaurant with me, loved the pakoras....curry and all! They were easy, filling and good for you.

Inaguration Celebration

Whether or not you voted for Barack Obama, today was a huge moment for America, and hopefully a turning point for the state of our country (ok, so that might be interpreted as political, but I don't mean it as such). I work at a small high-tech start up here in Austin and we celebrate all the little things (and the big ones), today was no exception, we ordered Rudy's BBQ (one of my favorites), used Slingbox to project the whole she-bang on the wall and myself (and one of my co-workers) brought in desserts. I brought in red,white and blue sugar cookie stars. The cookies were festive, patriotic and quite the hit, every single one was gone before 5PM!

I used Martha Stewart's Sugar Cookie Recipe for the cookies:

4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cup sugar
2 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar; add dry ingredients, and mix until incorporated. With mixer running, add egg, and vanilla; mix until incorporated.
2. Transfer dough to a work surface. Shape into 2 discs, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with nonstick baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.
4. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes, and transfer to prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch in between. Leftover dough can be rolled and cut once more. Bake until lightly golden, about 10 minutes; do not allow to brown. 5. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

After I finished that (around 10:30 last night) I realized it was too late to frost them, so I needed a 'patriotic' alternative....I turned to glaze!

1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cream
*I used icing gel coloring to tint 1/2 of the batch red and the other 1/2 blue

Mix all of the ingredients together and paint on to cookies.

After so much cooking last night I wasn't really up for a difficult dinner tonight, plus I've been dying to try the Scintillating Sausage Stuffed Squash Reeni had on her blog Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice, I was certainly not disappointed! Yet another delish recipe I found on her website!

Busy Monday Evening

Tonight's dinner really wasn't a week night dinner, home-made bread, a shrimp stew of sorts and all of it from scratch after 6PM, I must really have lost my mind when I came up with this idea! It all started because I've been ogling the Shrimp and Fingerlings in Tomato Broth recipe from the February issue of Bon Appetit --it looks like San Francisco....what on earth does that mean, no I'm not on drugs, what it means is that when I see fresh seafood in a yummy broth served with crusty bread it reminds me of food I had back in November in San Francisco....man good stuff! So after a few days of reading the recipe I finally broke down and made it tonight, never mind that it's easily got forty minutes of cooking time (maybe a little more) and a bit of prep time too (peeling fresh shrimp...finely chopping two cups of onion!), it was well worth the time commitment.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups finely chopped onions
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon paprika
1 14.5-ounce can diced fire-roasted tomatoes in juice
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1 8-ounce bottle clam juice
3 cups water
8 oz fingerling potatoes or baby Yukon Gold potatoes, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
1 pound peeled deveined uncooked medium American shrimp

Preparation
Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onions; sauté until very tender and beginning to brown, stirring often, about 18 minutes. Add garlic and paprika; stir 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes with juice and cook until very thick, stirring frequently, about 30 minutes. Stir in rosemary and crushed red pepper. Add wine and cook until liquid evaporates completely, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Stir in clam juice, then 3 cups water. Broth can be made 1 day ahead. Cool, then cover and chill.
Bring broth to boil. Add potatoes; simmer until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Add shrimp; simmer until just cooked through, about 5 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper.

So the second part of my meal was something else I've been dying to try, the infamous No-Knead Bread. Something I was quite skeptical of, I'm not much of a baker but this stuff is supposed to be easy, so I decided to test it out, what's the worst that could happen? Miracle of miracles, I didn't screw it up - it actually tasted quite good! Not sure it was supposed to be as flat as it turned out, but I'll absolutely try it again.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

¼ teaspoon instant yeast

1¼ teaspoons salt

Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

Preparation
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.