Category Archives: Recipes

Kentucky Derby Pie

by Sarah

The Kentucky Derby is next Saturday, which for some means Mint Juleps and big hats.  Around our house, it means pie.

When I was working in my post-doc laboratory, I was invited to a Diwali celebration by a fellow lab mate.  Being the good Southern lady, I offered to bring a dessert.  I knew there would be quite a few foreign nationals at the celebration, so I wanted to make something that would be novel to most of the people at the party and expose them to a Southern dish.  After trying my Kentucky Derby pie, one young man exclaimed that this was the best thing ever.  Now, I won’t go that far, but it’s pretty good.

For the pie, you’ll need…

  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ cup self-rising flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 stick butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 (6 oz.) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 deep-dish pie crust

Mix sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and vanilla until well-blended.

Add pecans and chocolate chips, mixing with a spoon.  Pour into 9 inch deep-dish pie crust.

Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.

Enjoy!  :)

Phyllo Chicken Pie

by Sarah

We grocery shop at Publix and love it.  One of the reasons we like Publix so much is that they have recipe cards sprinkled throughout the store to give shoppers ideas.  Every so often an employee will be making some delicious recipe and giving out samples.  Last weekend, we went to the store with a very specific weekly menu in mind.  Then we tried one of the samples of phyllo chicken pie and immediately changed our meal plan for that day!

Phyllo chicken pie is super tasty and super easy.  While being tasty is great, the easy part is really what sold us on this dish.

For chicken phyllo pie, you’ll need…

  • 4 cups of chopped chicken (we bought a rotisserie chicken and used all the meat from that)
  • 8 sheets of phyllo dough
  • One package of creamed spinach (we used Bird’s Eye)
  • 1 tablespoon of dried onion flakes
  • 2 Tablespoons of chopped garlic
  • Zest/juice from 1/2 lemon
  • 4 Tablespoons of butter, melted
  • 4 oz of crumbled garlic and herb feta cheese

I’ve always been a little intimidated to work with phyllo dough….  I thought it would be temperamental and sticky.  Turns out, it was one of the easiest things I’ve worked with in a long time.

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Coat a 9 inch pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Place one phyllo sheet in the dish, allowing in to overhang by about 4 – 6 inches.  Brush with butter.  Repeat the layers until you have used 8 sheet of phyllo.

Microwave the spinach according to the directions on the package.  Combine the spinach, chicken, onions, zest and juice of the lemon, garlic, and feta cheese.  Spread the mixture over the phyllo.

Fold each side of the phyllo over the filling, brushing each with butter.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the phyllo is golden.

 

Our phyllo on the left side got a little scorched.  I didn’t take the recipe seriously when it said to brush with butter and I paid the price.   Next time, I’ll be a little more liberal with my butter brushing.

The dish makes 6 servings and we paired it with our tomato and cucumber salad.  According to the recipe card, it has 340 calories, 21 g of fat, 19 g of carbohydrates and 19 g of protein.  Cary liked it so much, he said it should go in our normal rotation of dinner entrees.

If you are interested in checking out other recipes by Publix, they are listed here.

*Full disclosure:  Publix doesn’t know who we are.  We just like them. 

Cucumber and Tomato Salad

by Sarah

I’m almost embarrassed to write about this salad because it is so easy.  The salad is also delicious, so I’ll get over my embarrassment and share it with you.

Cut two to three cucumbers into chunks.  I didn’t like cucumbers for a long time.  After eating sushi, I discovered that I like cucumbers just fine as long as the seeds and the skin were gone.   For this salad, I just include the flesh of the cucumber.  If you like the other parts, then include them.  Cut and de-seed three to four tomatoes.  I prefer heirloom tomatoes, but any kind will work.  Add a scoop of garlic and about a cup of Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.  Refrigerate overnight and serve!

The lovely thing about this salad is that you can tailor it to your tastes.  If you like onions, add them.  Green peppers your thing?  Go for it!  Enjoy!

Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook and Crack Pie

by Sarah

I’ve got a habit.  About once a month, I buy a new cookbook on Amazon.  After I buy a cookbook, they put these suggestions at the bottom.  If a cookbook looks interesting, it goes into my wish list.  The next month rolls around and I’ll buy another cookbook…. and then the suggestions pop up and the whole vicious cycle begins again.

The Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook has been on my wish list for a while.  A few summers ago, Cary and I went to New York.  Dr. HBar suggested we visit the establishment.  We got to New York and started eating at all sorts of delis, burger places, cupcake places, and possibly the best Italian restaurant ever and totally forgot about her suggestion.  Biggest. Regret. Ever.

The cookbook came in this week.  I’ve been looking through it every night.  It’s a lovely book.  Christina Tosi combines whimsy and creativity in her recipes.  Apparently she takes very good notes, which results in very detailed, somewhat complicated recipes.  As a scientist, I appreciate the detail.  I wish the book had more pictures, but that’s really neither here nor there.

After much agonizing internal debate, I decide to make the crack pie.  It’s kinda like a chess pie, but not quite.

Before making the pie, you have to make oat cookie and let it cool.  I did this the night before making the actual pie.

For oat cookie, you’ll need:

  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1/3 cup of light brown sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons of granulated sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup of flour
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of rolled oats
  • 1/8 of a teaspoon of baking powder
  • pinch of baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Heat the oven to 350°F.

Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixture with a paddle attachment for about 4 or 5 minutes.   The sugars should be totally incorporated.  She says it should be a pale white.  My mixture was really more like a tan color.

Combine the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and mix well.  Add this to the butter and sugar mixture.  Stir for about a minute until everything is incorporated.

Coat a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.  Spread out the cookie dough on the sheet until it is about 1/4 of an inch thick.  Bake for about 15 minutes.  Once it is cooled, break it apart and store it in an airtight container.

For the filling, you’ll need…

  • 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
  • 3/4 cup of light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup of milk powder
  • 1/4 cup of corn powder
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt
  • 2 sticks of butter, melted
  • 3/4 cup of heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (the original recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 8 egg yolks

One of the really neat things about this cookbook, is that Tosi uses ingredients that I am not familiar with.  For example, milk powder.  After reading her description, I think milk powder is the same as dried milk.  After hunting around the aisles at my friendly Publix, I found this.

I think it worked well.  The next ingredient that I was unfamiliar with was corn powder.  I read the description, which said to buy freeze dried corn and make my own.  Due to some time constraints, I wasn’t really interested in doing this.  I know chess pie recipes sometime call for corn meal, so I was hoping I could find a fine grain meal lacking baking powder to substitute.

I ran upon Bob’s Red Mill Organic Corn Flour with the only ingredient being corn.  It worked.  Corn powder is used in quite a few recipes in the book, so I was quite happy to find an easy substitute.

Place the sugars, milk powder, corn powder and salt into a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on a low speed until just blended.

Add the melted butter and mix for two to three minutes.

Add the cream.

Mix for a few minutes…

until all the white streaks from the cream disappear.

Add the eggs and mix until glossy.

Now it is time to assemble the pie!

In a food processor, pulse the oat cookie, 1 tablespoon of light brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Melt about 3/4 a stick of butter and mix it with the crust by hand.  Press the crust into two 10 inch pie pans.

Place the pie pans on a baking sheet and divide the filling between the two pie pans.  Bake for 15 minutes.

Reduce the temperature on the oven to 325°F and open the door for about 5 minutes (until the oven reaches 325).  Bake the pies at 325 for an additional 10 minutes.  The center of the pie should still be jiggly, but the edges should be firm.

Allow the pie to cook completely and place in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic wrap.  Serve the pie cold.  I froze the second pie for a cookout we are hosting next week.  I’ll let it thaw for about an hour before I serve it.

When Cary tried this pie, he said it was so much more than chess pie.  He’s right…  after much sampling for consistency (that’s what any scientist does, right?), we decided the crust really made the difference.

The beautiful thing about this recipe is that you can change out the crust (pretzel maybe?) and add different things to the filling (fruit, pecans, chocolate chips).  Very versatile and absolutely delicious.  :)

Texas Sheet Cake

by Sarah

While I love chocolate, I’m not generally a fan of chocolate cake.  As I was looking around on pinterest, I found this picture of Texas chocolate sheet cake.  It just looked too good not to try.

Here are the ingredients for the cake:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 4 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa
  • 2 sticks butter
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • ½ cup buttermilk 
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

The pictures from the original link are so pretty I’m almost embarrassed to post mine, but here goes!  :)

Melt the two sticks of butter in a medium size sauce pan on the stove.  Add the baking cocoa, 1 cup of boiling water and let the mixture boil for about 30 seconds while stirring.  Set the cocoa mixture to the side while you mix together the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl.  Add the cocoa mixture to the flour mixture and stir.

