Globe Trotting

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

Although I’ve had great opportunities in life thus far to see many states in the US, I have yet to make it out of the US. I would have to say Italy is on the top of my list as must-sees, just because I come from an Italian family. But there is so much more I would like to see too, so I hope to maybe knock some countries off my list during my 20’s.

Studying abroad through my current university is still up for debate for Spring 2011, but in the meantime my job for the Concordia Language Villages has brought me to all corners of the world even though I am really just cooking in the kitchen! Food is such a universal subject that can bond us with anyone, whether they speak our language or not. It’s a survival staple, and every country has added their own touch to the culinary world. Just when you think you know a lot about the realms of cooking, step into a kitchen with someone who has been doing it for 30+ years, and then you’ll learn that you won’t ever stop learning new recipes, new foods, new tips, and new tastes.

Just in the past week, check out the places I’ve “traveled”…

The Caribbean

Greece and France

Italy

Slovakia

So despite my busy schedule at work, I still try to find time to cook in my kitchen believe it or not. Everyone claimed once I got this job, I’d get sick of cooking and baking--never! So I decided to take a trip to Spain..I’ve always been obsessed with empanadas.

em·pa·na·da

a turnover or mold of pastry filled with chopped or ground meat, vegetables, fruit, etc., and usually baked or fried.

There’s so many empanada recipes online, it can get overwhelming, but I knew my sweet tooth would never be silent if I passed up this recipe!

Chocolate-Banana Empanadas

Ingredients:

4 large ripe bananas

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 ready to use refrigerated pie crusts

4 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken in chunks

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions:

• Mash the bananas, sugar, and cinnamon together in a mixing bowl until creamy, but not completely smooth – you should still have pieces of banana chunks.

• Using a 4-inch cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out 10 circles of dough; repeat with the other 1/2.

• Spoon 2 generous tablespoons of filling into the center of each pastry circle, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges with the egg wash and then fold the dough over in 1/2 to enclose the filling and form a semi-circle. Tightly seal the edges by crimping with the tines of a fork. Chill at least 30 minutes before baking.

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the empanadas on a buttered baking sheet and brush the tops with additional egg wash. Using a fork, prick a few holes in the top of the empanadas for steam to escape. Bake for 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.
• Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve hot.

 

What is your country cuisine of choice?

Mine is definitely Italy, not surprising since I am a full-blooded Italian :-)

A Tropical Way to Take the Cake

Oh how I wish I lived somewhere even semi-warm from October through April. Countless days spent indoors can get old to put it nicely. I know a lot of bloggers out there can’t relate because well..they are smarter luckier and choose to live in the southern or western sunshine. All I can do is look forward to our yearly vacation to somewhere warm over winter break.

Last year I visited L.A.:

The year before was Florida:

(My grandma and I)

Clearwater Beach

And in 2007 was Florida once again:

Orlando

2006 was back to Clearwater Beach:

And 2005 was Clearwater once again..can you tell I love it there?!

So to say the least, all I do in these dreary months to hold me over till December is look back at all the fun times I have had.

Where’s your favorite vacation destination?

But of course I would not leave you with a post filled with pictures of past vacations with no mention of food. You almost thought I was going to right? No chance! Of course fall time is meant for baking with pumpkin, squash and other savory food. But for the sake of my tropical dreams, I cannot give up sweet treats with fruity tastes because it temporarily brings me to a tropical state of euphoria. Bear with me okay? =) This recipe has a little fall with cinnamon and a lot of tropical with coconut and banana!

Banana Spice Cake with Coconut Frosting

Serves 16

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 c all-purpose flour
• 3/4 c granulated sugar (I used Splenda)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 c low fat buttermilk (I used a little less than 3/4 c Almond Breeze milk with 1 Tbsp lemon juice—let sit for about 15 minutes)
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed, about 1 cup
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg white
• 1/3 unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting:

• 1 (8 oz) package of light cream cheese, at room temp
• 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 3 Tbsp milk (coconut milk is recommended, but I subbed vanilla Eighth Continent soymilk)
• 1 tsp coconut extract (This is a crucial ingredient—no substitutes!)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 c sweetened flaked coconut, toasted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with nonstick spray.
2. To make the cake, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk together the remaining cake ingredients in a separate medium bowl. Gradually add the banana mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until just blended.
3. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 30-35 min or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove cake from pan and let cool completely on rack.
4. Meanwhile, to make the frosting, with an electric mixer on high speed, beat all the frosting ingredients except the flaked coconut until smooth, about 1 minute. With a narrow metal spatula, spread frosting over the top of cake. Add the toasted coconut evenly over the top.

This cake would even be delicious without the frosting..but who doesn’t like frosting? :-) 

 

**Speaking of tropical, enter a  HUGE giveaway here!**

I Found My Fall Angel

---Finally Friday!!---

Have you ever combined two good foods to get something extraordinary? That’s what happened with this recipe. Two things a lot of people probably have lying around their pantry paired together to create one delicious dessert. Usually I will make something, eat it throughout the week, and get sick of it. With this one, I made it Sunday and wish I had made more! This would be perfect for a fall time/Halloween get together too.

