Have you updated your Google Reader & links? Please do, so you don’t miss out on things like:

Spiced Apple Cider muffins – SOOO good

Pea & leek risotto w/ basil

and Broiled portobello sushi with soy glaze for Tyler Florence Fridays

Find all these, plus more to come, at the new blog!

Hey everyone!

I’ve moved my blog over to blackcatkitchen.wordpress.com – makes it SO much easier when I’m leaving comments and whatnot. Now people don’t think I’m just some crazy foodie. (OK, maybe they do … )

Please update your Google Readers and feeds … I’ll start posting there soon! And if you want me to add your site to my blogroll, let me know – I’ll be posting them on a separate page on the new site.

Thanks for following!

Jess

Scott and I were going to the neighbor’s house to watch the Bears-Packers game last weekend and I wanted to make a dessert. I feel bad going to someone’s house without dessert – don’t ask me why, I really don’t know. So, I whipped up these Amaretto Chocolate brownies from Tyler Florence. While I didn’t really notice a strong amaretto flavor, I certainly liked how fudgy these brownies were. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Tyler Florence amaretto brownies

I didn’t put nuts in these because I wasn’t sure everyone else would like nuts, and well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any. But, I bet they would be very tasty with them! Check out what everyone else made for Tyler Florence Fridays!

Tyler Florence amaretto brownies

Amaretto brownies
from Tyler Florence

2 sticks unsalted butter, plus more for pan
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons amaretto liqueur
1 1/2 cups walnuts
Powdered sugar, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 9 by 9 square baking pan with parchment paper, making sure paper hangs over the edges. Grease paper with butter so the brownies don’t stick. Melt butter and chocolate over a double-boiler and stir gently until smooth and shiny. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl and set aside. Whisk together eggs, sugar and amaretto in a mixing bowl until combined. Pour in chocolate mixture and continue to whisk until combined. Gradually add flour mixture, then add walnuts and incorporate with a wooden spoon. Transfer batter to baking pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the pan. When done, invert onto a cutting board, remove paper and cut into squares. Garnish with powdered sugar and serve.

The week totally got away from me and I was scrambling to figure out what to make for Tyler Florence Fridays. When I saw this recipe for grilled peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, I figured it would be the perfect easy recipe.

Oh and it was! You’ve had peanut butter & jelly, you’ve had it on toast. Grilled is a whole ‘nother story. The peanut butter & jelly get warm and gooey … so delicious. With fall closing in, this is a great way to make an old standby new again.

Grilled PB&J

Grilled PB&J
From Tyler Florence

Really, you don’t need a recipe … just make a PB&J like you normally would, spread the outside with butter and grill in a panini or like you would a grilled cheese. Super easy and delicious.  Just be careful, the jelly can be HOT.

Another recipe I saw on Beantown Baker – could it get any better than adorable, single serving cinnamon buns?? Nikki and I made these as well when she was over for a baking date.

These are delicious. I was a little worried about making something with yeast. But, even after leaving the dough to rise for an extra hour, things turned out just fine. I won’t be so afraid to make cinnamon rolls again. Mine don’t look nearly as perfect as Jen’s, but that didn’t affect the deliciousness!

cinnamon roll cupcakes

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes
from La Fuji Mama via Beantown Baker

2 1/4 tsp. or 1 packet (1/4 oz./7 g) dry active yeast
1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 cup warm milk (approximately 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour

1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, softened

Dissolve the yeast and 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar in the warm milk in a large bowl and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy.

Mix in the eggs, butter, salt, and other 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Add flour and mix until well blended and the dough forms a ball. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about one hour).

After the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners (I like to double them up because these cinnamon rolls are so moist), and lightly spray over the top of them with cooking spray.

Roll dough into a 12×22 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 24 rolls (I use my pastry cutter – thanks Dad!).

Place each roll in a cupcake liner. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 10-12 minutes. Let rolls cool completely before frosting.

cinnamon roll cupcakes

Cream Cheese Frosting
From Beantown Baker

4 oz cream cheese at room temp
1/2 stick butter at room temp
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
powdered sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy.

Add vanilla extract.

Slowly add powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached.

Banana was the ingredient of choice for September’s Cupcake Hero challenge … and I LOVE bananas! There were so many combinations to choose from, I couldn’t decide. So I enlisted hubby’s help. He suggested going with a banana cupcake with marshmallow filling and peanut butter frosting. (Click on the image below to see the Cupcake Hero Flickr site.)

I chose Martha Stewart’s banana cupcake (amazing), classic jar of marshmallow fluff (delicious even if it’s chock-full of unhealthy things), and peanut butter frosting from Beantown Baker (who obviously has some seriously yummy cupcake recipes if you haven’t noticed.)

banana cupcakes with marshmallow fluff and peanut butter frosting

While I loved all of these elements separately, together it was too much. Delicious, but too much! I’ll definitely be making these again … just not together probably.

