Fudge Glaze for Brownies

This is also posted at the end of my original brownie recipe but here it is again to make it a little easier to find :) I realized I promised to include it with the amaretto brownies recipe and then never did! oops...

Enough to coat 1 9-inch pan of brownies (I usually make a little less and just "drizzle" it over the bars before cutting them).

Ingredients:
1 oz. unsweetened or semi-sweet chocolate
3 tbsp. butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract (for the amaretto brownies use almond extract instead!)
1-3 tbsp. warm milk

Method:
1. Melt butter and chocolate in a small saucepan. Blend in sugar and vanilla with a wire whisk. Add enough milk to make a smooth, spreadable glaze.

2. Spread or drizzle over cool brownies.

This would probably be good drizzled over cupcakes or fruit (wonder what it's like on ice cream?!)

Amaretto Brownies, Take II (Fudge)

Those amaretto brownies I made last week were really good but I do really prefer fudge brownies to the more cake-like ones :) So, I have decided to give them another shot! I was actually going to make them tonight but discovered I had frozen my leftover almond paste so those will have to wait! I'm just going to do some kind of combination of my regular brownie recipe and the amaretto brownie recipe and see what I come up with. I hope they turn out OK! I'll come back tomorrow after I make them and let you know how they turn out/post the recipe if they are actually blog-worthy! And if not, then I still have the good cake amaretto brownies :)

Update (Wednesday): They worked!! Woohoo!! :) These are so good, even better than the cake ones which is what I hoped/suspected.
Here is the recipe I used/created for the fudge amaretto brownies:

Ingredients:
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, cut up
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup almond paste
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 tbsp. amaretto
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. aluminium-free baking powder
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square pan.

2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter, chocolate, and almond paste over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

3. Blend in sugar, vanilla, and amaretto. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in salt, baking powder, and flour.

4. Bake 20-25 minutes until the brownies are set in the center (test with a toothpick). Be sure not to overbake them. Allow the brownies to cool and cut into squares. If desired, you can spread or drizzle the cooled brownies with the fudge glaze.

Enjoy! I bet these would be really good with a cup of coffee that has some amaretto stirred into it!

Mexican Rice

Told you my menu for this week would change :) We ended up having "taco night" tonight instead of burgers or whatever it was supposed to be! So... I decided to make this yummy Mexican rice I found in Amber's blog a while back (I think she found it on AllRecipes.com). Here's my slightly (hardly at all!) modified version - very yummy!

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 cup onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup tomato sauce (I usually just make my own - mix 1 1/2 tbsp. tomato paste with 2 tbsp. water)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth (obviously will only be vegetarian if you use the veggie broth!)
1/4 cup fresh salsa (ie: not the kind that you find on a shelf in a glass jar.. ick!) Pico de gallo would also work well

Method:
1. Heat the oil over medium heat and add the rice. Cook the rice, stirring constantly until it becomes puffy and golden. Sprinkle with salt and cumin.

2. Stir in the onions and garlic and cook until tender. Stir in tomato sauce and broth; bring to a boil. Stir in the salsa and reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer 15-20 minutes or until liquid has been absorbed.

Great as a side dish for tacos, enchiladas, fajitas, etc.

I finally tried....

...a bloody Mary! Guess I can cross that off my list of things to do before I'm 30! lol, don't worry, that was not on the list! I actually don't have a list and since I'm turning 30 at the end of September I really don't see any point in worrying about that :)

So, finally tried one. I never thought I'd like it. I love tomatoes but have just never had anything tomato juice-y (like V-8 or whatever)... we were out to breakfast on Sunday at a place on the pier in Santa Barbara (oops, forgot the name of the restaurant) and the people I was with ordered the bloody Mary's. I almost did it but chickened out and got a mimosa instead :) Well, they looked so good so I had to have a sip. Dang! Think my brunch mimosas have been replaced! lol
So spicy - it was great! And the huge shrimp hanging on the glass looked really yummy, too! lol...
Next time we're up there (um, next August), I'm definitely going to have to remember to order one of those! Yum yum...

Amaretto Brownies

I usually make these very fudgy chocolate brownies which I think are the best brownies I've ever tasted... might be a bit biased, but they are damn good! Anyway, being the huge brownie fan that I am, I have been on this "must find new brownie recipes" kick lately. I'm also a huge amaretto fan (well, almonds in general fan) so you can imagine my excitement when I found this! I almost started turning cartwheels down the hallway! ;) That would be quite a sight - I think I haven't done a cartwheel since I was 14...
Anyway, these are a little more on the cake brownie side, but they are still really good! DH tried one and said "wow, did you put a whole bottle of amaretto in these things?!" No, honey, that's just 2 tbsp. and a big hunk of almond paste! ;) Yes, I was eating the almond paste straight from the tube.. maybe it's a good thing that stuff is $8 for a tiny little tube! Prevent me from eating it so much!

