Cauldron Cakes

For those of you who are not potterheads, allow me to explain. Cauldron cakes are a common treat in the wizarding world, as are Chocolate Frogs, Acid Pops, and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. I made these tonight after rewatching GoF for the trillionth time, along with some Hot Butterbeer.

Mmm, yummy. To make these magical treats, you will need:

1 box of your favorite chocolate cake mix (or your own special recipe)
1 package licorice
1 container of your favorite white frosting
1/2 tsp vanilla butter and nut flavoring
Green food coloring

Cook the cake according to package directions into 24 cupcakes. While those are baking, mix together the frosting, flavoring, and food coloring. Spread the frosting on the cupcakes as soon as they come out for the drippy look that mine have, or wait until they've cooled for creamier consistency. Stick the licorice into the tops of the cupcakes and serve.

You could also jazz these up any number of ways. Try adding gummy worms to the tops or pushing mini reese cups into the cups before baking.

Sweet Potato Chili

As the cold weather creeps upon us, I find myself seeking warmth in anyway possible. This includes thick, fuzzy coats, heating blankets, steamy showers, and, of course, soups and chilis. This chili is one of my favorites, and was found in a vegetarian slow cooker cookbook that my grandma gave me for Chrtistmas one year (Ironically, she put the book in a crockpot box and made me think I was getting a brand new crockpot. Funny, grams).

Mmm, look how bright it is!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs sweet potato (about 2 potatos)
1 yellow onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 can diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp chili powder
1 cup water
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt
1 tsp minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Peel and cut your potatoes into smallish cubes (about 1 inch). Set these aside. Drizzle a pan with the oil, and sautee the onion and pepper until the onion is translucent. Add in the garlic and chili powder, stir until the garlic is browned. Add the sweet potato, and stir to coat with spices. Pour the mixture into a slow cooker. Add the remaining ingredients except for the chipotle peppers. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Now, a note on the chipotle peppers; these can be found in the mexican foods section of most grocery stores. They usually come whole in a small can with adobo sauce. A little goes a long way with these things, they are HOT. What I do is buy a can, mince all the peppers up, put them back in the can (preserving as much of the sauce as you can), use what I need, and freeze them. These things freeze great and they're excellent for spicing up any dish. If you don't really want to freeze them, make some chipotle mayo with the leftovers.

When you're ready to eat your chili, stir in the peppers and serve with cheese, sour cream, or just crackers.

Bocaballs!

Meatballs - Meat + Boca Ground Crumbles= Bocaballs, which is what I made for dinner tonight! I found this recipe on boca.com and tweaked it to my liking after getting a rare craving for a meatball sub. I made Brian a meaty meatball sub, and just a bocaball sub for myself.

And yes, that is the beautiful sub I made for myself. To make this gorgeous bocaball sub, you will need:

2 cups frozen Boca Ground Crumbles
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 cup spaghetti sauce, divided
1 tsp oil
1 tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tbsp dried diced onion
Italian herbs and spices (I used parsley, sage, and oregano)
Mozzarella cheese
Hoagie buns
Butter

Microwave the crumbles for about 45 seconds, then add the breadcrumbs, egg, 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce, garlic, onion, and whatever Italian herbs you could come up with. Stir well, then roll the "meat" into balls. This recipe makes about 12, depending on the size of your balls (Ha ha! I'm so immature!).

Heat the oil in a skillet on medium heat and add the meat balls. Cover and cook about 5 minutes, turning the balls once halfway through. Remove the cover and lower the heat to medium-low. Let simmer another 4-5 minutes.

While those cook, butter up a few hoagie buns liberally on the inside of the bun. Get a griddle (or a skillet) nice and hot and toast the buns, inside down. Mine took about 5 minutes to get nice and brown on the bottom. Flip the buns, the topside should only take a couple minutes to get nice and crispy.

Fill your hoagie buns with the balls and sprinkle with cheese. I sauteed some peppers and onions, but mushrooms or whatever fresh veggies you have on stock would be just as good. Top with the remaining sauce and revel in the amazingness that is bocaballs.

Hot Butterbeer!

It's time for me to confess, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Huge. Ginormous. Colossal. I've read every book (the day it came out), seen every movie (the day it came out), and have quite a large Harry Potter collection of various trinkets and treasures. So, it's no surprise that I have midnight tickets to Harry Potter 7 Part One.

I thought that this year, in order to prep myself in the best way possible I would re-watch every movie and try my hand at a few recipes. Starting with this one, Hot Butterbeer!

