I have many guilty pleasures.  One of which is fluff TV.  I love a quiet Saturday afternoon at home with a big cup of tea, snuggled in blanket and watching a whole lotta Slice and Food TV.  Project Runway, The Real Housewives of …(insert American City), Top Chef or (and here is where I am really guilty of crap TV) any of the Tori and Dean shows.  I don’t know why it is I like these two.  Maybe it is because I grew up watching 90210, so I have a small affinity with Tori Spelling.  Truthfully though I never really loved Donna Martin on the show… but now, I enjoy watching her over the top party planning, ridiculously dramatic in love relationship with Dean and her love affair with her two kids.
A few weeks back a colleague asked me to do her a favour and bring Red Velvet cupcakes into work for a staff retreat.  I had never made them but was more than happy to take a stab at them!  In fact, I knew exactly what recipe I wanted to try: Tori’s recipe from one of their shows.  I know, really, what was I thinking?  I mean, I could have chosen one of any number of outstanding options from a real chefs/bakers or of course fantastic bloggers.  But no, I felt the need to try a totally random recipe, one that I couldn’t guarantee would taste very good, nor would I test them before feeding them to my colleagues.

So here they are…and they were great.  I only used half the amount of food colouring, otherwise it would have been 4 of those little mini bottles - how crazy is that?  They were a little brown on the outside,  as you can tell from the photo, but once you crack them open, they were bright red…just like they were meant to be.  The kicker, as always in my opinion… the cream cheese icing. Yum!  I thought they were wonderfully festive.  You could top with red and green sprinkles and voila, a great Christmas treat.

© 2009 Bakergirl Creations

Cupcake Ingredients
5 cup all purpose flour

1 cup unsalted butter softened

3  cup sugar

2 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

5 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 ounces red food coloring

2 cups buttermilk

2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon white vinegar

4 ounces water

Cream Cheese Frosting
1  (8oz) package cream cheese

1/2  cup unsalted butter

2 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Pre heat oven to 350
Grease 12 cupcake cups or line with paper liners
Cream softened butter and sugar together till fluffy
Add eggs and blend well
In separate small bowl combine cocoa and food coloring and stir. Once you have thick paste then add to mixture.
Sift salt and flour together into mixture
Add vanilla, buttermilk, and water to mixture
In separate small bowl combine vinegar and baking soda. Fold into cake mixture
Pour mixture into cupcake cups.
Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until a wood toothpick inserted into middle of cupcake comes out clean.
Let cool for 10 minutes. Then turn out onto rack and let finish cooling.

Frosting
Blend together cream cheese softened and butter softened.
Add powder sugar and vanilla extract
Blend till smooth

Being busy is almost always my excuse for not cooking.  It means I put off grocery shopping or haven’t cleaned up the kitchen from the previous meal (gasp!) and as a result think take-out is easier, which who are we kidding, it is.  But, it is nowhere near as satisfying to me.  It’s tasty yes.  But I don’t get that sense of satisfaction seeing a variety of ingredients come together, either randomly or with great thought and planning.

Perhaps it is because cooking is my creative outlet.  When I don’t get into the kitchen I get irritable and often stress out over the things that I normally can deal with.  A colleague told me when her home life is in order; it makes her work life easier. I totally agree with that, yet at the same time, I know that when my work life gets busy and overwhelming, my home life falls into disorder.  Recognizing how important cooking is to me, coupled with the fact that work has been busy, I’ve been on vacation and sick in the last three weeks; I knew I needed to get into the kitchen -and soon.

I’ve taken to some basic meal planning over the last few days to help ensure I have what I need to make the food I want to make.  It’s helped.  It also helps if I don’t sit down between coming home, walking the dog and getting dinner prepped.  This meal grew out of my meal planning and trying to find a few meals that use similar ingredients.  This meal specifically has wheat berries as the main ingredients.  I love wheat berries.  I cooked double the amount below one evening, used half to make an Asian beef wheat berry salad and then the other half saved for the next evening’s meal, the recipe below.  It’s a fairly unique take on a rice pilaf, but as a wheat berry pilaf, I am sure you could make it with a variety of flavor profiles. I opted for something a little more comforting: mushrooms and spicy chorizo.

© bakergirl creations

Ingredients:

1 cup wheat berries

2½ cups chicken stock

3 chorizo sausages, two sliced into coins and one diced

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 shallot minced

2 garlic cloves minced

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 sprigs rosemary

2 sage leaves, finely chopped

Rosemary garnish, optional

Directions:

Combine wheat berries and chicken stock in a medium-large pot.  Bring to boil, cover and allow to simmer until wheat berries are tender.  They should be slightly chewy – it should take about an hour and a half or so.