Combine the 1/2 cup of buttermilk, 2 eggs, vanilla, and baking soda together and stir it into the cocoa mixture.  Pour this into a greased 13 x 18 inch cookie sheet pan.   Bake at 350°C for 20 minutes.

While the cake is baking, go ahead and make the frosting.

Here are the ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 sticks butter
  • 4 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa
  • 6 Tablespoons milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 pound (minus 1/2 cup) powdered sugar

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan.  (I just rinsed out the pan I used for the cake.)  Add the cocoa and stir for about 30 seconds until all the cocoa is dispersed in the butter.  Take off the heat and add the milk, vanilla and the powdered sugar.  Pour the icing on the cake.

Easiest and tastiest chocolate cake ever!

Tres Leches Cake

by Sarah

It’s no surprise that Cary and I are Pioneer Woman fans (see here and here).  So when her new cookbook came out, we were very excited.

This cookbook is a little different from her first one.  While there are lots of photos of her family, the focus of this book seems to be the food.  For each dish, she gives 2 or 3 ways to adjust the recipe so you can tailor it to your preferences.

 

Similar to her previous cookbook, the presentation of the recipes are beautiful.  I love the pictures at each step.  It is so helpful when you are making an unfamiliar recipe or using a new technique.  If you are looking for a great book with great recipes, we highly suggest it.

The first recipe we decided to make was Tres Leches Cake.  (Actually, we have a bet going on during March Madness.  When Cary wins a round, he gets to pick a baked good for me to make.  He picked this one.)

The cake calls for the following ingredients:

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 5 large eggs seperated
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 12 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
  • 14 ounce can of evaporated milk
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • maraschino cherries
  • Extra creamy cool whip (or whipped heavy cream)

Preheat the oven 350 and spray a 9 x 12 pan with non stick cooking spray.

Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  In a stand mixer, beat the eggs yolks with 3/4 cup of sugar until they are light yellow in color.  Add the milk and vanilla to the egg mixture and beat until everything is just mixed.  Pour the egg mixture into the flour and stir.  In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites to the soft peak stage.  Add 1/4 cup of sugar and continue beating until the eggs whites are stiff.  Fold the egg whites into the bowl with the other ingredients and just mix everything together.  Place the batter in the 9 x 12 pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan.  Once it is cooled, flip it out into another 9 x 12 dish.  (She placed it on a platter, but I was really worried about the milk going everywhere.) Using a fork, poke lots of holes in the cake.

Mix the cream, condensed milk, and evaporated milk and pour over the cake.  At this point, I was very happy with my decision to put the cake in another 9 x 12 pan.  All the milk soaked into the cake in about 30 minutes.

You can top the cake with heavy cream.  However, in this house, we like cool whip and are not ashamed.  We bought the extra creamy (now with real cream!) cool whip and used that to ice the cake.

Top with a maraschino cherry and enjoy!

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Sarah

I’m late.  Originally I was going to post these cookies for Christmas and then Valentine’s Day.  Now, it’s almost March and I’m finally getting around to sharing these with you.

These are some of my favorite cookies.  They have all the good stuff: chocolate chips, toffee pieces and dried cranberries.  One of my friends lovingly refers to these as trail mix cookies because they have so many add-ins.

For these cookies, you’ll need

  • 1 cup of butter
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • 2 and 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of cranberries
  • 3/4 cup of toffee bits

In a stand mixer, cream the room temperature butter and sugar using the flat beater attachment.   Add the eggs and vanilla.

Separately mix the flour, baking powder and salt.  Then gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Stir in the chocolate chips, cranberries and toffee bits.  Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto a cookie sheet that has been lightly sprayed with a nonstick cooking spray.  Bake at 350° for approximately 12 minutes.   When the edges turn brown, these cookies are done.

I’ve always toyed with the idea of adding chopped pecans, but never have.  I don’t know the nuts would make the cookie too busy.  If you get a chance to make these, let me know how they turn out!

Mushroom Beef Stew

by Sarah

It’s been a bit chilly here and what a better way to warm up than with a stew.  Cary was particularly enamored with a stew that could be served over potatoes.  A quick internet search led us to Pioneer Woman’s Beef Stew with Mushrooms.