You will need:

1 cup milk

1 tsp honey

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla butter and nut flavoring

whipped cream

butterscotch ice cream topping

Start by getting your self a small saucepan and heating the first four ingredients on medium heat until it starts to boil, making sure to stir it constantly.

Remove the pan from heat and set aside for about a minute. Add the vanilla butter and nut flavoring to your mug. Add the milk mixture and stir well. Top with whipped cream and drizzle the top with the butterscotch topping.

It may not look like a lot, but butterbeer is incredibly rich (and incredibly delicious!). Expect a cold butterbeer recipe later this week, as well as plenty more Potter-themed recipes.

Nox!

EDIT: Cold Butterbeer can easily be made by adding a couple teaspoons of the vanilla butter nut flavoring to a glass of cream soda  and topping with whipped cream and butterscotch. It's good, but not nearly as good as this hot version.

Coffee Steak

Yes, I know. It sounds strange. Which is exactly why I didn't tell Brian that I was making it. As far as he was concerned, it was just a regular steak.

So, what made me want to cook coffee steak? Well, apparently there's an excellent recipe in Seattle that specializes in this dish. So, after browsing some recipes, this is what I came up with.

You will need:

1 Steak
Coffee Grounds (I used Folgers Breakfast Blend)
Brown Sugar
Salt + Pepper
1 Tbsp Oil
1 Tbsp Butter

First, season your steak with salt and pepper. Then you'll want to lightly rub on some brown sugar, a good sprinkle is all you need. Next, rub on about twice as much coffee. Make sure you really rub it, or it won't stick to the steak.

While that sits, heat up the oil and butter in a pan until the butter is completely melted. Throw in the steak and cook till done. My steak was pretty thin, so it was only a few minutes on each side.

Brian said it was good, and he would definitely eat it again. Which means I will definitely be cooking again.

Pasta Again

There's a reason I named my blog "Natalie's Noodles," actually, there's two. One, my name is Natalie. Two, pasta makes a very frequent appearance at my house. I could eat pasta every night of the week, and some weeks, I do. I make pasta so much that I wouldn't blame Brian for getting sick of it but he hardly ever complains. How do I manage to feed my carnivorous boyfriend pasta multiple times a week? I add meat, and I change the sauce.

Pasta is a wonderful neutral flavored carb that can be paired with virtually any flavor (have you ever heard of Chili Spaghetti?!). Tonight, I decided to experiment with some chicken and came up with garlic lemon chicken and pasta.

To make this citrus-y, garlic-y wonder, you will need:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 box of pasta

1/2 cup flour

1 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp lemon zest

Juice from 1 lemon

Italian herbs and seasonings (Parsley, oregano, thyme, marjoram, etc)

2/3 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp oil

Put on a pot of salted water to boil. While you're waiting for that, put the flour, garlic, and Italian seasoning mix into a plastic bag or bowl. Shake it up, add the chicken, shake some more. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions. Pour the oil into a pan and add the chicken. Cook on medium high heat until the chicken is cooked through, flipping once. By this time, your pasta should be done. Drain and return to the pot. Cut your chicken into strips and add to your pasta.

Add the milk, butter, cheese, and lemon juice. Heat on low until the cheese melts down. Garnish with some fresh herbs or lemon peel.

I would have also served this with garlic bread, but I totally forgot that I had put some into the toaster oven and they burnt. Badly. Oops!

Taste the Rainbow!

One of the main appeals of vegetarian cooking is how colorful it all is. In my mind, the more colorful a dish is, the better it will taste. That's one of the reasons I was so attracted to this recipe for Rainbow Cake I found on Omnomicon. It just looked so pretty!

The really nice thing about cake is how versatile it is. Sometimes, I make this in a bundt pan. Sometimes, I make this in a regular 13x9 pan. Someday, I might make a round double-stacked rainbow cake. When I'm feeling really ambitious, I make rainbow cupcakes.

If you want the fat-free version of this recipes, visit Aleta over at Omnomicon and follow her recipe using sprite and pudding and cool whip.

To make this amazing, fantastic, psychedelic cake you only need two ingredients.

1 box of white cake mix (I use french vanilla)
1 box of Betty Crocker Gel Food Colors (I use neon, but they also come in Classic)

First, you'll need to make the cake mix according to the directions on the box. You could also make your own white cake mix, if you're feeling like a super chef.

