How to Make Baked Tortilla Strips

Our Best Bites is my new very favorite cookbook written by the authors of one of my very favorite blogs. My sweetie picked it up for me at Costco and I've been cooking up a storm ever since. So many great recipes!

Like this tomato soup. It's made with sun dried tomatoes, basil, cream cheese - oh, wow!

And they are the first cookbook authors that explained making a lattice pie crust in a way I could grasp:

But my very favorite recipe so far is Black Bean Soup, it's a Brazillian recipe that tastes sort of like a burrito in a blender... only AWESOME! The flavors of green chilies, beef broth and black beans mingle into a dish with tremendous depth. And it only has 125 cals per cup without add-ons!!!

(yeah, I was getting carried away with my food styling last night)

I think most people deep fry tortilla strips to top soups and salads with, but I HATE deepfrying. So I came up with a way of baking the tortilla strips that is delicious.

First, roll up a tortilla into a tube, like this:

Using a sharp knife, cut tortilla into thin slices:

Spread them out on a baking sheet. Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt:

Bake until lightly browned and starting to crisp. I hesitate to give you a time on this because you can bake them for five minutes at 400 degrees, one minute on broil or 10+ minutes at 350. My advice to you is to keep a close eye on them and stir them part way through. They burn extremely easily.

When they are done they'll still be pliable. Don't worry, they harden as they cool.

What's great about these tortilla crisps is that they turn into a noodle(ish) when stirred into soup. 

Hope you give them a try and check out the Our Best Bites cookbook if you see it. 

Linked up with:

The Stories of A to Z

Tatertots and Jello

Cake #2 - 52 Cakes

There's nothing quite like chocolate cake.

 I decided to make it extra delicious by filling my Chocolate Beet Cake with chocolate ganache

 and topping it with dark chocolate mocha frosting.

Wow. I think I love this challenge :-)

Rich Chocolate Beet Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting

There were a few requests for the recipe I used in yesterday's Cupcakes in a Jar so I thought I'd share it. Please excuse the less-than-awesome pictures. Also, the one cake I photographed kind of went all loose and gooey because it was 8 gajillion degrees out and I was being stubborn about air conditioning.

Tip: Refrigerate this cake!

Chocolate Beet Cake

1 can (15 oz.) whole beets, drained (save juice)
1 1/4 C sugar
3/4 C oil 

1/4 C apple sauce (if you don’t have apple sauce, use 1C oil)
1/2 C juice from beets
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla 

3TBL cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 3/4 C flour
3 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate, melted (if you don't have chocolate onhand you can substitute 3 level tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon butter, margarine or shortening or oil for every 1-ounce unsweetened baking chocolate.)

Grease pans. I use a bit of parchment in the bottom too, but skip this step if you like to live life on the edge :-)

Sift together salt, baking soda, cocoa and flour. Set aside.

Place beets in blender jar and puree. Add sugar, oil, applesauce and beet juice to beets and blend. Add eggs and vanilla. Blend well. 

Pour the beet mixture into a mixing bowl and add the dry ingredients. Mix well on medium speed for approximately one minute. 

Stir in melted chocolate. 

Pour batter into two greased and floured 8- or 9-inch round cake pans. Optional Step, sprinkle batter with mini-chocolate chips for flavor and texture boost. Don't panic that it's an icky shade of fuchsia, if you look at the "after" pictures, it looks like normal chocolate cake once it's baked.

 Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool. Completely. (I mean it, if you don't you'll have a big mess like my cake above. Don't say I didn't warn you *grin*)

German Chocolate Frosting

1 C evaporated milk or half n half

1 C white sugar

3 egg yolk, beaten

1/2 C margarine or butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 C chopped pecans

1 1/3 C flaked coconut

In a large saucepan combine evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, margarine and vanilla. 

(Ew!)

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thick (about 12 to 20 minutes, depending on elevation). 

Remove from heat and stir in pecans and coconut.

 Cool until thick enough to spread. You can speed this step up by sitting pan in bowl of ice cubes and stirring constantly.

You're going to have to imagine this part going well... it was REALLY hot in the house so the frosting was sloppy. Sorry.

Place one cake layer on serving plate. Spread with 1/3 frosting.

Top with second cake layer and spread with frosting. 

Some people just frost the top and let it run down the sides, others frost the whole cake. You can also use a dark chocolate frosting on the sides and German Chocolate (coconut pecan) on the top. 

Voila!

For cupcakes in a jar you just layer unwrapped cupcakes and frosting. I put an additional spoonful in the bottom of the jar because when it comes to coconut pecan frosting I firmly believe more is better. 

P.S. This is in direct opposition to my usual less-is-more opinion about regular buttercream frosting.

Chocolate Beet Cake With Coconut Pecan (German) Frosting

                

Cupcakes in a Jar

In honor of International Cupcake Week I thought I'd make cupcakes in a jar as a treat for the family. We always pack a lunch when I go writing on Tuesday nights and Chris and the boys run errands so these seemed like a great portable dessert - and yes, I have heard of cookies. I'm just not very good at making them :-)

Aren't they cute! They're also unforgivably feminine, but it's a jar of cupcakes... my little macho men can deal.

