Knitter in the Kitchen

This past weekend I cracked open my copy of More from Magnolia and baked the Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. I had high hopes for the recipe because it’s supposed to be Magnolia’s claim to fame, right? The cupcakes themselves turned out very nicely — moist and light, which is just how I like them. However, I was disappointed with the overly sweet frosting. A half batch of frosting (for a dozen cupcakes) required 1 stick of butter, ¼ cup of milk, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 3 cups of confectioners’ sugar. Three!!! Technically, I should have added even more sugar (up to 4 cups) to thicken the frosting — you can probably see from the photos that it still looks a little goopy. Oh well…the very sweet frosting is bearable if I gulp down milk between bites!

Lemon Cookies from the April 2007 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray. A tad on the sweet side, so I might experiment with using less sugar next time, but the recipe is still a keeper!

Last weekend I made the Mini Key Lime Pies from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. They turned out terribly and tasted mostly of condensed milk with a very tiny hint of lime. I was annoyed even during the baking process because I found the instructions too vague. The graham cracker base is taken from a different recipe in the book. I have no problem with that, but for crying out loud please reference the page number of the other recipe! Or at least mention the full name of the other recipe! The Mini Key Lime Pie recipe kept mentioning the recipe for “the cheesecakes.” I flipped to the cheesecake section but the instructions weren’t applicable. That’s because I was supposed to be referencing the mini cheesecake recipe. Which was NOT with all of the other cheesecake recipes, by the way. I should have looked in the index, but I didn’t think of that until afterwards. But honestly, would it have killed Nigella to say that the mini cheesecake recipe was on page 235? Especially since she already mentions that the key lime pie filling is from page 103-104? I really fumbled around with the crust because I didn’t know at the time how much to put in each muffin cup and how far up the sides it was supposed to go. As for the filling — the instructions call for using a dessert spoon to fill the crusts. Ummm…how about an actual measurement for those of us who don’t own dessert spoons? And maybe mentioning how full we are supposed to fill the crusts? There was no photo so I was just guessing.

That’s probably enough ranting from me on this recipe. All in all, though, I was definitely not impressed. Previously I had tried the pancake recipe from the same book and didn’t think it was all that great either. So, although I know some folks are huge fans of this book, I doubt that it will become one of my faves. Hopefully I’ll come across a better key lime pie recipe in the future!

The recipe for Janet’s Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake caught my eye in the May 2007 issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray. It was easy to make and the flavors are good. This would be a great brunch item for a chocoholic.

I never thought I would be a Rachel Ray fan, but I enjoyed reading the last two issues of her mag…so much that I even subscribed. I’m seeing her recipes in a new light. And I recently discovered this fun blog focused on Rachel Ray!

This weekend we made chicken tacos with salsa verde and cilantro rice. We liked the flavors a lot, so I thought I would share the recipes here.

Chicken– We adapted the marinade from Rachel Ray’s recipe for Grilled Chicken Burritos with Mango Salsa.
2 pounds thin-sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
9 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 4 or 5 limes)
9 cloves garlic (pressed)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika [my new favorite spice!]
Combine all marinade ingredients in a ziploc bag. Add chicken and marinate for a few hours. Cook in skillet over medium-high heat. Cool slightly and cut into small bite-sized pieces.

Salsa Verde — This version is adapted from the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa recipe in Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday. I like this cookbook a lot; we have tried five or six recipes and they all turned out well. Prior to buying this book we hadn’t cooked Mexican food before. I think it provides a good intro to Mexican cooking for total newbies.
4 medium (about 8 ounces total) tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and halved
4 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 serrano chiles, stemmed and roughly chopped
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water

Set a large nonstick skiller over medium heat. Lay in the garlic and tomatillos, cut side down. When the tomatillos are well browned, turn everything over and brown the other side. (The tomatillos should be completely soft.) [I found it difficult to brown the tomatillos without having burned bits in the pan. I suggest shifting the tomatillos around occasionally so that they don't burn quite as badly.]
Scrape the tomatillos and garlic into a blender or food processor and let cool to room temperature, about 3 minutes. Add the chiles, cilantro, salt, and 1/4 cup water. Blend to a coarse puree. Add a little more water if necessary to reach the desired consistency. [The photo below isn't quite representative of what the salsa should look like because we used 2/3 cup cilantro, which was probably too much. But we love cilantro! Anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 cup of cilantro should be fine.]

Cilantro Rice – We used the recipe posted here. It was interesting, but I think I made my rice too mushy.

Next time, we will try cooking the chicken breasts on the Foreman grill and will probably leave out the cilantro rice. Hubby thinks carmelized onions would be a good substitute!