 

 +  =

 

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Cinnamon-Cream Filling

Serves:12

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 box Betty Crocker® white angel food cake mix
• 1 tablespoon Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
• 1 cup cold water

Cinnamon-Cream Filling

• 2 cups Cool Whip
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1.Move oven rack to lowest position; heat oven to 350°F. In extra-large glass or metal bowl, beat all cake ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed 1 minute. Pour into ungreased 10-inch angel food (tube) cake pan.

2.Bake 37 to 47 minutes or until crust is dark golden brown and cracks are dry. Immediately turn pan upside down onto heatproof funnel or glass bottle. Let hang about 2 hours or until cake is completely cool. Loosen cake from side of pan with knife or long metal spatula. Turn cake upside down onto serving plate.

3.In chilled large bowl, beat cool whip and powdered sugar with electric mixer on high speed until stiff. Fold in cinnamon. Cut cake horizontally in half to make 2 even layers. Spread half of the filling on bottom layer; replace top of cake. Spread remaining filling on top of cake. Sprinkle with additional pumpkin pie spice if desired.

Will all the pumpkin recipes floating around this time a year, I would definitely recommend adding this to your list of “must makes”! Let me know if you make it and how you like it =)

The blogenda for next week:

• A new cookie line review
• A pie—oh my!
• A easy fall side dish

C’mon and do the Twist!

A pretzel twist that is—unless of course you really feel like busting out a move and dancing that’s a-okay with me!! Today I finally got around to making homemade pretzels! I have had this on my endless long list of recipes to make for awhile now and I guess the whole sound of “making pretzels from scratch” sounded a tad bit daunting. Good thing I was up for the challenge—and I was glad to find out that it wasn’t such a challenge after all, which means you can get in your kitchen ASAP and make them!

I got this recipe from my Food Network magazine and it was under their monthly feature Copy That where they try to recreate a “secret” recipe. This one of course was a replica of the famous Auntie Anne's pretzels. The verdict? I think they came out pretty close! So here’s the recipe and in the bold print is the changes I made to the original ingredients. I also made 12 mini pretzels instead of 6 jumbo, and I calculated the nutritionals using my adaptations and for one mini pretzel with a dusting of cinnamon, it will set you back just 110 calories! And being a “mini” pretzel, they are not really mini at all.

Food Network’s Almost-Famous Soft Pretzels

Active: 45 min Total:1 hr (plus rising) Makes: 6 pretzels or 12 mini

Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 package active dry yeast or 1 packet fast rising yeast
• 3 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
• 2 1/4 C all-purpose flour or 1 C whole wheat+1 1/4 all-purpose
• 2 Tbsp butter, plus a few more for brushing on pretzels
• 1/3 C baking soda

Directions:

• Warm milk in saucepan until 110 F; pour into a medium bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let the yeast soften, about 2 mins; stir in brown sugar and 1 C flour. Dice 2 Tbsp butter and soften; stir into the mix. Add the remaining 1 1/4 C butter and fine salt to make a sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding more flour if needed, until smooth but slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in warm spot about 1 hour or until doubled in size.

• Preheat oven to 450 F and grease a large baking sheet. Punch the dough to deflate it, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide the dough into 6 pieces or 12 if your making the mini pretzels. Roll and stretch each piece with your palms into a 30 inch rope. (15 in for minis) Form each rope into a pretzel shape.

• Dissolve the baking soda in 3 C warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel into the soda solution and arrange on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until golden, 10-12 minutes.

• Melt a couple tbsp of butter and brush over the top.(The original recipe called for 8 TBSP of butter, and then to dip the whole pretzel in, but who needs all that butter?!) Their recipe called for a coarse salt topping, but I decided to take it a step(okay maybe 5 steps) further and turn these into some special pretzels—check it out!

• Pretzel Number One

The Peanut Butter and Jelly Pretzel

Figured I would dedicate this one to one of my favorite bloggies over at Peanut Butter and Jenny! It was just some strawberry jelly slathered on, covered by 2 Tbsp of melted PB chips.

 

 

• Pretzel Number Two

Pineapple Cream Cheese and Coconut Pretzel

Of course this pretzel needed to be dedicated to another sweet girl Laura at Pineapple Gurl! 1 Tbsp of Pineapple Cream Cheese topped with 1 Tbsp flaked coconut.

• Pretzel Number Three

Plain Jane Powdered Sugar Pretzel

Unfortunately, I know no bloggers by the name of Jane, so no dedication here. Just a sprinkling of powdered sugar made it taste like funnel cake from the summer fair!

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Four

Double Chocolate Devotion Pretzel

1 Tbsp of chocolate frosting with a sprinkling of chocolate sprinkles.

 

 

• Pretzel Number Five

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bonanza Pretzel

1 Tbsp of chocolate frosting and some sliced peanuts.

 

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Six

Choco-Walnut Bliss Pretzel

1 Tbsp chocolate frosting with 1 Tbsp crushed walnuts

 

 

 

• Pretzel Number Seven

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels

(2 in the middle)

Gotta go for now guys—my phone is ringing, I think it may be Auntie Anne’s calling to hire me! =) Have a fab Friday!