Split the cake mix into four individual bowls, and add a squeeze of color into each bowl and mix well. There's no need to go overboard, these gel colors are a lot bolder than those liquid food colors we grew up with. In whatever pan you choose to use, layer the colors, being sure not to mix them. This is what it should look like:

Don't try to swirl the colors, or you'll get grey/brown batter. The cake will still taste pretty good, but it won't be nearly as cool.

Bake according to package directions and add your favorite icing.

Oh, and for the love of God,

DON'T FORGET TO GREASE YOUR PAN!

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten really excited about a new dessert recipe and forgotten to grease the pan. Ruins the whole presentation, trust me.

Something Fried

Despite what most people think, being a vegetarian does not automatically make you a health nut. In fact, just last night I got a craving for some of those fried veggies you get at county fairs. Knowing that I only have zucchini and peppers in the house (two vegetables Brian can't stand), I decided to make him a fried porkchop with green beans and potatoes while my fried veggie strips cooked. Here were the results:

The zucchini and the green peppers were particularly amazing with the bbq sauce I dipped them in. The red peppers were so flavorful I could have eaten them without the sauce. Heres how I made these beauties:

1 red bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

1 zucchini

2 eggs

1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs

1 tbsp Southwest Chipotle seasoning blend

All you have to do to make these delicious bites is cut your peppers into 2-inch strips and your zucchini into discs, dip in the egg, add to the seasoned breadcrumbs and bake at 450°F for 20-30 minutes on a cookie sheet. If you can make shake-n-bake, you can make these. I ate mine with bbq sauce, but they'd be equally good with ranch, marinara, or whatever you feel like dipping them in.

Also, since they were baked rather than fried, they were somewhat healthy. They'd be equally as good with practically any vegetable you happen to have in the fridge. I'm thinking broccoli, cauliflower, onion, or mushrooms.

The pork chop was only slightly more difficult, if only because they were incredibly thick and took a while to cook. To recreate this, you will need:

4 Porkchops (or however many you want to make)

2 eggs

1 cup plain breadcrumbs

1 1/2 tbsp Southwest Chipotle seasoning

3 tbsp Oil

Liberally cover a pan in oil and get it nice and hot while you prepare the pork. Prepare the same way as the veggies, first coat in the egg then seasoned bread crumbs, and add to the pan. Mine took about 8 minutes on each side, but if your chops are normal sized it should only take about 5. Be sure you have enough oil to swish around, or the crust will burn.

I served our meals with green beans and potatoes, seasoned with garlic and cayenne to compliment the southwest chipotle.

Introductions are in Order...

Hello, readers! My name is Natalie, as you could probably tell from the title, and I love to cook. However, I do run into some difficulties. Such as a picky boyfriend, an itty bitty budget, and virtually no time to actually get into the kitchen. Yet, somehow, I still manage to make some pretty awesome dinners when I actually get the chance.

For my pilot post, I've decided to post one of my favorite recipes ever: Pepper Penne.

Looks good, doesn't it? I make this recipe a lot with whatever happens to be lying around the house. Here's what I found in my fridge last night:

1 Zucchini
1 Green Bell Pepper
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Tomato
3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
Garlic Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Cilantro
A Handful of Montery Cheddar Cheese
A box of whatever noodles you have on stock (I like to use penne, but on this particular night I didn't have enough for a full dish so I added some butterfly pasta that I had leftover)

I stopped measuring herbs and spices a long time ago because most of the time it should be "to taste." I, for instance, love hot and spicy food. So I used a healthy dose of cayenne. Likewise, if you're a huge garlic fan, add more garlic. If you don't have garlic pepper, you could just as easily substitute black pepper and garlic powder.

Start by putting a pot of water on the stovetop to boil. While you wait for that, chop up all your vegetables and throw them in a pan with the olive oil. Heat over medium-high heat and throw the noodles in the boiling water. If you use a pasta with a shorter cooking time, you may want to wait until your vegetables have cooked a few minutes. The vegetables should have between 10-15 minutes on top of the stove so if you choose angel hair pasta, wait until the very end to add it.

After your vegetables have cooked about 5-7 minutes, add the lemon juice, garlic pepper, cayenne pepper, and cilantro. Be sure to stir the vegetables to ensure that everything gets coated. There should be a fair amount of liquid in the pan, simmer the vegetables in it until your noodles are done. Drain your noodles and add the vegetable mixture. Top with cheese (again, however much you want, just be sure not to overpower the vegetables) and enjoy!