Pumpkin Snicker-doodle Bars

Thanksgiving week is the best.  And by Thanksgiving Week.... I mean WEEK.  I'm pretty sure from the span of last Thursday to this coming Thursday, I am having not one, or two, or three, but FOUR Thanksgiving dinners! From the traditional family gatherings, to track team Thanksgiving, to various service events, I am happy to say I get to enjoy the wonderful combination of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and bread rolls four times...... oh wait, I forgot something.... Pumpkin pie!!!!!
      There is really nothing better than that quintessential Thanksgiving dessert.  However, since I am having so many Thanksgiving meals, I need to pace myself.... I need to be in my peak pumpkin pie enjoyment phase on Thursday for real thanksgiving.  That means no pumpkin pie burnout.   So when I brought a dessert to my Thanksgiving get together tonight, I decided that I hold off on making REAL pumpkin pie and just bring some kind of knock-off.... like Pumpkin Pie Snicker-doodle bars.  These are sort of like a "gateway" dessert.... not AS good and addicting as the real thing, but nonetheless extremely delicious and remind me of how much I like actual pumpkin pie.

I got recipe for the Snickerdoodle base and the pumpkin filling from Beantown baker at:
http://www.beantownbaker.com/2009/11/pumpkin-pie-snickerdoodle-bars.html

        However, I made a few modifications.  First off, I should say that I shop at a grocery store that has all the reject food (not sketchy, I promise) and that all they had was medium eggs.... so I used medium eggs instead of large eggs in the recipe. I'm obviously not expecting everyone to go out and buy medium eggs just so they can copy what I did exactly... but just know, if you for some reason have medium eggs like I did...well, It's gonna be okay :) Also, this same store did not have normal butter, so again, I made a slight modification and used butter spread with canola oil. Finally, an actual modification I made that did not arrise from my laziness to go to a different, better stocked grocery store was to add a walnut streusel topping to the top of the bars. For this, I made an oil based streusel (remember, I had no real butter) and it turned out delicious.

Basically, before I put the bars in the oven, I mixed together and crumbled on top.
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon

I should also mention that you may have noticed that this recipe is a slight deviation from "healthy" theme that I had going on.  I promise that will be back, I just thought Thanksgiving week could be a bit special. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Lighter Macaroni and Cheese

One of the best foods ever created is macaroni and cheese- nothing is better on a cold day than a warm, gooey bowl of mac and cheese, especially if it has a nice crunchy outside layer.  Speaking of things being cold, you'll be happy to know I cannot use that word to describe my house......instead,  IT'S FREEZING! Seriously, it's probably a good 10 degrees colder inside of my house than it is outside.  We are too stingy in my house to turn on the heater, but I'm glad to say they we have at least one other thing in our house that can produce large amounts of heat... my good old pal Gertrude.  Really, why would I waste money turning the heater on, when for probably about the same price I could just fire up Gertrude? With Gertrude, I get heat AND food.... she is just so generous :) Anyways, on a cold rainy night a few days ago, I decided to make macaroni and cheese..... however, I am honestly trying this whole healthy recipe thing out, so I decided to try and find a healthier version of mac and cheese that didn't compromise the taste. I stumbled upon the following recipe by "Light Cooking" for a butternut squash baked mac and cheese.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-light-macaroni-cheese-50400000115195/

the ingredients for this are as follows:
butternut squash 
fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth 
fat-free milk
garlic cloves, peeled
plain fat-free Greek yogurt 
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
shredded Gruyère cheese
pecorino Romano cheese
finely grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided
cavatappi 
Cooking spray 
olive oil
panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
chopped fresh parsley

As you can see, this recipe has fairly expensive cheese in it... however, by the time I got already to the store I was committed to this whole project and decided I might as well do EVERYTHING exactly as the recipe says because I felt like butternut squash mac and cheese has some serious screw-up potential.  It may seem a bit odd that I'm worried about the price of turning the heater on, but then go out and buy a lot of classy cheese....but, got to have your priorities, right? I have quite a bit of confidence in my ability to fudge some ingredients in a muffin, but squash based pasta... not so much.   So, I followed the directions on the link word for word with every ingredient it called for(okay fine, I used Conchiglioni pasta instead of cavatappi) , and here is what I got!

