Corn Bread-Bread Pudding

         I recently made a batch of buttermilk cornbread muffins from a previous blog post and had some left over that went stale, so I decided to make them into a cornbread  They were a bit crumbly so I roughly cubed them and then baked them so they would get crunchy and not fall apart in the pudding.  I also added chocolate chips and pecans to give the bread more texture and flavor.

Corn Bread-Bread Pudding:

  Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or half and half
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

  Instructions:

1. Whisk together milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.  Add chocolate chips and pecans, then pour half of the mixture into an 8x8 casserole dish:
   
2. Cube 1 pan of stale cornbread ( about 12 muffins) and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 until crisp, but not burnt, about 15 minutes
3. Pour the bread cubes into the casserole dish and cover with the rest of the milk mixture
4. Bake at 350 until cooked through, but still moist in the middle, about 35 minutes:
   
5. Let sit for 15 minutes before cutting, enjoy!
   

Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins

         This is a wonderful buttermilk cornbread recipe from the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon, only I adapted it for muffins.  The trick in this recipe is that she pours the batter into a sizzling hot buttered skillet, then bakes in the oven.  This forms a crispy, buttery, edge to the cornbread.  To recreate that in a muffin tin, I sprayed the tin with canola oil, and baked it for 5 minutes at 425 degrees, removed it and poured the batter into it before placing it back in the oven at 350 degrees to bake them through.  Because timing is essential, its important to make the batter in a container that you can pour from to fill the tins faster.

Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins:
  Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil

  Instructions:

1. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl:
   
2. In a separate container with a pour spout, mix baking soda and buttermilk.  Then add the egg, sugar, and oil:
   
3. Spray a muffin tin with canola oil, and bake it at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the pour spout bowl:
   
5. Quickly remove muffin tin from oven and pour batter in, then place tray back in the oven at 350 degrees until baked through, 18-24 minutes
6. Remove from oven and enjoy!
   

Smokey Black Bean Soup

         My mom bought a bunch of cans of black beans recently with the intention of making a black bean soup, but has been so busy with work that she hasn't gotten around to it, so I decided to take it on.  When making something new, I usually look up a few recipes to get the basic cooking techniques, then adjust and personalize the dish.  But I've recently started making new things without a baseline recipe, and this was one of those dishes.  I decided to make the "broth" out of pureed black beans, but still wanted texture so i only blended half of them.  To thin it out, I added chicken stock, but reduced it with veggies so that it had concentrated flavor.  I was going to add bacon, but deiced to keep it vegetarian so I added smoked Spanish paprika instead.  This added a smokey flavor element, without the extra step of cooking bacon.

Smokey Black Bean Soup:

  Ingredients:

• 4 cans black beans
• 4 carrots
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 small onion
• 5 stalks celery
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 3 teaspoons 21 spice seasoning (or equal parts onion powder, pepper, parsley, basil, and cayenne pepper)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
• salt 

  Instructions:

1. Puree 2 cans of black beans, undrained, with 2 teaspoons of 21 spice seasoning, salt to taste, and the smoked Spanish paprika
2. Dice the carrots, bell pepper, onion, and celery into even, bean sized pieces and have everything ready.  This is called mise en place, which means "everything in place" in French.  It is a term used in the kitchen to have everything ready so that meal prep goes faster:
   
3. Sautee the carrots in oil for about 5 minutes, then add the bell peppers, onions, and celery to the pan with the rest of the 21 spice seasoning, chipotle powder, and salt:
   
4. Cook the veggies for 5 more minutes on medium high heat, then add 1 cup of chicken broth to the sautee pan and simmer for 7-10 minutes, until everything becomes soft, and the broth has reduced:
   
5. Meanwhile, heat the other 1 cup of broth in a 4 quart sauce pan.  When the broth comes to a boil, add the simmered veggies and pureed black beans:
   
6. Heat to a slow simmer, then add the other two cans of drained black beans
7. Simmer the soup for another 30 minutes, let cool slightly, and enjoy!
   

Citrusy Bean Salad

         A few weeks ago, my mom's work had a potluck, so we decided that something light and healthy would be good to bring in because many potlucks are centered around heavy, carb loaded dishes.  She mentioned her bean salad, so I decided to elevate it with a citrus dressing and lots of veggies.  Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and did not take pictures along the way, and then had a phone problem which resulted in my few pictures being deleted, so this is a recipe with no picture tutorials, sorry for the inconvenience.

Citrusy Bean Salad:

  Ingredients:

• 2 cans black beans
• 1 can chick peas
• 1 can red beans
• 2 bell pepper (I used 1 red and 1 orange for color)
• 2 carrots 
• 3 stalks of celery
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon habanero olive oil (could substitute with 1 teaspoon chili powder)
• 2 teaspoons paprika 
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon ginger extract
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups sun dried tomatoes

  Instructions:

1. Strain and rinse all of the beans and place in a large bowl.
2. Chop celery, peppers, and carrots into small pieces (about the size of the beans) and add to the bowl. Roughly chop the cilantro and add it to bowl as well, saving some for garnishing. 
3. In a small measuring cup or bowl, stir both olive oils, lemon juice, and paprika together with a fork.  Add mustard to act as an emulsifier (something to combine the oil and lemon juice and prevent separation) and combine with a fork. 
4. Add ginger, balsamic, salt, and pepper to the dressing and pour it over the beans and veggies.
5. Toss to combine, add the dried tomatoes, and garnish with saved cilantro, enjoy!