First off, while I love Pioneer Woman’s recipes, sometimes they are a little time intensive.   With a few short cuts, I was quite pleased that this one didn’t take that much time.  I could easily make this on a work night.

Instead of using fresh onion and garlic, I used dried onion and ready to use garlic.  Don’t judge…  it cuts down an amazing amount of time.

Here’s what you need:

  • 2 pounds Beef Stew Meat
  •  Flour
  • 1/2 a Stick of Butter
  • 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 Tablespoon of Minced Garlic
  • 1 Tablespoon of Dried Onion
  • 16 Ounces of Baby Portabello Mushrooms or Button Mushrooms (I used both)
  • 1/2 cup Red Wine
  • 1 can Beef Consomme
  • Salt And Pepper, to taste
  • Mashed Potatoes

Coat the meat with a few tablespoons of flour.  Melt and butter with the olive oil and brown the meat in batches.  Set the meat aside.

Without cleaning the pot, add the garlic, onion flakes, consomme and mushrooms.  Let simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the meat and red wine.  Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Serve over mashed potatoes or egg noodles.  Delicious!

Puffy Muffin Quiche

by Sarah

Cary and I recently went to the Puffy Muffin for lunch.  One of the nice things about the Muffin, as I like to call it, is that they have all sort of pre-made delights that you can take home.  Cary mentioned we could get a quiche and have it for breakfast throughout the weekend.  I thought this was a lovely idea and went to the counter to see what kinds of quiche they had and the price (YIKES).  After picking myself up off the floor and Cary mentioned he felt a great disturbance in the force later on, I realized I had the Puffy Muffin Cookbook and off I went.

 

This cookbook is filled with delicious, easy Southern recipes.  I LOVE it. (On a related note, I wished it had the Mocha Crinkle Cookie Recipe….)

The quiche recipe is surprising simple.   Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.   Combine the following ingredients and mix with a wire whisk.

  • 5 eggs
  • 1/2 cup of half and half
  • 1 1/2 cups of cream
  • 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with 1/4 cup of water

Sprinkle one cup of any kind of shredded cheese (we used a mixture of different kinds of cheddars) in the bottom of a deep dish uncooked pie shell.  Next layer any herbs you feel like and 1 cup of add-ins (broccoli, ham, bacon, sausage, asparagus, onions, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, etc).   We used a little pepper and 1 cup of ham.   In the future I’m going to add a little cayenne pepper.

 

Pour the egg and cream mixture into the pie crust.   Even though we had a deep dish pie crust, we had a little bit of the mixture left over.  Bake for 1 hour or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

 

Quiche is normally served warm, so you need to let it sit for about 20 – 25 minutes before serving.  I opted to cook it the night before serving and re-warm the next morning.

Easy Shrimp Creole

by Sarah


I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.   Personally, I’m stuffed from all the turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.  While those are delicious, as Christmas approaches, I find that I get a little tired of the normal fare.  As Cary and I begin our own traditions with our growing family, we decided that on Christmas we would serve themed foods, kinda like Christmas around the world.   This year, we are going to have a Creole Christmas.

We plan on serving shrimp creole as the main dish, with crusty garlic bread as a side and bread pudding for dessert.

A quick search brought us to this recipe.  We tweaked it quite a bit.  First, we hate dicing the onions, celery and garlic (ie trinity).  We perused the produce section at Publix and found they already had a pre-diced trinity mixture.  We used 3 of those for this recipe.   Here are all the ingredients we used:

  • 3 to 4 lbs medium-size fresh shrimp, peeled, deveined
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 containers of trinity mixture from Publix  ( or 1 1/2 cups chopped onion, 1 cup chopped celery, 2 cloves garlic, minced)
  • 1 green pepper, diced
  • 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
  • 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper, ground
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
  • dash hot pepper sauce

In a large pot, combine the oil and flour.  Cook over medium heat, stirring (DO NOT WALK AWAY), for about 15 to 20 minutes.  The mixture should be a light brown color. 

Add the trinity and the green pepper.  Cook, stirring frequently,  until the vegetables are tender. Add all the other ingredients and bring to a boil; cover and reduce the heat. Simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add shrimp and simmer for about 10 minutes more, or until the shrimp turn pink. Remove the bay leaves. Serve over rice.

While the color comes out an interesting orange, it tastes delicious.   As far as our Christmas goes, does anyone else have any suggestions for Creole dishes?