YUM! Nice and crispy, just as I like.  Nonetheless,  I would not go as far to say that this is my new replacement for "real" mac and cheese.  It is not super cheesy and has a slightly sweet taste, so it is definitely different than good, old-fashioned artery-clogging mac and cheese. However, despite being quite a bit of work and a little different tasting, it is much healthier than the traditional version and a lovely fall dinne, so I would say it was a definite cooking win.  I should probably not even compare it to mac and cheese and instead call it something really fancy sounding like "Three Cheese Butternut Squash Conchiglioni". Would I recommend it to a friend? I think yes. 

  

Applesauce Wholewheat Dinner rolls

         So I am on my time off from running right now.... this means that I have wayyyyy too much free time.  Since I cannot run, I must resort to my second favorite activity... baking! This recipe was a result of pure experimentation. The following though process occurred as I was trying to focus on statistics: "what exciting novel ingredient could I throw into dinner rolls to make worthy of posting on my blog? hmmmm, how about applesauce? okay, why not!?".  And so I whipped out my bread machine and gave it a go.
        On the topic of bread machines.... they are amazing! I have never had a lot of success with the whole let yeast bubble, knead, let rise, let rise some more thing (I think I manage to kill the yeast every time), but bread machines are dummy-proof enough that you can literally just dump the ingredients in and press the dough cycle.  I have found however, that actually having the bread machine cook the dough yields a dense brick that is about half the size of the loaf pan.... not exactly what I am looking for, unless I want to feel like I am a peasant accepting my daily bread rations.  But, when I put the dough the bread machine produced into the oven,  a product with a irresistible crunchy outside with a soft and doughy middle is created. So yes, even Gertrude, my oven that can manage to burn cookies left in just one second too long, is better than my bread machine at actually making bread... that is not saying much though.
         Sometimes when I bake using completely whole wheat flour, my product tastes like a dry brick....a healthy brick, nonetheless, but still a brick.  So just imagine when I baked whole wheat bread in my bread machine that created a brick regardless of what type of flour was used... eeeeek. So, I have since made two changes to my whole wheat bread item standard operating procedure  first, as I mentioned above, I bake my risen dough in Gertrude, opposed to having the bread machine do it.   Next, I have started adding vital wheat gluten to the dough, which adds some elasticity to it and helps the dough rise to make a soft, fluffy product. I thought these rolls could have been a tad bit sweeter, but otherwise I was very happy with my impromptu recipe, especially the texture.  Did the applesauce make a difference? Who can say??!


100% Bread Machine Whole-Wheat Dinner (or anytime) rolls

1 cup water

1 tbs butter (softened) 

1 egg

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

3.25 cups whole wheat flour

1 tbs+1 tsp vital wheat gluten

2 tbs brown sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tsp rapid rise yeast

1.  put the above ingredients into the bread machine, IN ORDER.  Not doing this is literally the only way you can mess up bread machine dough.
2. press dough cycle (on my machine this take about 90 minutes).

3.  divide dough into 12 pieces.  Roll each piece into a 6 inch long log, and roll like a cinnamon roll (we can pretend these are cinnamon rolls, right?)

4.  Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes
5. preheat oven to 350 degrees F
6.  After rolls have risen, brush with egg whites to create a crunchy exterior

7.  bake for 15 minutes, or until tops turn golden brown
8.  enjoy with a nice slab of butter (or peanut butter, or nutella, or any combination of the above)

