Amaretto Apple Streusel Cupcakes

I saw these in the October 2009 issue of my Cooking Light magazine and just had to make them. DQ helped. We had a great time. Unfortunately, with that much amaretto in them, I had to limit the amount of batter she got to eat. :-) With the glaze below, I messed up though and did 4 tablespoons instead of teaspoons of milk, so my glaze is W-A-Y too runny! I'll do better next time!

Ingredients:
Cooking spray and 12 cupcake/muffin tin liners
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (2 oz) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons amaretto
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream (I used fat free)
1/4 cup 2% reduced-fat milk (I used skim)
3/4 cup finely chopped Gala apple
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Streusel:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, chilled
2 tablespoons sliced almonds (I omitted)

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
4 teaspoons 2% reduced-fat milk (I used skim)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Place muffin cup liners in 12 muffin cups; coat with cooking spray.
3. Spoon 1 1/2 cups flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.
   
4. Combine granulated sugar, cream cheese and 1/4 cup butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until well blended. Add amaretto, vanilla and egg to sugar mixture; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended.
5. Combine sour cream and 1/4 cup milk in a small bowl; stir with a whisk until well blended.
6. Combine apple and 1 tablespoon flour in a small bowl; toss well.
7. Add flour mixture and sour cream mixture alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Beat just until blended.
8. Fold in apple mixture with spoon.
9. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
10. To prepare the streusel, combine 2 tablespoons flour, brown sugar and ground cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with a pastry blender or fork, until mixture resembles coarse meal; stir in almonds (I omitted).
11. Sprinkle streusel evenly over cupcakes.
12. Bake at 350 for 27 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
13. Cool in pan for 15 minutes on wire rack and remove the cupcakes from the pan.
14. To prepare glaze, combine powdered sugar and 4 teaspoons milk in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.
15. Drizzle glaze over cupcakes.

Right out of the oven, next time I would do more streusel:

With the glaze below, I messed up though and did 4 tablespoons instead of teaspoons of milk, so my glaze is W-A-Y too runny! I'll do better next time!

Bugs

Now, I don't love bugs. In fact, I don't like them very much at all. The other day (actually it was Monday, July 27 (the day DQ got her tonsils out) that we noticed this guy sitting on the deck right outside the door. DQ thought PM would like to see him, so we took a picture. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself...

Chocolate Molten Cakes

Besides the Best Chocolate Sheet Cake from Pioneer Woman, there is one other dessert the kids ask for by name. That is, the Molten Chocolate Cakes. On Friday night, we were going to a friends house for dinner and they requested the Chocolate sheet cake, so I obliged and made it. They kept the cake, my kids were mortified! So, last night, the kids wanted me to make it again. But, it's just so big that I suggested the Molten Chocolate Cakes instead. The nice thing is about these is that there are not any leftovers. It makes four and that's it! While the original recipe (linked above) suggests making your own whipped cream to serve with the cakes, we prefer vanilla ice cream (personally, I prefer French Vanilla).

DQ kept trying to peek at the cakes as they cooked:


Molten Chocolate Cakes
4 pieces (1 oz each) Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate
1/2 cup Butter
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 whole Eggs
2 whole Egg Yolks
6 Tablespoons Flour
Vanilla Ice Cream

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Spray 4 custard cups with Pam and place on cookie sheet
3. Microwave chocolate and butter in a large bowl on high for about 1 minute, or until butter is melted
4. Remove from microwave and whisk until chocolate is also melted
5. Stir in powdered sugar until well blended and most of lumps are gone
6. Whisk in eggs and egg yolks
7. Stir in flour
8. Divide between the 4 sprayed cups
9. Bake for 13-14 minutes, or until sides are tender and center is soft (here they are baking)
   
   
10. Let stand 1 minute
11. Invert cakes on dishes and serve with vanilla ice cream

Ah... Heaven on a plate:

So, there you have it. Nice and easy. The hardest part is the inverting onto plates. I put a plate on top of a custard cup, grab the plate and cup with my oven mits with the rubber on them and invert at one time. It works pretty darn good.

Inspiration

First, I want to state that I have nothing against people who truly have a handicap. If you are, or someone you know is, handicapped and need alternative modes of transportation, then, by all means, you or they should be able to use it.

That all said, I now know where the inspiration for the movie Wall-E came from. If you have seen the movie, you will recall that the people on the ship became so lazy that they did nothing for themselves. In fact, they didn't even walk, they simply reclined on motorized vehicles that did everything for them. They pushed buttons and sucked their meals through straws.

I believe they got the inspiration for all these people from Disney World. I say that because while we were there, it seemed that every other person was riding a motorized scooter. Most of these people did not need to be riding in these scooters, in fact, the walking probably would have been very good for them. In fact, when they would get on a bus, they would sit on the scooter until the bus got there. When the driver got off to help the person get on the bus, the person would either stand and let the driver put the scooter on the bus or they would drive it on themselves and then stand. Eight times out of ten, the person had no problems walking onto the bus or to a seat. When they got off, it was the same thing.