This will make 48 brownies - I actually cut the recipe in half which is usually not a good idea! However, seemed to work Ok for these!

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 of an 8-ounce tube of almond paste (works out to be about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 tbsp. amaretto or milk (now who on earth will sub milk for amaretto?! If you do have to sub milk, you could maybe add some almond extract to it...)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. aluminium-free baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 cup milk
Optional: fudge frosting (I'll make sure I post the recipe I use) and some chopped almonds to use as a topping

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. Grease a 15x10x1-inch baking pan and set it aside. In a pan, heat the sugar, butter, almond paste, and cocoa powder over medium heat until the butter is melted. I also used a wooden spoon to "smush" the almond paste around until it was all melted, too. Remove from the heat and cool slightly (we are not going for amaretto scrambled eggs here!) Add the eggs, amaretto, and vanilla; beat with a wooden spoon just until combined.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture and milk alternatively to the chocolate mixture, beating after each addition.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (mine needed about 23 mins). Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours. If desired, frost with fudge frosting and sprinkle with chopped or sliced almonds. Cut into bars.

Reference:
I found this in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.
Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen (1996). Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. Meredith Publishing Group: Des Moines, IA.

Menu for week of July 22-28

I'm slacking this week! Already Tuesday and haven't posted this yet... here's the plan for this week:

Sunday/Monday: we ordered pizza on Sunday (oops...) and Monday DH was out/I never got hungry. Easy days! lol

Tuesday: Spaghetti with marinara (homemade) and meatballs for hubby.

Wednesday: Cuban-marinated chicken

Thursday: Cream-cheese chicken

Friday: Margarita salmon - I might just do salmon for hubby and do mine with shrimp... not sure yet.

Saturday: Baked teriyaki chicken for dinner; no idea for lunch! Maybe tuna melts for lunch

Homemade Pizza!

I have a feeling the "dumb idea fairies" snook into my house this evening and possessed me to bake up a storm even though it's the middle of July and really hot! Phew... I made pizza and brownies today - so hot in my house at the moment! Anyway, it was worth it - the pizza was really yummy and the brownies look great (haven't tried those yet). Here's the pizza recipe... We'll be having leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I posted this under the vegetarian label since it's really easy to convert it to veggie pizza. I just did mine half non-meat since DH is a total carnivore! There are lots of great vegetables which are wonderful on pizza.

Best thing about this pizza - it was even better the second time around! I heated it up (zapped in the microwave for a couple minutes due to a lack of time!) for lunch today and it tasted just as good if not better than it did last night. Yeay! I am definitely making this one again... shame there's no way to make it fat-free... lol

Crust:
I made the dough for my crust in my bread maker; this is the recipe which came with the machine. The recipe will make one 1.5 pound crust which was a bit much for what we needed. I think next time I'll split it in half... wonder if the dough will freeze?
Ingredients:
**All need to be at room temperature**
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 cup water
2 tbsp. olive oil

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients in the bread pan and insert the pan into the bread machine.

2. Turn on the machine and select the Dough setting.

3. Press Start/Stop. When unit signals and display reads 0:00 unplug unit and remove dough.


4. Pat dough into 12x15-inch jelly roll pan or greased 12-inch round pizza pan.


5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

While oven preheats, prepare the sauce.
Sauce Recipe
Ingredients:
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1 7 1/2-ounce can undrained tomatoes, cut up
1/2 cup chopped onion (I used half red onion and half white onion)
1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
couple shakes of crushed red pepper

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until onions are tender.

This sauce, by the way, is amazingly yummy! I was thinking of adding other spices to it, but it really didn't need anything.


Assembling the pizza:
1. Spread sauce over dough and top with shredded mozarella cheese (about 2 cups). Top with other toppings as desired - I covered half of ours with pepperoni and left the other half just cheese. In the future, I'd like to do half veggie with mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, artichokes, etc...

2. Bake the pizza for 15-20 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Mine was "deep-dish" style (not on purpose!) so it took considerably longer to cook! Since it's just the two of us, I'll definitely split the dough and only use half of it next time.

There it is! Please excuse the minor "small appliance porn" which got mixed in with the food porn. lol ;)
I think the melty cheese on the rim of the crust looks so appetizing... there's just something about melted cheese!

References:
As mentioned above, the dough/crust recipe came from the little book which accompanied my bread maker. The bread maker I have is an Oster 2-lb. ExpressBake bread maker.

The sauce recipe is from my copy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. The only change I made was to add a little crushed red pepper.
Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen (1996). Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. Meredith Publishing Group: Des Moines, IA.