Note: This post is sponsored by Moyer Beef. All opinions are mine alone.
It’s definitely still summer weather for the most part, but this past week, we’ve had a bit of a cool down in Philly. Which got me thinking about more fall inspired dishes.
Hashweh, or rice stuffing, is a wonderfully flavorful ground meat and rice dish that is perfect for fall weather (or honestly, any weather, it’s really tasty!)
The dish originates in the Middle East and is typically made with lamb or beef seasoned with spices including allspice and cinnamon, served with rice.
Most recipes also include toasted pine nuts with some also having a sweet dried fruit.
This dish is a nice comfort food option that comes together in roughly 30 minutes. The spice profile makes it really crave worthy!
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 1/2 cups white rice
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
3 cups chicken broth
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 whole cloves
2 whole cardamom pods, smashed
1 lb ground beef (I used Moyer Beef’s 81% lean ground beef chuck)
I love love love this recipe for Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja. It’s a perfect slow cooker meal, which means dinner is ready for me when I come home from work.
Ropa Vieja translates to “old clothes,” referring to the shredded beef and colorful peppers in a tomato sauce with caramelized onions that resemble torn cloth. It’s a well-known Cuban dish, but its origins go back to Sephardic dishes in the Middle Ages.
This version has a bit more prep work to it to fully develop the flavors. Trust me, it’s worth it!
cThis has been quite a dreary and rainy fall so far. One of my favorite remedies for blah weather is a warm beverage. In the fall, you really can’t go wrong with a mulled apple cider, like this Orange Mulled Whiskey Cider!
Nielsen-Massey sent me a sample of their Pure Orange Extract to use in this citrusy spiced cider. Nielsen-Massey has offered high quality vanilla and other flavors since 1907. They are my go to for extracts, vanilla beans, and vanilla powder. Their Pure Orange Extract is a great pantry way to always have citrus flavor on hand. Just 1/2 teaspoons of the orange extract equals two tablespoons fresh orange juice.
They must have known Philadelphia has been basically sitting under a cloud and that I needed a warm pick me up! The addition of the pure orange extract to this cider brings some brightness to the mulled cider.
This cider uses some of my favorite spices to really bring the fall flavor. I picked up my spices at the Head Nut in Reading Terminal, but you can also find them at Penzey’s.
Recipe (serves 6):
2 quarts apple cider
1/2 cup 100% pure pomegranate juice
1/3 cup 100% pure maple syrup
1 Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean
1 teaspoon Nielsen-Massey Pure Orange Extract
3 large cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves
5 whole allspice berries
1/4 teaspoon cardamom seeds
3/4 cup whiskey
Add the apple cider, pomegranate juice and maple syrup to a large saucepan; heat over medium-high heat.
Split vanilla bean in half lengthwise with the tip of a small knife.
Scrape both sides of the bean with the knife’s dull side and add the seeds and bean to the saucepan. (The seeds are the black flecks in the cider.)
Add the orange extract, cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries and cardamom seeds to the saucepan; stir to combine. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 30 minutes. Strain mulled cider through a fine mesh sieve.
Add whiskey; stir to combine. Serve with a fresh apple or orange slice.
This cider tastes just like fall! What a comforting beverage as the weather turns colder.
The spices in the cider add a nice warmth to the drink, complementing the apple and whiskey flavors nicely.
The orange flavor from Nielsen-Massey’s Pure Orange Extract comes through as well, adding a burst of bright citrus and making for a super tasty drink!
Note: I was sent a Glass 3 Qt Baking Dish with Lid, Glass 2 Qt Baking Dish with Lid, Brownie Spatula, and Illuminating Digital Hand Mixer from OXO. All opinions are my own.
September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. Every year, OXO donates up to $100,000 to support an organization called Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. The organization was founded by two OXOnians (OXO employees) who were inspired by their son Liam’s battle with pediatric cancer, a disease which claims the lives of more children in the US than any other disease. Cookies for Kids’ Cancer provides inspiration and support to allow anyone to easily get involved in fundraising to find a cure for pediatric cancer.
I’ve posted twice a year for the last few years to help bring awareness to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. Click here to see some of my past posts.
Each year, OXO donates $100 to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer for each blogger post up to their $100,000 commitment. This year, OXO asked us to use a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s newest cookbook, Dorie’s Cookies while using some of OXO’s great baking tools. Dorie’s Cookies includes over 200 recipes from classics to brownies to savory cookies, with some great baking tips thrown in.
I decided to make a recipe in the cookbook named Mary’s Maine Bars, named after a recipe developed by Dorie’s recipe tester (Mary Dodd) after a family trip to Maine. The bars are a delicious, chewy gingerbread that is perfect for the fall. One of the alternative to the recipe suggested swirling apple butter into the batter, so I tried it out!
