Tag: eggs

Forget Me Nots

I baked them overnight, when everyone had supposedly gone to bed. This is what I found in the morning…

These cookies are truly appropriately named. When I make these minty, crunchy on the outside, chewy on in the inside puffs of delicious minty goodness with mini chocolate chips inside, they are not forgotten. The kids find them and poof! gone.

Note in the caption above these aren’t quick to make. Depending on temperature, they take 1.5 to 5 hrs or more. The original recipe for these came from my grandma and she always left them in the oven overnight, at least 5 hours. You don’t actually leave the oven on overnight tho; you preheat it, put the cookies in, and turn it off.

If you’re a total chocoholic, you could take these and dip them in melted chocolate when they’re done, either using “melting chocolate” from the store, or by taking a package of chocolate chips and melting 3/4 of it with about 1 T shortening, then adding in the rest of the chocolate chips and stirring ’til melted.

Remember when beating the egg whites to beat them until stiff. The little tips shouldn’t curl over. If you watch The Great British Baking Show (or in the UK, The Great British Bake Off), you’ll see contestants hold their bowl of egg whites over their head to test if they’re stiff. Don’t overbeat them tho; they should remain glossy looking, not dry. Once you’re noticing they’re almost there, it’s probably only a minute or 2 more.

Ingredients

  • 2 egg whites from large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
  • dash salt
  • 3/4 c. (150 g) white, granulated, sugar (not confectioner’s)
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (Make sure it’s gluten-free, corn-free, etc. See Note below.)
  • 1 tsp green creme de menthe or 1/4-1/2 tsp mint extract and a few drops of green food coloring
  • About 1/2-3/4 pkg Enjoy Life miniature chocolate chips, to taste

Note on vanilla extract: I make my own or use one by McCormick that no longer has corn syrup. To make my own, I heat 1 c. (about 235 g or ml) potato vodka and put it in a bottle, then add 8 split vanilla beans. You can use your choice of spirits; from what I understand, many work. After it’s cooled, I add another cup of potato vodka, cap it off, and wait. Shake lightly periodically, and leave it for a couple of months. So delicious…

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C); place oven rack in the middle. (See note below for getting these done more quickly.)
  2. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Prep ingredients, breaking egg whites into a mixing bowl and having everything else measured and at the ready.
  4. Beat egg whites a minute or so on medium speed, then add cream of tartar and a dash of salt. (If you have a KitchenAid mixer, use the wire whisk, speed 3 or 4 to start.)
  5. Continue beating egg whites until stiff. (Increase mixer speed to medium high, and then high. On the KitchenAid, it would be speed 6 for most of the time, ending on 8.)
  6. SLOWLY add sugar. Keeping my mixer at medium speed (4), I just tilt my bowl with sugar on the mixing bowl and keep it in a thin stream until empty; many put the sugar in 1 Tbsp at a time until they’ve added it all.
  7. Add vanilla and creme de menthe; mix briefly until incorporated.
  8. Fold in mini chocolate chips. (I use the wire whisk on the lowest speed on the mixer.)
  9. Dip out onto lined cookie sheet using a metal spoon (I just use a cereal spoon.) or you can get fancy and pipe it out into fun shapes.
  10. Place in the oven and turn the oven off.
  11. Leave 5+ hours without opening the oven door.
  12. Enjoy!

Note on speeding these up: You can use the lowest temperature of the oven and leave on for about 1.5 hrs. Watch carefully tho; you don’t want browned cookies (tho they’ll probably still get ate with joy :). I’ve even played around with leaving at 350 F a few minutes, then turning it down around 270 F (130 C) for 30 minutes, and then down all the way to try and speed them up more. They definitely do best with the 1.5 or 5 hr version tho. If you’ve planned them out, do the 5 hr; then they’re just fix them and forget them if you can 🙂

All gone!

Gone, but not forgotten…

Chile Rellenos Casserole – Gluten Free and Dairy Free

First, “chile”, “chili”, or “chilli” – are all basically the same, just vary in use by location, hence the reason I’m always confused as to which to use. I’ve lived in the southwest where “chile” is used most of the time and in other parts of the states where “chili” is usually used. I already have this recipe (with full-on wheat and dairy) as one of the first recipes on this blog, but called it Chili Rellenos Casserole and I’m just gonna leave it that way. If you can have and want the wheat and dairy, feel free to pop over to that one. If not, read on for one made with eggs, gluten-free flour and Daiya dairy-free cheese shreds. (It’s just as good!) I also make my own tomato sauce, but you can absolutely use something like Muir Glenn pizza sauce (yum!).

This recipe is super forgiving. Only have 3/4 of a can of tomato paste for the sauce? That’s ok. Put in too much flour accidentally? (oops) That’s ok, too (phew!); just add another egg to compensate. Forget that you’re out of the flour you want for the recipe, but have already cracked the eggs? A rough mix of 1/2 non-starchy flours (e.g., rice flours) and 1/2 starchy flours (e.g., tapioca starch) should work.

It’s also super tasty 🙂 When I make this, I use two rectangular dishes now [2.75 Qt (2.6 L), 9.5″ x 7.5″ at the top] because I make one with the chiles, and one without. Both are very popular and there are no leftovers.

