Category Archives: Eating

Chomp it up.

Eating

Muffin cups to the rescue

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Works for Me Wednesday logo

Back in January I talked a little bit about the muffin cup’s potential. Since then, I’ve tried a few more things with it. And now it might be my very favorite kitchen tool.

We almost always have pizza for dinner on Fridays, but I’ve never made my own pizza sauce. The last time we purchased pizza sauce, though, was months ago. (And when I say “we,” I mean the friends who brought the pizza sauce with them when they came over for dinner.) The sauce came from Sam’s, which meant that we had roughly 17 gallons of pizza sauce left over. Rather than finding a giant container to put it in — where it would’ve gotten stuck in the back of the fridge and ignored — I portioned the sauce out into pizza-sized batches and put it in a silicon muffin tin. And then I stuck that in the freezer. It took about three days to freeze all of it, because I only have one muffin tin, but now I have about 30 pizzas’ worth of sauce pucks in a bag in the freezer.

The muffin cups are also great for chicken broth. I have several recipes that only call for half a cup or so of broth. I used to dump the rest of the container down the drain. But now the muffin cup has changed my wasteful ways! The standalone muffin cups I have hold about half a cup of chicken broth, which makes it pretty easy to thaw and use what I need.

So there you have it. Muffin cups work for me. I might just get that printed on a T-shirt. That’s how much I love them.

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menu plan Monday

Putting the PB in dinner.

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Menu Plan Monday logo

Monday: Peanut butter chicken with coconut rice
As part of my ongoing effort to get Poppy to eat what we’re eating, we’ll be having peanut butter for dinner. I hope it’s delicious.

Tuesday: Fish sticks & macaroni and cheese
Of course, then it’s back to eating off the kids’ menu.

Wednesday: Veggie noodle bowls
I’m not sure how this one’s going to come out yet, so I don’t really know what to call it. I’m planning to use ramen noodles and stir-fry veggies with a Pad Thai-ish sauce. We’ll see.

Thursday: Breakfast for dinner!
I’m still not sure why the kids get such a kick out of having pancakes for dinner.

Friday: Pizza
I haven’t been making my own pizza dough lately, because I’ve been too busy I’ve been lazy. I’m going to try to do it again this week.

Update!
Friends, you need to try the peanut butter chicken. Poppy did, and she said, “Ooo, this is scrumptious!” Really. And she’s right. It’s yummy. I modified the original recipe quite a bit. Here’s my version:

Scrumptious Peanut Butter Chicken
Enough olive oil to coat the bottom of your skillet
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into 1 inch cubes
1 medium onion, diced
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup chunky peanut butter
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons red curry paste (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken pieces, and cook until chicken starts to turn white. Add the onion and season with salt and pepper. Cook until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Pour the tomatoes into the skillet and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Combine peanut butter, fish sauce, curry paste and chicken broth in a small bowl. Add peanut butter mixture to chicken and cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens. (It doesn’t take long.)

We had this with coconut rice, which is really easy to make. Just sub in a can of coconut milk for part of the water and cook as usual.

Eating

In which I continue to discuss chocolate

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February’s Daring Bakers challenge was a flourless chocolate cake to be served with vanilla ice cream. I’ve made a similar cake in the past, so this particular challenge wasn’t all that terrifying.

The cake turned out really dense and brownie-like. The cake will taste very much like whatever chocolate you use, so keep that in mind when you’re shopping for chocolate.

I made a vanilla ice cream from “Perfect Scoop” and it was so good. If you have an ice cream maker, you need this book.

Chocolate Valentino
from “Sweet Treats” by Chef Wan
16 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated
Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often. While your chocolate-butter mixture is cooling, butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry). With the same beater beat the egg yolks together. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining two-thirds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. (If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.)

Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes, then unmold.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.