At the parks, you would rent a scooter, or a wheelchair, just like you could a scooter. At Hollywood Studios, I took this picture:

I couldn't believe my eyes! After I saw this, I realized why I could barely walk down one of the streets of the park, as the scooters were stretched across 5 wide blocking the path. Sometimes, you would see several together and riding on the laps of some of the drivers were children. Not little children either, but tweens who could walk perfectly fine.

After several rides, we finally realized why so many people rented the scooters and wheelchairs. It's like having your very own Fast Pass. The driver and their family could drive to the front of the line to a special handicapped entrance and get right on the ride.

Now, as I said earlier, if someone truly needs a wheelchair or scooter, then, by all means, let them use it. But, don't encourage people to be lazier than they already are by renting the scooters and wheelchairs on site to anyone willing to pay the money. Maybe to rent one you need a handicapped tag from your car to prove you need it? Who knows. I just know that by the end of the trip, we were referring to the scooters, with riders, as Wall-E.

Quiche

I like Quiche. I've made a healthy version for a few years now. But, this week, I had to make one for the teachers at the kids school. About the same time I was asked to do this, I saw a recipe on Pioneer Woman's site. So, what goes in looking like this:Comes out looking like this:
Along the way, I fried the peppered bacon:
Sliced the onion very thinly:
Quartered the artichoke hearts:
After the bacon was removed from the pan, the grease poured off, but the good stuff left in there, I added a stick of butter...
I added the onions and cooked them for a few minutes, don't they look yummy?
Then, I added the mushrooms. I didn't get good shots of that, as I was too busy looking at this:
A few pieces may have become missing... But, that's ok. Where were we... Oh yes, then I added the artichoke hearts:
Back to the bacon...
Here's where things changed a bit from the original recipe. Since I was making this for a large group of people, I wanted them to all be able to easily get a piece. Baking in a pie dish, the pieces just would have been difficult. I figured, we could get more pieces from a 13 x 9 pan. So, I bought the {gasp} Pillsbury pie crusts and arranged them in the greased 13 x 9 pan.
I stored all of the pre-made parts (crumbled bacon, cooked onions, mushroom, artichoke hearts, shredded swiss cheese, lined 13 x 9 pan) in the refrigerator overnight. This morning, I mixed the eggs and heavy cream, added the swiss cheese and then other ingredients. In the oven it went, and came out looking absolutely lovely!
But, was it as good as it looked you might ask??? The answer is YES! I cut it and removed a small piece to bring to work and try. So, I took it to the school missing one piece. They didn't mind though, and I hope they liked it!

Here's a link to the recipe. I only modified the crust and type of pan used. I baked mine for 40 minutes, lightly covered with foil and then another 15 uncovered. DQ smelled it and came down saying something smelled good and she was S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G! Now you know whey we call her Drama Queen!

Key Lime Bars

My bosses birthday is today and one of his favorite things is Key Lime. So, last night, I whipped these up. I had found a recipe to use here, and decided to tweak it a little bit...

Crust
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 TBSP salted butter
1/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 1/2 limes

Filling
2 egg yolks
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup freshly squeezed key lime juice

1. Heat oven to 350F
2. Grease 8" square glass baking dish with Pam, line it with parchment paper that hangs over the edge of the pan by a little bit
3. Melt butter in glass bowl
4. Add sugar to butter, mix
5. Add lime zest to sugar/butter mixture and stir well
6. Add graham cracker crumbs and mix thoroughly (a fork works best at this stage)
7. Press into the prepared pan, pressing a little bit up the sides. About an inch or so
8. Bake for 10 minutes and allow to cool until you can no longer feel the heat coming off the crust
9. In another glass bowl, using an electric mixer, combine egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk until well mixed
10. Add lime juice and only use electric mixer briefly, finish stirring by hand, as you don't want air bubbles in the mixture. It will begin to thicken slightly
11. Pour filling into the crust and make sure the filling reaches the edges
12. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until set
13. Cool to room temperature and then cover and refrigerate overnight
14. Remove the bars from the pan using the parchment paper and cut into 16 squares. Use a very sharp, large knife for smoothest and quickest cutting. Also, wipe the knife between cuts.

Italian Sausage and Pasta Bow Ties

I would say this recipe below could use a little tweaking. It seemed to me like it was missing something. I think maybe some additional salt/oregano/basil/pepper would do it. BD and PM liked it as is. DQ gave it a thumbs down, but she was tired last night.

Ingredients
3 1/2 cups farfalle (bow-tie pasta), uncooked
4 Italian sausage links (1 lb.), cut into 12-inch-thick slices (I had 5 sausage links for 1.24 lbs)
2 green, red or yellow peppers, cut into chunks (we used one green and one yellow)
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Directions

1. Cook pasta as directed on package
2. Meanwhile, cook sausage and peppers in large skillet on medium-high heat 15 min., turning sausage for even browning. Add sauce; cover. Cook on medium heat 10 min. or until heated through.
3. Drain pasta; mix with sausage and peppers in skillet. Sprinkle with cheese