Once wheat berries have cooked, remove from heat, uncover and let dry out a little. While this is happening, sauté in a medium-hot skillet the sausages, render out the fat and with a slotted spoon remove sausages from the pan.  You want to leave the fat or oil in the pan as the flavor from it will be infused into the mushrooms and shallot.

Reduce heat in pan to medium.  Add the shallot, stir and cook for 2-3 minutes until beginning to soften.  Add mushrooms and garlic.  Cook until mushrooms are soft and browning and onions are translucent.  Add the sage, rosemary and wheat berries. Cover and re-heat the wheat berries.  Stir in sausage and serve.
Serves 3-4.

Guest post by Bakergirl Creations

Fall in September has been stunning.  Gardens are still producing.  But in a few weeks the weather will turn, it will be raining, a lot cooler and the days a lot shorter.   One of things I love about having a garden is that you can take the bounty of today and “put it up” for tomorrow.

The last few years I have canned with some good friends every September.  We did it again this past month.  It was the usual garlic dill pickles, spicy pickled beans, and garlic jelly.  With the bounty of our tomatoes, and the generosity of a good friend I had over 50 lbs to do something with.  I made our spicy tomato salsa again, yum and then just some simple canned tomatoes to be added to stews, soups and sauces.  I love how they look in my pantry, all lined up waiting to be used!

© 2009 Bakergirl Creations

I know you can buy canned tomatoes for pennies really from the store, but there is a huge sense of satisfaction from picking from your own garden to pulling them off your shelf in the cold months of January and February and know where they came from and what’s in them.

There are several ways you can can tomatoes: raw packed with no liquid, crushed tomatoes, herb seasoned, packed in water and so on.  This option is just raw packed with no liquid. I think it is the easiest and as you can see from the picture, there is lots of liquid in the tomatoes already, no need to literally water it down.

© 2009 Bakergirl Creations

Ingredients:
Tomatoes, any variety
1 lb tomatoes usually results in about 500 mL prepared, so plan according to your volume
Salt (optional)
Bottled lemon juice
*reference point 21lbs of tomatoes produces about seven 1L jars.

Materials
Canner
Rack
Canning Jars, ring  and snap lids
Tongs (canning tongs preferably, but other tongs work ok, just use them carefully)
Dutch oven pot, full of boiling water to assist with peeling of tomatoes
1 large bag of ice

Directions:

1. Prepare canner (large pot that will cover the jars with water by at least  2 inches).  Fill with water, bring to a boil, be sure that there is a rack on the bottom of the pot as you don’t want your jars directly on the pot above the burner.
2. Sterilize jars. You can do this by running them through the dishwasher, if they are already clean you can put them in an oven and let them sterilize at 250F for at least 10 minutes.
3. Follow the directions on your snap lids to prepare them according
4. Ensure your dutch oven of boiling water is fully boiling.
5. In a clean sink , fill with cold water, and half of the ice – you will need to replace half way through.
6. Wash and prep tomatoes:  make a small ‘x’ in the bottom of the tomato with a pairing knife.
7. In small batches, immerse prepared tomatoes in boiling water.  Leave them there for about 6o seconds  until skin starts to loosen or crack.
8. Remove and plunge into ice bath in sink, slip skins off.
9. Remove cores and any bruised parts – you can leave whole, half or quarter.
10. If canning in I L jars add 2Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot sterile jar and if using salt, 1 tsp.
11. Raw pack tomatoes into prepared jars to within a generous ½ inch of top of jar.  You will need to press tomatoes into the jar, until the gaps are filled with the juice from the tomatoes.
12. Remove air bubbles with a non metallic stick, such as wooden spoon. Adjust for headspace, you might need to add one or two more tomatoes.
13. Wipe rim, centre lid on jar and screw the ring on, to fingertip tight.
14. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to boil and process for 85 minutes(for 500 mL and 1 L jars).  Remove canner lid, wait 5 minutes then remove jars and cool.
15. You will hear “pop” as the lids seal.  You can test for done-ness by pushing down on the centre of the lid, if it goes up and down, you don’t have a safe seal.

One my favourite food bloggers (Heather at Diary of a Fanatic Foodie) often posts beverage recipes. I enjoy some of daring creations, both of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties. A few months back she posted about her “Perfect Spring and Summer Drink” – a lemonade/iced tea combo accented with basil and mint.