Spiced Squash Soup

         It has been a long time since I posted for multiple reasons, mostly school has become crazy so I haven't had a lot of time to type up everything I make or take pictures, but also because my moms friend hired me to cater a party for her of about 20 people. It was extremely successful and so opened a new door for me. The mom of the lady who hosted the party asked if I would be willing to make her some individual serving frozen meals.  Of course I was super excited and got started right away, I made six meals, each with a vegetable, protein, and starch.  I experimented with things that I could just under cook and have them still be food safe so that when they were defrosted and microwaved, they wouldn't be overcooked. A week ago she asked for more meals, so I made seven.
         One thing I found that worked really well to be re heated was soup, and with fall starting, I decided to use fall veggies and flavors.  This soup is one of the meals I came up with, a wonderfully sweet but healthy creamy squash soup that is super easy to make.  Because it is made in a crockpot then pureed, I was able to just put all the veggies and broth in, then leave it all day while making the other six meals.

Spiced Squash Soup:

  Ingredients:

• 1 kabocha squash, peeled and cut into one inch cubes (butternut squash works too)
• 4 carrots
• 1/2 onion
• 1 apple
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice

  Instructions:

1. Roughly cut the onion into large chunks, the carrots into 1 inch pieces, and the apple into one inch cubes after peeing and coring it.  Place them and the squash into your crockpot and turn it on to high:
   
2. Pour chicken broth into a microwave safe pitcher or pan and heat until just simmering, then pour the broth over the veggies and cover the crock pot.  Cook on high for 5-6 hours, until the squash is soft when poked with a fork:
   
3. Once cooked, ladle 1/3 of the mixture into blender and liquefy, then strain through a fine mesh strainer.  Do the same with the rest of the veggies in two more batches:
   
4. Stir in honey and spices and enjoy:
   

Refreshing Blueberry Raspberry Mousse

         For my grandpas birthday a few months ago we went to a local bar and restaurant called Urge.  After an amazing meal, we ordered a chocolate raspberry mousse cake that had chocolate and raspberry mousse layered with fudgey ganache and chocolate cake.  Yesterday I decided to start with the mousse part of it for an end of school party and eventually create the cake after practice making mousse:

Refreshing Blueberry Raspberry Mousse:

  Ingredients:

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream 
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar 
• 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
• 1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries 
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup fresh raspberries

  Instructions:

1. Place whipping cream in a mixer or bowl with hand held mixer and whip cream, starting on a low speed, slowly working up, then add powdered sugar.  Don't over whip or cream will become butter, stop when whipped cream becomes soft peaks:
   
2. Meanwhile, heat blueberries and raspberries in a bowl in microwave or on stove top until juice begins to collect in the bottom, remove and place in blender:
   
3. Blend until smooth:
   
4. Strain berries into a bowl and mix with gelatin, let sit for 20 minutes:
   
5. Carefully fold fruit puree into whipped cream using a rubber spatula, adding only a couple spoon fulls at a time, making sure not to deflate the whipped cream:
   
6. Continue adding puree until completely combined:
   
7. Spoon into small cups or serving container of choice and let chill for at least 30 minutes.
8. Top with fresh raspberries and enjoy:
   

          

Spiced Apple Blueberry Pie

         My moms all time favorite store bought desert is this mixed berry tart that she will finish in less than 24 hours.  Naturally, the next time I was making a pie, I tried to recreate it.  Instead of a traditional thick crust like in a tart, I made a pie crust, but substituted half of the flour for ground almonds.  I also added all spice and cinnamon to the blueberry filling as well as some lemon juice to balance out the sweetness (these ideas found at: www.simplyrecipes.com). I was trying to figure out how to make fruit pies less runny, when I thought about apples.  Because of the pectin in apples, I figured it should help to thicken the syrup from the blueberries.  Sure enough, it not only thickened the filling, but added a thin, soft layer at the bottom that absorbed blueberry flavor, mostly adding texture:

Spiced Blueberry Apple Pie:

  Ingredients:

    Crust:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 3/4 cup ground almonds
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup very cold butter
• 4-5 tablespoons ice water

    Filling:

• 2 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (defrosted and juice mostly poured off)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon all spice
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 apples

  Instructions:

1. In a food processor, combine flour, almonds, sugar, and salt 
2. Slowly pulse in the cold butter until pea sized lumps form, then add water slowly until dough becomes cornmeal textured, then add one more tablespoon:
   
3. Remove dough and divide into two pieces, kneading each one minimally only until it sticks together:
   
4. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and place in fridge wile preparing filling: 
   
5. For filling, mix blueberries with sugar, flour, cinnamon, all spice, and lemon juice:
   
6. Peel and slice apples and set aside
7. Remove crust and roll it our on a lightly floured surface, then place in a lightly greased pie pan
8. Line bottom with overlapping apple slices:
   
9. Pour blueberry filling over apples and put small pieces of the 2 tablespoons of butter over the filling:
   
10. Roll out the other piece of pie dough and lay the dough on top, then roll edges under
11. Cut four slits in the center and place in fridge while oven preheats to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
12. Bake for 20 minutes, then bring temperature down to 350, for another 30-35 minutes, until crust is golden brown:
    
13. Remove and let cool completely before slicing and enjoying