Pierogies

Pizza and Cinnamon Rolls

Pizza dough and cinnamon roll dough courtesy of BrokeAssGourmet.  Trader Joe's has a bag of mixed sliced veggies which made this very easy - there's no way I was going to prep all of those veggies myself, but a quick sautee and throwing them on top of some tomato sauce and mozzarella made for a fast dinner.  The cinnamon rolls were just a bonus with the leftover pizza dough!  James is a fan.  

Poppy Lemon Cake

Another Smitten Kitchen heart attack on a plate.


Poppy Seed Lemon Cake
2/3 cup sugar
8 large egg yolks
1 large whole egg
1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
Pinch of salt (edited to add this)
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit
1/2 cup poppy seeds (I got this from one 3-ounce spice bottle)

• Preheat the oven to 325°F Butter and flour an 8-inch* fluted Bundt or tube pan generously. (This cake very much wants to stick. Don’t let it!) Butter the dull side of a 10-inch piece of foil.
• * I only had a 10-inch and it worked fine; the cake was done about 10 minutes sooner.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk, beat the sugar with the egg yolks and whole egg at medium-high speed until the mixture is pale yellow and very fluffy, about 8 minutes. Beat in the lemon zest. 
• Sift the flour and cornstarch over the egg mixture and fold in along with the pinch of salt with a rubber spatula. At medium speed, beat in the butter, then beat in the poppy seeds.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and cover tightly with the buttered foil. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the side of the pan and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. 
• Remove the foil and let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto the rack and let cool completely before serving, at least 30 minutes.

Do ahead: The cake can be wrapped in plastic and foil and left at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Lemon cream spaghetti

Smitten kitchen's lemon cream spaghetti
3 lemons' juice
1 tbsp lemon zest
1/4 c cream
1/4 c olive oil
1c pasta water
1/2c parmesan
Shredded basil

1 pound spaghetti or linguine
Salt
3 lemons
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil , plus additional for serving
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 ounce finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup), plus additional for serving
Ground black pepper
Small handful fresh basil, shredded

- Cook linguine or spaghetti in well-salted water to your al dente tastes in a large, wide-bottomed pot. (You’ll have fewer dishes to wash if you use this pot to assemble the dish as well.)

While pasta is cooking . . .
- Zest lemons until you have a little shy of a tablespoon of zest. Juice lemons — you’ll have anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 cup lemon juice.

- Drain pasta, reserving 1 1/2 cups of pasta cooking water.
- Boil the olive oil, cream, zest and 1 cup of the reserved pasta water together for two minutes over high heat. - Return pasta to pot and stir until coated.
- Add the cheese and 1/4 cup lemon juice and toss, toss, toss everything together.
- Add more pasta water, 1/4 cup at a time, if you’d like your dish a little looser. Quickly taste a strand of pasta and see if you want to add the remaining lemon juice (we did). Stir in basil or arugula and season generously with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately, drizzling individual portions with a bit of extra olive oil and sprinkling with extra Parmesan. cheese

Pizza

Caramelized onion sausage pizza

7 day rain cream scones

Thanks again smittenkitchen.  This rain better end before I gain 20 pounds!

*cube butter and refrigerate in advance

2 cups all-purpose flour, preferably a low-protein brand such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup currants or chopped dried cranberries
1 cup heavy cream

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425°F.
2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl or work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.
3. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.
4. Stir in heavy cream with a fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Form scones by pressing the dough into an 8-inch cake pan, then turning the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, cutting the dough into 8 wedges with a knife
6. Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Killer chocolate chip cookies

These cookies taste 10 times as good as they look.  Thank god I didn't discover how to do this years ago . . . these are a danger!

.75 c butter, melted

1 c brown sugar

1 c white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c flour

chopped pecans (optional)

1 bag chocolate chips

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

Mix together butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in rest of ingredients. Optional but helpful: refrigerate dough for a bit.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet. Make golf-ball size balls and place 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes; 12 minutes for chewy and 15 minutes for crunchy. Let cool.