© 2009 Bakergirl Creations

It was the combination of everything that really appealed to me. It sounded so refreshing. So at the first opportunity that I was hosting some people over for dinner I thought I would bring it out, and every other time we’ve had company, I have made it. It’s evolved a little from Heather’s rendition. But isn’t that what cooking, baking and creating should be about? Finding something you like and really making it yours?

If you are looking for something refreshing, easy to make, and still impresses, make a pitcher of this and keep it in the fridge, the flavours really come together overnight, so be sure to let it mingle.

Ingredients:

3 peach tea bags I used the Lipton White Tea with Mango and Peach Flavours
2 pomegranate tea bags
2 cups boiling water
1 can lemonade, pink or yellow, doesn’t really matter
2 handfuls torn mint
8 basil leaves
½ tsp grated fresh ginger (approximate)
2 lemons, washed and juiced Keep the carcass of the lemons as you will add these to the pitcher for more flavour
2 Tbsp real Maple Syrup
1 bottle (750 mL) sparkling soda water Adds a nice fizz to the drink

Directions:

1. Steep tea for a good 5-8 minutes in boiling water, remove and cool tea in fridge.

2. Once tea is cooled, in a pitcher combine all ingredients except for the sparkling soda water, mix. If you have the time, refrigerate at this point

3. Once you are ready to serve, pour in the soda water. Serve and enjoy!

Happy Friday everyone. Below is the first guest post from Shannon at Bakergirl Creations. Get ready to have your blueberry and sweet tooth cravings satisfied!

~~~

I absolutely adore berries.  When we were little kids we had raspberry, blackberry and salmon berry bushes super close to our house and often went out down the lane with our old ice-cream buckets and foraged for that night’s desserts.

Blueberries bring blue lips, fruit tarts, delicious pies, scrumptious scones and anything else I can throw them into!  They are such a healthy choice food: anti-oxidants, nutrients, vitamins and anti-aging properties, you really can’t go wrong can you?  Living in the Pacific Northwest blueberries are in full abundance right now.  In fact, we actually have a blueberry surplus this year.  Many growers still have frozen stock from last year and as a result prices are super low right now.  Don’t get me wrong, in today’s economy I wouldn’t wish anyone ill with their business ventures, but at the same time, yay for low prices!

And so, cheap blueberries and a tub of Mascarpone cheese that needed to be used in the fridge and this tasty-tasty tart was created.  To be honest, it was a crap shoot.  I had this idea to combine the flavours of the cheese and blueberries with a shortbread crust that I had been meaning to try from the Joy of Baking website.  It worked!  Almost like a blueberry, maple infused cheesecake…so yummy.  And so simple (though a little messy!).  If you are up for a blueberry delight, I highly recommend this one.

photo: © Bakergirl Creations

Ingredients:
Crust
1 recipe of Shortbread Tart crust from the Joy of Baking
(I found this dough to be insanely soft! Two solutions: chill it for about 10 minutes after you make it, and before you put into your tart pan, or really flour your hands to help keep the dough in place.  Also, it is important to note that this makes more than enough dough for a 9 or 10 inch tart, it will also result in 3-4 muffin sized tarts)

Cheese Filling
1 X 478 g tub of Mascarpone Cheese
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/8 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp Vanilla
juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup whipping cream

Berries + Glaze
2 pints fresh blueberries
2 pomegranate tea bags
1 cup water
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:
1.    Preheat oven to 325 F.
2.    Prepare tart according to directions.  Chill.
3.    Blind bake the tart (original recipe didn’t call for this, but I found it helped)
4.    Cool tart crust completely.
5.    Combine all of the cheese filling ingredients, except the whipping cream, in a large bowl.  Whip together with a hand held mixer for a minute until well combined.
6.    Add whipping cream and combine.  It will take another minute of whipping to thicken the cream in the mixture.
7.    Pour mixture into cooled tart shell and with spatula smooth.
8.    Spread blueberries on top.  You can stop here, or you can make the glaze to add the “finished” feel. Refrigerate.
9.    To prepare the glaze, in a saucepan, boil water.  Remove from heat and add teabags, allow to steep for a few minutes.
10.    Remove tea bags and return saucepan to heat.  Add sugar and stir together until sugar is dissolved. If you have a few spare berries, you can crush them in with a potato mixture and it would add even more colour to the mix.
11.    Combine cornstarch with 2 Tbsp water, whisk together to make a slurry.
12.    Whisk slurry into the tea and sugar mixture, allow to thicken.
13.    Remove from heat, allow to cool a little.  Using a pastry brush, paint the top of your tart until fully covered.

Serves 8.

photo: © Bakergirl Creations