Make sure to gather everything up (mise en place – “everything in it’s place”) and let’s get started…

I’ve already mixed the eggs, milk, and flour here.

Ingredients

  • 8 large eggs (455 g)
  • 2 c (480 g or ml) unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 c (150 g) Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour (blue bag; technically it’s 148 g, but 150 g is what I do)
  • 1 bag (200 g, 7.1 oz) Daiya cheddar cheese shreds
  • 1 bag (200 g, 7.1 oz) Daiya mozzarella cheese shreds (or use Daiya pepper-jack shreds for more kick)
  • About 2 c (425 g, 16 oz) your choice of tomato/pizza sauce (Muir Glen pizza sauce is great or make your own – See note below.)

Sauce: Wow. I gotta say after looking around on All Recipes at pizza sauce recipes that people there are way overcomplicating this. There’s no need to cook it and no need for a lot of different ingredients. This is what I do and it’s the same sauce I use when I make pizza: I use 1 can (6 oz, 170 g) tomato paste, about 2 Tbls extra virgin olive oil, about 1.5 c (360 g or ml) water (don’t add all at once), dried oregano (couple teaspoons?), dried mince garlic (sprinkle generously), and some Penzey’s pizza seasoning if I have it on hand, with the key ingredient there being dried fennel. Whisk together as you add each ingredient. When whisking in the water, do so gradually. It will mix better and you can watch for the right consistency. All the herbs can be mixed in at once. You could add a teaspoon of sugar to cut the acid from the tomatoes, but there’s really no need to for this; there’s plenty of water to dilute the acid. Sorry for the lack of definition here; I don’t measure anything for this and I mix and add ’til the taste (tomato-y and herby, but not gritty), thickness (slightly thick, not watery), and look (fluffy and glossy) are how I like them.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C).
  2. Butter 2 rectangular dishes w/dairy-free butter [2.75 Qt (2.6 L), 9.5″ x 7.5″ at the top]. If you only want a dish with chiles, you can use a 9″ x 9″ dish, but remember it will be thicker so cook at 350 F (180 C) for about an hour.
  3. Mix together eggs, milk, and flour. An immersion blender works nicely for this if you have one. You could also just put it all in a blender.
  4. If making your own tomato sauce, do that. (See note above.)
  5. Layer in dishes as follows, except remember to leave off the chiles and spicy cheese in one of the dishes if you’d like. I usually have some leftover cheese, using most, but not all of both bags:
    1. egg mixture
    2. cheeses
    3. chiles
    4. egg mixture
    5. cheeses
    6. chiles
    7. dollop on tomato sauce
  6. Bake for about 40 minutes or until done. It should look poofy and will bounce back if you touch it lightly in the middle. It will flatten a bit upon cooling.
  7. Cool a few minutes as it will be very hot.
  8. Enjoy!
Some of both, with pomegranate seeds on top 🙂

Chili Rellenos Casserole

 

I’ve had many requests for this recipe of late.  (Pardon the picture.  It’s too late to get a better one — all gone 🙂  A friend of mine gave it to me many years ago.  I’ve since modified it quite a bit and made it mine.

Here’s the fun part…

Grating the cheese is part of mise en place, literally “put in place”.  It just means to get all of your ingredients together before you start making the recipe.  Also read the directions so you don’t end up doing something like getting everything all set up for a recipe you need ASAP and then find you need to let it rest overnight (no, you don’t need to for this one; it’ll be done in an hour).

Here’s my mise en place for this recipe…

Simple, eh?  For this dish you will be mixing together some ingredients and then layering them into an 8″x8″ (20 cm x 20 cm) casserole dish.  Here’s the recipe…

Ingredients:

1-1/2 c. (355 ml) milk (I use fat free)

3 extra large eggs

1/3 c. + 2 tbls (65 g) all-purpose flour

7 oz. (200 g) can green chiles (chopped or whole; I usually use chopped, but both work fine)

8 oz. (1/2 lb, 230 g) medium cheddar cheese, grated

8 oz. (1/2 lb, 230 g) monterey jack cheese, grated

8 oz (230 g) can tomato sauce (I use Hunt’s)

7-3/4 oz (220 g) El Pato tomato sauce (aka duck sauce.  optional spicy, mexican tomato sauce.  fyi, it comes in a yellow can with a picture of a duck on it.  hot! but great flavor)

Directions:

Get out an 8″x8″ (20 cm x 20 cm) casserole dish and preheat the oven to 350F (177C).

After you grate your cheese, mix together the two types and save 1/2 c. for the top.

Mix together the milk, eggs, and flour in a large measuring cup with a whisk or immersion blender (aka stick blender).

Now look at your egg mixture to see how much one-third of it will be.  No need to separate it out; just check it out.  It should be about 3/4 c. per layer.  Also visually divide your cheese in half, except for the 1/2 c. on top.

Layer your ingredients as follows:  egg mixture, cheese, chiles, egg mixture, cheese, chiles, and then one more layer of egg mixture.

Now pour your tomato sauce over the top and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Bake at 350F for 1 hour.

Serve with El Pato if you like some heat 🙂

Enjoy!

It should look something like this when you place it in the oven…

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