I’ve waited long enough. It’s time to give in to the most wonderful time of year. No, not Christmas. Autumn! And the best way to really dive in to the season? Pumpkins, of course!
I love pumpkin. Like, really love pumpkin. I actually hoard Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice K-Cups around this time of year so that I can drink them year-round. From sweet to savory, pumpkin is just the best. I have so many pumpkin recipes on here so if you’re a pumpkin aficionado like myself, be sure to check them all out! (Just a sample of some pumpkin-filled recipes: Cheesecake bars, Flan, Whoopie Pies, Eggnog, Trifle, Ravioli, Bread, Soup… you get the idea)
So, I came across this recipe looking for a Pumpkin Brownie. Despite this recipe being called Pumpkin Brownies in the original recipe, it is most certainly cake. But who am I to worry about semantics? It’s still delicious! I added more pumpkin-y spices to give the pumpkin flavor a boost and added in some dark chocolate chips because, why not?
Somehow I have never had the classic French dish Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. With my love of garlic, this seems like a huge oversight! I adapted this recipe from a Cooking Light recipe.
The garlic cloves are simmered in a broth until tender and work to lightly perfume the chicken. If you’re a garlic lover like me though, I suggest spreading the softened cloves on to crusty pieces of bread — they turn into a wonderful paste that is oh so tasty!
Because of the large number of cloves you need for this recipe, I suggest just buying pre-peeled cloves – it will save you a ton of time, making this an easy weeknight meal.
Ingredients:
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts and thighs
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
40 garlic cloves, peeled
1 1/4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
24 (1/4-inch-thick) slices diagonally cut French bread baguette
It’s no secret that I love pumpkin everything. Sweet or savory, it’s a safe assumption that I will enjoy whatever pumpkin treat comes my way. So when I was contacted about restaurants under the Darden Restaurant umbrella featuring pumpkin desserts for the month of October, I was happy to taste test!
I was sent a $30 gift card so that I could go to Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and Longhorn Steakhouse to try their pumpkin desserts. Here are the yummy offerings:
Red Lobster: Pumpkin Pie in a Jar – layered pumpkin and cream cheese mousse with a graham-cracker crust, topped with sugared pecans
Photo courtesy of Red Lobster
LongHorn Steakhouse: Pumpkin Spice Lava Cake – warm pumpkin spice cake filled with a cream cheese icing and drizzled with Maker’s Mark® bourbon-caramel sauce and candied pecans
Photo courtesy of LongHorn Steakhouse
Olive Garden: Pumpkin Cheesecake – pumpkin cheesecake topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce and ginger cookie crumbles
Photo courtesy of Olive Garden
They are as delicious as they look! I unapologetically scarfed down each and every one. They are super rich so I’m sure you should probably share them. But hey, I’m not going to judge.
I was given a second $30 gift card to GIVE AWAY so that one reader can go try one (or all) of these desserts for themselves! More on that after the recipe! {THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED}
I made my own pumpkin dessert inspired by a mixture of the three above: Bourbon Pumpkin Flan with Graham Cracker Crumbs. This recipe incorporates the Bourbon in the Pumpkin Spice Lava Cake, the creaminess of the Pumpkin Cheesecake, and the graham cracker “crust” of the Pie in a Jar. I adapted this recipe from a Bon Appetit Pumpkin Flan recipe.
Ingredients:
6 large eggs
6 large egg yolks
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided (I used Sugar In The Raw for a deeper caramel flavorMi)
1 tablespoon bourbon
2 1/3 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup milk
5 whole cloves
3 whole star anise
1 cardamom pod, cracked
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
Certain foods just seem to be ingrained in what we thing about certain cities, countries or regions. The South is known for its barbecue (which is different state to state), Italy is known for its pasta, Philadelphia is known for its cheesesteaks… you get the idea. I was recently sent a cookbook that plays off of this idea of a region’s traditional foods: The Yankee Chef: Feel Good Food for Every Kitchen by Jim Bailey. The cookbook is filled with traditional New England fare, from pot roasts to chowder, but also gives a “Yankee” spin to other foods, such as Lobster Fried Rice.
Jim, the Yankee Chef himself (or, more appropriately, third generation Yankee Chef) fills the pages of the cookbook with background stories, tips, and a bit of humor, which had me reading the cookbook page by page. Not to mention, the photos are breathtaking! I wish my photos looked like the ones found on these pages.
