Unleash Your Kitchen Creativity!

One of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes growing up was the stuffing my abuela made. I try to make it each year, but like every other recipe, I can’t leave well enough alone. This year, I felt inspired to document my little Carma-izing journey of my grandmother’s stuffing recipe and share it with you.

Step One: Prepare the bread

 
You need one loaf of toasted stale bread to make the stuffing. Abuela usually used french bread or sourdough. This year I found a loaf of multigrain bread with flax and pumpkin seeds and decided to use that.
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Yesterday, I was shopping at Wal*Mart for some basic stuff and saw their holiday food stuff display. Betty Crocker’s Pumpkin Spice Cookie Mix caught my eye because of my overall love of things pumpkin. So I placed it in my cart and continued on with my shopping.

When I got home, I took out a cube of butter to let it soften. The mix only needs you to add three things: a softened cube of butter, a tiny bit of water and an egg.

The dough was a little sweeter than I prefer, but had a nice balance of pumpkin and spice flavors. Once reason I don’t normally use cookie mixes is because I can’t reduce the sugar and most are too sweet for me. I was afraid this might be the case upon tasting the dough.

I also did as the instructions said and stirred the ingredients together without the aid of an electric mixer. If you’ve softened the butter enough, this works just fine.

I tasted the cookies both fresh from the oven and after they were thoroughly cooled. Both were quite nice. They remind me of a cross between a snicker doodle and a molasses cookie with a hint of pumpkin. These are perfectly decent cookies. The edges are crispy and the centers are mildly soft. I love the crispy part!

The cookies are still a bit too sweet for my tastes, but they aren’t as sweet as other cookie mixes I’ve tried. The mix said, depending on the size of the cookie, it made up to 3 dozen cookies … I ended up with two baker’s dozen plus one. Once the butter was softened … I left it on the kitchen table for about an hour … preparation takes about 15-20 minutes.

If you want something different for your cookie jar this holiday season, I recommend you try out Betty Crocker’s Pumpkin Spice Cookie Mix.

I saw Silk’s coconut milk in the refrigerator section the last time I went grocery shopping and just hast to try it out. I love coconut, but have never thought of drinking the milk because it is usually too thick. What Silk has done is reduced that thickness, reduced the fattiness and made a very drinkable version that is only lightly flavored with coconut.

Today, on a lark, I decided to whip some up with frozen mango. The result was yummy!

Quick Tropical Smoothie

1 cup Silk Coconut Milk
2/3 cup frozen mango chunks

Toss in a blender and blend until smooth.

Then just be careful of brain freezes!

The other day I received a package filled with yummy-looking gluten-free pasta dishes to review of this blog. And I’ll be reviewing them over the coming weeks. But that got me to thinking of all the foods I truly love … foods that make me almost wax poetic with colorful adjectives describing how nearly orgasmically delicious they are. So I thought I’d share that list with you … and I’d LOVE to hear what’s on your list!

Pesto with Spinach and Feta Cheese
I was first introduced to pesto when I was 16. I thought the name was so funny. But once I tasted it I wondered why hadn’t Mom made this before! The garlic … yum! The smoothiness of the virgin olive oil … mmmm. And just a touch of crunch from pine nuts. I’m in heaven. Then, in my 20s I decided to experiment and added some spinach and feta cheese to the mix. Ah! Perfection. The tartness of the feta mixes nicely with the bitter of the spinach and the awesomeness of the pesto. I get chills just thinking of it.

The Chorizo Potato Burrito
When I first lived in Phoenix (I’ve lived there two separate times), I lived walking distance from a little shack-like Mexican restaurant called Eriberto’s. For breakfast, the served this burrito, which also had some eggs. It was DA BOMB! It was so good, I would beg my husband to take me there so I could have one … no matter what time of day it was! Later, I’d buy chorizo and some form of potato product (hash browns, fries or even tater tots) and make my own tortilla-less version. I’ve been to many Mexican take out places since, but found none that mix those three ingredients with the panache that Eriberto’s does. I miss you!
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Remember that Pistachio Cheesecake I shared with you last month? Here’s what it looked like the night of the big event, all gussied up with RediWhip:

 
Yeah, looks like a disaster, doesn’t it.

This is what happened.

I transported an opened can of RediWhip to the party. I didn’t think that would be a problem. But, as we were getting the can out of the car, you could hear a hissing sound. I think much of the gas that helps the whipped cream appear whipped escaped … the hissing went on for a good 5 minutes … and who know how long it was doing that before we opened the trunk!

So, lesson learned: Don’t open the RediWhip before you take it to a party or you’ll get liquid cream and not whipped cream.

Oh, well. It did taste good.

As you probably have figured out by now, I like to experiment with food. I remember one time when I was a teen, I tried making chocolate milk without the milk. I used water.

Since the chocolate milk mix wasn’t meant to be made with water, you can image that the results were pretty crappy.

But I LOVE chocolate, so I continue to do weird things with it to see what works … or not.

So, when I heard that Honest Tea had come up with some interesting cocoa beverages, I took them up on their offer to send me a sample.

I’ll admit that upon first taste it reminded me of the failed chocolate water beverage I experimented with as a teen. But then the flavors hit.

This is not chocolate milk. It is not chocolate tea. It is something altogether different.

It’s hard to explain the experience of Honest CocoaNova. It has a watery texture, but a full-bodied, deep chocolate flavor. I can imagine this was how chocolate was first enjoyed by the Mokaya of Mesoamerica … only sweeter.

And that’s another way the this drink is different. Most chocolate beverages are sweet … and for my tastes, too sweet. Honest CocoaNova is not too sweet. In fact, it is just slightly bitter … the way I like my chocolate!

