Pep, Pep, Pepperoni!

Our Italian Pasta Dinner Night is this weekend, a little later than previous years.  It's a night filled with family, good friends, food and drink.  My family and I prepare a full course Italian meal, all made from scratch, from the appetizers to dessert and including the limoncello!  It's a lot of work, but with everyone pitching in it's a lot of fun too, and at the end of the day well worth it.

One of the appetizers that I added this year to my antipasto platters is pepperoni chips.  These little crunchy pieces of spicy meat are delicious.  They are so easy to make and eat, because they are finger food, but watch out these are addictive as I found out! I couldn't stop eating them as I was making them, not really a breakfast item I might add, but hey I had to taste test them, right!

I made about 2 lbs of pepperoni chips because I am feeding a crowd.  I purchased 2 big 1 1/2 lb bags of sliced pepperoni at BJ's and didn't quite use the whole second pack.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a medium size bowl with foil and set aside. Cover your baking sheets with foil to avoid some of the mess and catch the grease that drains out of the pepperoni. Put a cooling rack on top of the foil lined baking sheets.  Line the pepperoni slices on the cooling rack but don't crowd them. I fit 5 slices across starting at the short end. 

Bake for 7-8 minutes, depending on your oven, until crispy.  

Remove from oven, slide off of cooling rack and drain on paper towels.  Now, if you work fast on getting them off the rack and onto the paper towels while they are still hot and a little soft, you can blot them on top with a layer of paper towels by pressing just very gently to absorb the grease but be careful not to break the chips. The chips will get crispier as they cool.

This is what that medium size bowl lined with foil is for.  Drain the fat off the baking sheets in between each batch of chips so it doesn't burn or smoke in your oven.  Easy peasy on the cleanup, just let it coagulate, fold it up and toss it in the trash can.

Enjoy your pepperoni chips for snacking, in salads, or on an appetizer tray mixed with cheeses, roasted peppers and olives.  Store the chips in a tightly sealed container, will keep for a few days at room temperature.

Hail To The Kale Chips!

I planted a sizable garden this year and my kale plants are producing like crazy.  I have so much of it, we will probably get tired of eating it.  I had to do something different with it besides sauteing or using it in salad, so I made some kale chips along with some beet green chips.  I have to say, the chips aren't too bad.  My son, the vegan, eats them all the time, but they are very expensive to buy, and the bags usually do not have much in them. So now I will be making him these wonderful healthy chips for a snack, and I will be partaking in them too!

Completely wash the kale, I put the leaves in a clean sink, filled it up with water and let them sit overnight.  Took them out of the sink, stripped the leaves off the ribs, and tore the leaves into pieces.

 I dried them on a clean dish towel then put them in a salad spinner to remove the excess water.

 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  I spread  the leaves out on baking sheets, drizzled with just a little olive oil and kosher salt.

 Bake just until crispy, about 6 minutes (depending on your oven),  and store in a parchement lined container.  I also used beet greens, and baked them the same way.

 Great healthy alternative to potato chips.  Season however you like and enjoy!

Chocolate Dessert Cake

HAPPY   MOTHER'S   DAY!

I had a hankering for something chocolate and didn't have anything homemade in the house.  I am not big on store bought bakery items unless I am in a hurry.  I had an old recipe for a chocolate snack cake but wanted to dress it up and give it a punch.  I added strong coffee to the batter instead of water, you can certainly use water,  I like the coffee because it brings out the richness of the chocolate.  I doubled the recipe for the snack cake and added some toppings to make it richer and sweeter.  This is how I made it, recipe below. 

A big bowl and some of the ingredients.  You do not need a mixer for this, a whisk and a spatula will do the job.

Start pouring the measured ingredients into the bowl and whisk them together.

 

Get all the lumps out and it should look like the bowl on the right.

Then pour in the liquid measurements and it will foam a little, that's the vinegar and the baking soda reacting.  Spray your pan with Baker's Joy this stuff is great for baking and no mess, if you don't have that use butter and flour.

 I used walnuts and mini chocolate chips dusted with some sugar to make them sweet and crunchy.

 Baked and ready to be served.  Some like it plain.......

 I like mine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce or syrup, it's so good!  The cake is moist, crunchy, chocolaty and sweet, it's a party in a pan and is easy to make, bake and take.  This recipe is keeper!

Chocolate Dessert Cake

Ingredients for the cake

Bakers Joy or 1 tablespoon of vegan butter and flour for dusting the pan

2 1/4 cups of unbleached four

1 1/2 cups of granulated cane sugar

1/3 cup of Hershey's unsweetened baking cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 cups of strong coffee, cooled (can replace coffee with water if you like)

1/2 cup canola oil

4 1/2 teaspoons of white vinegar

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Ingredients for the crunchy topping

1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans

1 cup Enjoy Life mini vegan chocolate chips

1/3 cup of cane sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with Baker's Joy or butter and flour set aside.  In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk together until all the lumps are gone.  With a a spatula, stir in the coffee, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Scrape bowl from the bottom up to make sure everything is combined.  Pour the batter into the baking dish.  Mix together the crunchy topping ingredients and sprinkle it over the top of the cake batter, making sure to cover the whole cake.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a cake tester inserted, comes out clean.  Cool the cake for about 1/2 hour. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate fudge sauce or Ben and Jerry's Vegan Ice Cream and Hershey's chocolate syrup. Can also be served cold.  Makes 12 - 14 servings.  

Ye Olde Pub Food

My youngest went off to college last year and spent her first semester in London.  She knew no one on the trip when she left, but came back with a lot of new friends.  What an opportunity for such a young person who has never been away from home.  She had a blast.  I worried , A LOT, everyday, was she eating, did she have enough money, was she safe.  But, thanks to modern technology we used Skype, Kik, Email and Facebook. I sent her packing with some home recipes as well as care packages, that were very expensive to send I might add, especially when you are sending 6 cans of cranberry sauce for a crowd for Thanksgiving dinner (they do not have it over there).  On some nights, her and her friends did visit the pubs to eat and drink.  At the age of 18 these young people, right out of high school, can drink over there! I was a little shocked by that, my baby drinking!  She also enjoyed the food for the most part and her favorite was the Fish and Chips. Last week we mimicked the British version of Fish and Chips and she said they were awesome.  This is how we made them.

This box of mix, found in the baking aisle of the grocery store and a can of beer. The package calls for water,we substituted beer.  Mix together and dip and slather the fish fillets in it, fry in canola oil until golden brown and drain on paper towels on a baking rack. 

 We used Pollack. But you could also use, Cod or Haddock.  A good white thick fish is better, doesn't fall apart so easy.  We used whole white potatoes - sliced, fried in canola oil then sprinkled with sea salt.  I also got her the Malt Vinegar, because you can't eat Fish & Chips with out it, so she says!