Zucchini Bread

I had zucchini bread a few weeks back, and I remembered how much I love it.  So today I decided to try my hand at making it.  It's not a complicated recipe, but there is a good bit of prep work.  You'll need the following ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon, and sugar) in a large bowl.  Mix the wet ingredient (oil, eggs, water, lemon juice) and zucchini in a medium bowl.

Add the wet to the dry, and mix until everything is moistened.  Fold in the nuts, then transfer to two greased loaf pans.







Bake for 1 hour.  While the bread is baking, take a look at your cat.

The original recipe can be found here.

Boy Catching Cookies

Booger really wanted to help with today's dish for one simple reason: it comes from Paula Dean.  For those of you that don't know, Paula Dean has a couple of shows on the food network and is known for some very simple things:
1. If a recipe is savory, it has to have some form of pork fat in it.
2. If a recipe is sweet, it must have loads of butter and/or cream cheese.

I'm putting this recipe in category two because it lacks pork fat and, well, they're cookies.  Why boy catcher cookies?  Because boys love them.  I'm not saying that this is why I bake them (or have in the past), but boys go absolutely gaga over these cookies (if they're not chocolate hating freaks).  The actual name is Paula Dean's "Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies" and you can find the original recipe here.

Let's get started.  This is actually a cookie recipe where you don't have to worry about preheating the oven, because the dough has to chill.  You do, however, have to remember to take out the butter and cream cheese so they can come to room temperature.  Here's the ingredients you need to gather:

1. 1 stick butter
2. 1 brick cream cheese (I get the neufchatel cheese because it has less fat, but full fat works too)
3. 1 egg
4. 1 tsp vanilla extract
5. 1 box chocolate cake mix (I like devil's food, but use whatever strikes your fancy)
6. Enough powdered sugar to coat the cookies

That's it as far as ingredients go.  Once your butter and cream cheese are room temperature, cream them together.  I used a stand mixer because I have one, but a hand mixer will work as well.  After those are combined, add the egg and vanilla and stir again until completely combined.  Stop the mixer, scrape down the bowl, add the cake mix and turn the mixer back on..  The texture of the dough is going to change drastically in just a few minutes.  You'll go from something resembling cake batter to this:

At this point, the dough needs to chill before it can be formed into cookies.  There's a lot of soft dairy, so it's important to get the dough really cold so it won't just melt into your palms.  Usually you chill it in the fridge for two hours, but I was feeling impatient, so decided to give a shorter time in the freezer a try.  I divided the dough into four discs, wrapped them in plastic wrap, and put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.

And what do you know, it worked.  I pulled out one disc at a time, and started rolling the cookies.  Once you pull the dough out of wherever you choose to chill it, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Pull off tablespoon-sized hunks and roll them between your palms to form balls.  Roll the balls in powdered sugar and place on a baking sheet.  The recipe says it makes 2 dozen cookies and I usually get between 24 and 30, depending on how evenly I roll out the dough.  You don't need to grease the cookie sheets (there's quite enough butter in the cookies).  Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, and then let them cool completely before you try to move them.  The shape doesn't change much from raw to cooked, and they remain very delicate and soft.

If I'm packing the cookies for travel (say to a boy's house) I put layers of parchment paper in between, and limit them to two layers.  Happy baking and good luck with your catching.

Baked French Toast: A meal with six-ish ingredients

Now I know that most easy meals are made with five ingredients so you have that nice round number.  Well Booger and I go against the grain.  She sleeps wherever she wants to, and I cook with six ingredients.  This is one of those meals that looks like a lot of work went in to it, when really you just threw together six-ish ingredients and popped it in the oven.  It's not straight up dorm room cooking, because you do need an oven.  So for college students, use your dorm kitchen.  For the rest of us, if you don't have an oven where you live you might want to reassess your living situation.

Let's begin.  Here are your six ingredients:

1. A loaf of bread.  French or challah work best, and it's okay if it's a bit stale.
2. A brick of cream cheese
3. An apple (I used granny smith, but any firm apple will do)
4. 1 cup of milk
5. 6 eggs
6. 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
(ish) I added some nutmeg and a splash of vanilla, but those are purely optional.

If I had been thinking, I would have photographed the process, but the inspiration came too late.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

First you want to slice your bread into 1 inch slices.  That's pretty thick, so you'll only need four slices.  Take those slices and cut them into cubes.  Put half of the bread cubes in the bottom of a 11x7 pan.  (I didn't have one so I used a 13 1/2 x 9 and just added some more bread.)  Peel and core the apple, then spread slices on top of the bread layer.  Next, cut your cream cheese into cubes (this is where it's good to get a brick and not a tub) and sprinkle the cubes across the bread and apples.  Cover it all up with the second half of the bread.  Now comes the most cooking intensive part of this recipe.  Mix together the eggs, milk, and cinnamon (optional nutmeg and vanilla) in a bowl.  When they're completely combined, pour the mixture over the bread/apple/cream cheese layers.

Pop it in the oven for 35 minutes, and Bob's your uncle.  If you want to make it pretty, you can dust the top with powdered sugar.

Voila!

That's tonight's edition of cooking with cat.  For the original recipe go here.