When I find these in my local grocery store, you better believe I’m gonna be stocking up!

I’m beginning to think I’m in love with Honest Tea. First they sent me a sample of their Heavenly Lemon Tulsi to sample and review. I loved it … even though I’m not partial to lemony teas.

Now they’ve sent me a sample of their Black Forest Berry. Its a tisane or fruit infusion … kind of like fruit tea. But it tastes like watered down juice. For me, its perfect. I always water down my juice because it is too intense otherwise.

Frankly, I don’t know how they do it. Black Forest Berry is not too sweet, filled with berry flavor but doesn’t knock your tastebuds out of your head. It maintains a nice balance of flavor, sweetness and tartness.

The base tea for this beverage is hibiscus, which I find to be a bit on the tart side. It’s one of the few teas I like to add honey or sugar to. But I couldn’t taste the hibiscus. The blackberry leaves, berry blend flavoring, blueberry and raspberry powders overpower the hibiscus leaving you with the flavor sensation of juice without all the acid and calories of a juice. Awesome! An entire bottle of Black Forest Berry is only 60 calories and is caffeine free.

I’m going to have to keep my eyes open for Honest Tea on the grocery shelves … it just might get me to drink something other than water!

Coming up … I’ve got a sample of their new line of cocoa beverages. I’ll be trying that and letting you know what I think probably next week.

I’ll be tasting this tomorrow and will let you know in a comment how it turned out. But I can tell you it smells fantastic. Definitely make the day before so you can chill it over night.

The picture was taken shortly after the 30-minute cool on the cooling rack.

Crust
1 box white cake mix
1/2 cup butter, softened

Filling
1-1/2 cups cold milk*
1 (3.4 oz) pkg instant pistachio pudding mix
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 (8 oz) pkg Neufchâtel cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain yogurt**
3 eggs

Garnish
Whipped topping

Instructions
In a medium bowl, prepare the pistachio pudding with the milk per instructions on the box. Put in the refrigerator to chill while you continue.

Heat the oven to 300 degrees.

While the oven is heating, spray the bottom and side of a 9-10 inch spring-form pan with baking spray. Dust with flour. Wrap foil around the outside to catch potential drips.

Reserve 1/4 cup of the cake mix and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the remaining cake mix and butter with an electric mixer on low speed until crumbly. Press into the bottom and sides of the pan.

In the same large bowl, beat combine reserved cake mix, cream cheese, Neufchâtel cheese, sugar, all except 1/2 cup of the pudding and yogurt. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.

Beat in eggs, one at a time, until mixed.

Pour into the crust.

Bake 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 35 minutes or until edges are set but the center is still jiggles when moved.***

Turn the oven off. Open the oven door at least 4 inches and leave the cheesecake in the oven for 30 minutes longer.

Remove the cheesecake from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Without releasing the sides of the pan, run a knife along the edge to help release the cake from the sides. Cool in pan on cooling rack for 30 minutes.

Cover loosely and refrigerate overnight (or at least 4 hours).

Remove side of pan before serving. Pipe or spoon whipped topping around the outside edge of the cheese cake.

Store in the refrigerator.

* You can use a can of condensed milk instead, just be sure to chill it overnight, first.

** I used Fresh & Easy Honey Greek Style Yogurt, yum!

*** I think my oven is a lower temperature than it says. I took a good 30-45 minutes extra to bake.

NOTE: The genesis of this recipe was Lemon Cheesecake from the Betty Crocker calendar, April 2011.

I love drinking tea. It hydrates and tastes great. Of course, I picked up the tea habit early in life when I lived in Nairobi and we would often have High Tea. I also have many fond memories of having a cup of tea, with cream and sugar of course, with a cookie as an evening snack at my grandmother’s house in San Francisco. I have ADD, so the caffeine has a reverse effect on me, helping me sleep better.

As the years have passed, my tolerance of caffeine has changed. The amount that makes me sleepy compared to the amount that makes me sick like a hangover has reduced to the point where I just avoid caffeine pretty much altogether (except when it comes to chocolate, of course!).

That’s why I’m always keeping an eye out for caffeine-free teas that still taste great. I’ve had many a decaffeinated tea that just tasted watered down — no matter how strong you made it.

That said, I don’t have that problem with naturally caffeine-free herbal teas. But they just aren’t the same. So I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I received a sample of Honest Tea’s Heavenly Lemon Tulsi to review for this blog.
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I never shopped at Fresh & Easy until I moved to Long Beach. And then only because it was the closest grocery store. And I’m sorry it turned out that way because I’ve had a “Where have you been all my life?” experience since I started shopping there.

First, the one I go to is tiny, but it still stocks an amazing array of gourmet and unusual items. Case in point, they sell creme fraiche! I’ve never seen that in a store before!

Anyway, awhile back I tried their Greek Style Yogurt and am now hooked. I’ve tried other brands and was unimpressed, but the Fresh & Easy brand is so smooth and creamy and has just the right balance of sweetness and tartness. I eat the Honey flavor like it was ice cream … slowly, savoring every delectable moment.

I bring this up because this morning I tried another of their store brand products, Pumpkin Pecan Pancake and Waffle Mix (that’s me chomping on one in the picture above). Unlike me, I decided to follow the instructions to the letter, including melting butter instead of using oil.

The pancakes were just this side of sweet … enough that I didn’t need maple syrup at all, but not so much as to make it taste like a cake or cookie. The spice was light … I couldn’t identify one or the other, like I can with so many other pumpkin flavored mix products. The balance of the pumpkin with the spice with the pecans was deftly done, leaving me with an overall “autumn” flavor, nothing overpowering the other.

I was pleasantly surprised. This is two store brand products that have wowed me … I’m going to have to try some more!