Burgundy Mushrooms

For Christmas my momma got me this awesome cookbook, the Pioneer Woman Cooks. It's yummy stuff, y'all. Delicious home cooked goodness. Recently we made the Burgundy Mushroom recipe. It was actually a long while in the making. I tried to make it one evening a couple weeks ago and upon closer inspection of the recipe I realized it takes NINE HOURS to cook. NINE! So you've got to start this baby early. I started ours at like 9am. And it made our apartment smell divine all day.

Now here's a bunch of shots of mushrooms:

Crazy how dark they get, huh? Aside from the length of time it takes to cook, it's a super easy recipe. You just throw it all together and let it do it's thing. And it's pretty dang good. We served it over egg noodles, the sauce is super rich and delicious. My only complaint was the mushrooms were pretty salty and I didn't even add "salt to taste" at the end. I blame it on the bouillon cubes, next time I'll cut that number in half. Also I had to improvise a bit; it calls for a LITER of red wine and I only had a 750mL bottle, so I made up the rest with... beer. Because that's how I roll. Beer in everything.

So if you've got 4 pounds of mushrooms, a big old bottle of red wine, and nine hours to spare, I highly recommend this recipe! Mushroom it up, y'all!

52 weeks of baking: 1, 2, and 3

A few of the blogs I follow are doing a treat or a cake a week, for the entirety of 2013. I started doing this as well on accident (I like dessert okay?), but I really like the idea so I'm continuing with it. Not necessarily always "baked" items, there are some yummy no bake pies and cookies out there, but just yummy things in general. Baking just tends to be my bread and butter. Pun slightly intended.

The first three things were baked on a whim before I decided to embark on this year of yummy-ness. First I made chocolate banana bread (because we had brown bananas hanging on our counter, this is the recipe I always use, I just add chocolate chips), then I made Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies (Ahem, it was a Christmas present. And before I got snotty and baked everything from scratch I swore by that little red box. Turns out my scratch brownies are better!), and this week (today) I made these Mini Morsel Shortbread Squares:

These things, y'all. SO easy. Like ridiculously easy. Just a few ingredients, one bowl, and one pan (and you don't even grease it). And they are GOOD. Eat them warm. And try to just eat one, betcha can't. I stumbled across the recipe on accident. I was planning on making chocolate chip cookies when I noticed I got mini-chocolate chips instead of regular, then I spied this recipe on the back of the bag-o-mini-chips and decided to try it. It was meant to be. Way to go Nestle, it's a winner.

I'm excited to keep up with this little weekly baking challenge. Documenting it all will be fun and now that I am aware of what I'm doing I can plan ahead and get creative! Usually when I bake something it's just thrown together out of whatever I have laying around because I'm craving dessert. This will obviously still make up the majority of the weeks, but I'll try to pull off some fancier things too. Honestly, it sounds pretty easy because well, I love to bake and eat yummy things do it a lot already. But 52 baked things is a lot. And I'm going to try not to do repeats. I welcome any recipes you recommend!

Wish me luck and happy baking! Hopefully I don't gain 200 pounds by the end of the year.

Tomato Pie

It's been a long while since I've posted any food up on this blog. I blame it on my zero time/energy to cook. And laziness. And Home Slice pizza.

A couple weeks or so ago, before my life got extra cray, we made tomato pie! I'd heard rumors of it on the internet and then my step mom made one not too long ago and it looked amazing. So we made it happen. It's super easy.

I used this recipe, but altered a bit. Yes, that is half a cup of mayonnaise on the ingredients list, I don't play around. And anything with fresh basil is usually a winner. That basil plant on our window sill was the best investment ever. I left out the onion (because I'm not a fan) and added squash, zucchini, and mushrooms. So I guess it was less of a tomato pie than a veggie pie. Variety is the spice of life. I ended up cutting up WAY too many veggies, I probably could have made two pies. But it was okay, we threw them in a ziploc baggie and had them a couple nights later with cheese sauce, bonus! Cooking/smothering the healthiness out of vegetables is my specialty.

Anyway, this pie nonsense was good. It was hella rich, but yummy. It would be perfect for winter time, which is a bummer since tomatoes are summer veggies. But it was good and if you aren't scared off by the mayo, I suggest you try it. And you could totally leave out the mayo anyway. It's a great one dish meal that you can throw in the oven, forget about, remember, and then eat.

Go buy some fresh 'maters and try it y'all!