Healthy Pumpkin Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

 The first thing I should clear up is that my name is not Gertrude.   I should also clear up that I use the term "with" in my blog title very loosely- I think "cooking against Gertrude" would be a more suitable name.  You see, Gertrude is the name my roommates and I have bestowed upon our janky, outdated oven that seemingly peacefully sits in a nook in our even more janky and outdated kitchen.  In the first few days in our new (new in the sense that it was new in our lives, of course) house, all seemed good and dandy until we actually tried to USE the oven.  After a few early traumatic baking experiences that I will go into much more detail about later, I have learned to accept Gertrude for who she is in attempt to appease her hotheaded attitude that attempts to foil my plan of creating both delicious and photogenic culinary masterpieces. In my next few posts, I will explain that various challenges that arrise when cooking with Gertrude .
            Challenge number 1:  how do we know when the oven is preheated? Upon turning the oven to "bake", a small red light  turns on.... means it is preheating, right? That would be logical. But then, the light switches off a few seconds later.... I'm sorry, but this oven could not possibly preheated in the span of 2 seconds.     Alas, Gertrude is a mysterious one......she leaves it up to the lucky baker (aka me) to find out when she is ready to rock'n'roll.   Luckily, the oven radiates enormous amounts of heat, so when it hurts to touch the outside of the oven I usually know its ready to go.  Definitely a reliable method- right? Unfortunately, it is sort of important that I get it right, and I will explain why. As a little side note, I run A LOT, so I can pretty much compare anything in the world to running- yes, I am about to equate my oven to going on a nice run (a little irony there).  You see, sometimes when coaches are trying to motivate athletes to go on a run (usually over winter when it is deathly cold outside), they say "the first few steps out the door are always the hardest".  I maybe wouldn't go so far as to say ALWAYS, because I have taken some pretty darn hard steps nowhere near the beginning of  the run, but that statement is true to some extent. Think about it, in those first few steps you are making your body go from completely stationary to moving at speeds ranging from 5(I would hope) to 16 (hah, I wish) miles per hour! Anyone with basic physics knowledge can agree that going from 0 miles per hour to 16 miles per hour takes more energy than just staying there.  The same goes for Gertrude: she is going to be working her little granny burners off to get to a temperature of 350 so I can bake my...... lets say, cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake (uhhhh healthy muffins,I mean).  Once she's there, she is fine, but since Gertrude is lazy and doesn't like that heating up process, she becomes agitated and decides to channel all that extra energy she is expending to turn my beautiful cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake into a BURNT cookie dough chocolate fudge peanut butter cake.  There are few things that can go wrong when you combine cookie dough, peanut butter and chocolate, but this is one of them.
         Speaking of peanut butter and chocolate, I like both of them.... a lot. I also like pumpkin... a lot.   But I try to eat each in healthy forms.  For instance, I have recently discovered that mixing a few chocolate chips in your old-fashioned oatmeal is quite possibly one of the most delicious ways to start the day. I thought, what if I combined my three weaknesses... peanut butter, pumpkin and chocolate (or in this case, white chocolate) into one somewhat healthy food?  Is that possible?  You tell me.
         When coming up with this recipe, I tried to make various substitutions fromm typical full-fat, full-sugar pumpkin bread so I can feel a little less bad about eating it.  For instance, some whole wheat flour is subbed for white flour to add a little bit extra fiber and protein.  From my experience, vital wheat gluten helps the consistency of whole wheat baked goods to keep it delicious and airy (opposed to a dense brick).  Next I was able to reduce the amount of oil by subbing in peanut butter and nonfat vanilla greek yogurt (both of these changes also add protein).  Finally, I was able to reduce the amount of sugar by adding honey and stevia powder.  There we have it, three of my favorite foods stuffed in one muffin sized form (shown below in my first attempt at food photography!).


Healthy Pumpkin Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour 

1/2 cup bread flour

1 tbs vital wheat gluten

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp allspice 

1.5 cup pumpkin 

1/3 cup nonfat vanilla greek yogurt 

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tbs honey

2 tbs canola oil
2 eggs

1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 tsp stevia 

1/2 cup white chocolate chips 

Preparation 

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2. mix together whole wheat flour, bread flour, vital wheat gluten, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and allspice in small bowl 

3. beat together pumpkin, greek yogurt, peanut butter, honey, eggs and brown sugar in large bowl 

4. slowly combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients and combine until smooth 

5. add white chocolate chips 

6. divide batter in muffin tin, prepared with liners. The batter will go close to the top of the cups, but this is necessary to create full looking muffins. 

7.  bake for 20 minutes, or until tops start to turn golden brown.