I wanted to test out one of his recipes so I went for the Plum Sweet and Spicy Chicken because I don’t think I’ve ever made anything like it, and it sounds fantastic! I altered the recipe so that I didn’t have to cook a whole chicken and added some fresh seared plums to top it off. I also made a quick homemade chutney that I thought would highlight the plums in the dish.
Ingredients:
Chutney:
2/3 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, divided
2/3 cup sugar
1 strip of orange peel
1/4 cup red wine
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon chopped crystallized ginger
1 tablespoon golden raisins
1 tablespoon water
1/2 each lemon and orange, sliced
the juice of the other 1/2 of the lemon and the orange
salt and pepper, to taste
Chicken:
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 chicken breast and 1 leg (multiply as needed)
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
Just because Thanksgiving has passed doesn’t mean I can continue to deliver pumpkin-y goodness on this blog. This recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Pie was featured on The Chew and I just loved the idea of it but wanted to make it a little bit my own, so instead I went with Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Pies.
I didn’t want the pumpkin flavor to be lost in the chocolate so I decided to swirl a bit in at the end. And, because I’m apparently on a mini kick, I went with mini Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Pies!
Ingredients:
3 oz Semisweet Chocolate Chips
2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter (cut into small pieces)
My goodness it dropped in temperature quickly! It feels like we went straight from September weather to December weather. Luckily, I have the perfect warm drink to keep you toasty. This is a (probably) oversimplified version of a drink my aunt and uncle always have at their house for the holidays: Wassail. It’s basically a mulled wine that warms you up from the inside out. I’ve been thinking about Wassail since the change in temperature so I decided to make a quick batch with things I already had in my house.
Well, we are apparently forecasted to get hit with yet another nor’easter on Halloween. I remember as a kid, some houses would serve us hot cider to keep us warm while trick-or-treating. Those (along with the houses with candied apples and tons of Reeces) were my favorite. Now that I no longer go house to house on Halloween, nor do I even get trick-or-treaters, I wanted to make a more adult hot cider to enjoy during the crummy weather, or Applejack Spiked Hot Cider, to be specific.
Cooking Light must’ve read my mind, because The New Way To Cook Light showed up on my doorstep this week, with a wonderful sounding recipe for Applejack-Spiked Hot Cider!
One of my favorite parts of reading other blogger’s pages is checking out the “about me” sections of their blogs. It’s always so interesting to read how bloggers began cooking, how they decided to start and blog, and what else in life interests them. So when I was offered a copy of White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story written by Jenna Weber of the wonderful blog Eat Live Run I couldn’t wait to dig in!
The book follows Jenna as she graduates college and makes the decision to go to culinary school to fulfill her dream of becoming a food writer. The book allows the reader a deep dive into Jenna’s journey to follow her dreams while dealing with life along the way. Like me, Jenna seems to pinpoint specific times in her life by food that sticks out from that time period. Throughout the book, her story is peppered with delicious recipes from her childhood as well as recipes she developed through her career.
One of the recipes stood out to me: Jenna’s recipe for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I am pumpkin obsessed, and I have wanted to make whoopie pies for a while now but was always kind of intimidated by them. Jenna’s recipe seemed approachable so I took the plunge.
I’m pretty sure whoopie pies can now be found basically everywhere but they originally hail from the Pennsylvania Dutch. (I gotta tell you, the Philadelphia area really has some awesome food. It’s no wonder I became a food blogger with all this inspiration surrounding me!) Whoopie pies are just cake-like cookies with creamy goodness sandwiched in between. They are oh so fluffy and just, well, make me happy. So let’s see if I can do them justice..
Adding spices to your meal is a great way to add tons of flavor to a dish without adding calories. Because you need so little of the spice to enhance a dish, it’s a pretty cost-effective way to add flavor as well. (I try to buy my spices outside of supermarkets where they are really marked up. Spice Terminal in Reading Terminal was my favorite spot — I hope it’s coming back soon! update: The Head Nut is now open!) This dish in the latest Cooking Light for Tandoori Chicken Thighs incorporates traditional Indian spices which I absolutely love. I also made a quick saffron rice to go with the chicken.
Every Easter, we have this adorable little bunny cake that shows up for dessert. I honestly don’t know what bakery we get it from, but it always makes me smile. So I thought I’d try to recreate it. Obviously, a bunny would be filled with carrots, so I decided to make a Bunny Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting, covered in coconut.
I used a recipe from David Lebovitz for the cake and frosting, and used Betty Crocker‘s instructions on how to make it into a bunny.
This recipe is a result of having all of the ingredients in my kitchen, and my endless sweet tooth. Pears hold up really well to being cooked so I thought they would be great with traditional baking spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) and some pecans for crunch. I also had a bit of ice cream left in my freezer so I used the pears and pecans as a topping.