I love that we can reuse everything but the forks. We can probably even reuse those... I wonder if they're dishwasher safe? Thoughts?

These cupcakes are Chocolate Beet Cake with German Chocolate Frosting. YUMMY! 

Snow and Jelly Beans

We woke up to this:

So I'm going to just pretend it didn't happen and focus on Jelly Beans - yes, jellybeans - because that is how we ended J fortnight.

The kiddos and I dipped our toes into our latest "cookbook" (seriously, only in the very loosest terms would I call this a cookbook; it's more a crafting with food book; which is okay too.) What's New Cupcake? and did some decorating. We made corn:

and pies:

and the boys had fun goofing about with frosting and candy:

But the real truth of the matter came into play when my eleven year old - a sugar hound of the first order - had to take a knife and clean all the "stuff" off his cupcake before it was edible. We just aren't the globs of candy a top ton-o-frosting type.

Here's the review I left at Amazon:

Cute But Inedible

My kids and I have both of the cupcake books and we've made several of the projects from them (corn, bake sale pies, penguins to name a few). While the creations are adorable and get rave reviews for looks - they are too sweet and too piled with frosting, candy and baked goods to be eaten. Take the pies for example, once you add two layers of frosting and jelly beans to a cupcake it's too sweet to eat.

I love to bake from scratch and (call me old-fashioned) I think the final product should be delicious and beautiful; not either or.

This book deserves a 4 for cuteness ( although it's not as fresh as "Hello, Cupcake") and a 2 for eatability.


And since I can't not mention the record breaking snow, here's a lookie-loo at our back yard this morning:

Planters and Mac and Cheese

When I saw Amy at Positively Splendid's planters I knew it was just the thing to spruce up our front porch (remember, the relatives are coming). I had most everything but the largest pots on hand so this came together in no time at all. What do you think?

If you want to make one just click on the Positively Splendid link above; Amy lays it out in easy to follow steps. 

Another neat thing I found was a great recipe for Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese on Monkey See- Monkey Do. It makes my mouth water just looking at it. We've had it twice since Yolanda posted the recipe and I barely got this picture before it was all gone. So delicious!

And finally, we had this one straggly looking tomato that was too feeble to plant outside so I experimented with the sub-irrigation planters:

Here's a close-up:

Ironically, this once near-dead wisp of a tomato is the only one that survived and it's huge now. Yay! In case you're wondering, the penny keeps the water from growing slime. Our youngest loved watching the bottle fill up with roots. 

Rainbow Party Cones & Time Out

Our family has a wonderful tradition; when someone goes on time out, the non-offending children get to do something really fun. This is very effective because the person in trouble is doubly punished and it helps them be mindful to not break the rules in the future. It all started years ago. My eldest is a pretty self-contained unit and he made the terrible mistake of asking me what was the big deal with time out. The way his six year old brain saw it, time out was an oasis of quiet and a break from his brothers. This would not do. The next time he was sent on time out, I popped popcorn with my younger two hoping that the smell of his favorite food wafting up to his room would make my point. The next infraction, we skipped school and watched a cartoon - suddenly the point was much clearer to him.

This message has been played out many times over the years and I think it's a good one. Sometimes doing the wrong thing doesn't just cause you to receive punishment (like being fired) it can also cause you to lose blessings (like a raise or an opportunity). My boys understand this through and through - as a mom, what more can I hope for.

Now what does this have to do with the pretty vanilla cone at the top of this post? Everything. My 13 and 12YO got into an argument last week. We don't allow quarreling in our house as a considerate exchange of ideas is a lot more effective way to get through life than say, punching someone in the nose. Since their conversation was escalating, I put them both on time out to think about how they could have handled things better. Now I had to find something AWESOME to do with my 11YO. He isn't a TV kid at all so movies and video games were out. I'd been wanting to make cupcake cones with him for at least six months so we got to it. Sorry, I completely spaced on getting a picture of my cute boy.

Step One: Place the cones in a muffin pan. I've tried cookie sheets and its been a tippy disaster. 9x13 pans work well too.

Step Two: Make your favorite cake batter, we used Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Separate it into three bowls and color each batch of batter with food coloring. Be mindful of the batter color - yellow cake will turn blue dye green etc.

Step Three: Each cone holds about three tablespoons of  batter so gently layer one TBL of each color into the cones:

Now they're ready to bake. Afterwards they should look like this. Cool completely before frosting:

We frosted ours to mimic favorite ice cream flavors like chocolate chip mint. All this required was mint frosting and mini chocolate chips. They looked real enough that they fooled my husband :-)

As things inevitably go, Brayden and I got tired of making ice cream cones after about this many:

So we decided to try a multi-colored piping technique I'd seen on TV. All you need is a zip loc bag (or disposable pastry bag), paste food color and white frosting. 

Paint lines of food color up the sides of the bag:

Add frosting:

And pipe your heart out, cool 'eh?

Want to see these babies in action? I call the first one Psychedelic Chomp:

Thanks everyone for hanging out to the end of this tutorial. Hope you make these with your family (without someone needing to be on time out first).

Linking to:

Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs

Spotlight Yourself: Santa's Gift Shoppe and Ideas

cupcake , parenting