Banana cupcakes
From Martha Stewart

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas), plus 1 whole banana, for garnish (optional)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make a well in center of flour mixture. In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla. Stir to incorporate flour mixture (do not overmix). Dividing evenly, spoon batter into muffin cups.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cupcake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely on a wire rack.

banana cupcakes with marshmallow filling and peanut butter frosting

Kathleen’s Peanut Butter Icing – via Beantown Baker

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Place the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

Check out Beantown Baker’s great post on how to assemble filled cupcakes.

All together now

Purple cabbage – It’s like a bad Halloween joke around here. I’m blaming the cabbage for this dish being sub-par. I mean, really, what other way can you screw up such a basic dish than by making it purple & blue? Ugh, so disappointing.

Hubby picked this out for this week’s submission for Tyler Florence Fridays. We both think it was missing something, but can’t decide what. It was just kinda … blah. On the up side, it was super easy to prepare and it came together really fast. I’d like to try this again, but next time, with napa cabbage instead of purple. Though the purple cabbage did give it quite the beautiful blue hue. I felt like I was cooking with Dr. Seuss.

purple fried rice

Shrimp and Egg Fried rice with PURPLE cabbage
from Tyler Florence, Food Network

The wonderful and fabulous host of The Daily Balance has put together a blogger bake sale to raise money for her Race for the Cure.

Among the items up for sale are some sugar cookies baked by yours truly These are from our wedding reception, but I’m using the same recipe. The ones I”m baking will be hearts w/ pink frosting.

Some of the other goodies include:

chocolate zucchini cupcakes, macaroons, coconut chocolate chip cookies, blondies, chocolate chip cookies and a surprise batch!

Bidding starts at $5. Visit The Daily Balance to see how to bid.

Now, WHY should you bid? Because 100% of proceeds go to the Race for the Cure for breast cancer research. (Plus you get some yummy baked goods – a win-win if you ask me)

A few breast cancer statistics (as posted on The Daily Balance):

• Approximately 182,800 new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in 2000.
• Approximately 42,200deaths occured in women from breast cancer in 2000.
• One in eight women or 12.6% of all women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.
• Breast cancer risk increases with age and every woman is at risk.
• Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer.

Want to help but don’t want to do damage to your diet? Click here to donate to the Daily Balance’s personal fundraising site for The Race for the Cure, or donate here to the American Cancer Society. I’ll be walking in a Making Strides against Breast Cancer walk on Oct. 10.

Even if you think you don’t know someone affected by breast cancer – you do. Breast cancer shouldn’t be a stigma or something you hide deep inside.It should be talked about amongst all women in an effort to raise awareness. I think the statistic is one in 10 women will get breast cancer. One in 5 if they have a mutated gene. In my family, we’ve got SIX cases on ONE side of the family! This makes me pretty confident that there are several variations of a mutated gene out there and the more research we support, the faster we can find other mutations and help even more people.

When I saw these cupcakes on the fabulous blog, Beantown Baker, I knew they were going to be made very soon. I was lucky enough that my friend, Nikki, wanted to come over and bake cupcakes and picked these!

oh.my.gawd. SO good. The chocolate cupcake is to-die-for. Then add some caramel and buttercream frosting and you’ve got a delicious, messy, perfectly beautiful sugar bomb.

chocolate cupcake with caramel filling

These bad boys put me on a cupcake roll. I’m seriously obsessed with cupcakes right now. But, I wish I could figure out how to only make about 6 – just enough for a taste. Course, my co-workers will probably oppose that, since most baked goods end up there. One told me these ones, with their ooey, gooey goodness, should have come with a warning.

These do take a bit of planning to prepare. Make the caramel the night before, since it takes about 3 hours of simmering to get a yummy caramel sauce.

ooey, gooey goodness

Dark chocolate cupcakes
From Fields of Cake and Other Good stuff

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup cooled, strong coffee
1 cup hazelnut creamer (the liquid stuff)
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sugars, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, coffee, creamer and oil. Stir just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack.

Caramel filling:
also from Fields of Cake and Other Stuff

1 can Sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter

In large stock pot, submerse your can milk in water by at least 2 inches. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and simmer for 3-5 hours. Be sure to check the pot about ever 20 minutes to check water level. You want the can to be completely covered the entire time. Add more water if you need to. Carefully remove the can from the water and allow to cool overnight. Then mix with butter to make silky smooth caramel sauce.

Buttercream frosting:
from Wilton

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 tbsp. milk

In mixing bowl, cream butter and shortening. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat on high speed until fluffy.

my first attempt at piping .. not too bad huh?

Yeah, I know, sounds gross right?

Right.

But trust me on this one, OK? If you like cabbage rolls, you’ll like this. Just think of it as a deconstructed cabbage roll. When I told my mom about this, she asked me to send her the recipe because she loves cabbage rolls, but hates the actual rolling part. (Hi mom! ::waving::)

I used red/purple cabbage because that’s what we had from our CSA. Cooking with different colors is fun – you never know what you’re gonna get! Cabbage is a really great food for you – it’s extremely high in Vitamins C and K and has been touted as a cancer-fighter. Red cabbage is even better for you – and you can use it just as you would white! It has six to eight times as much Vitamin C as white cabbage. WHFoods says it’s a great food for combating Alzheimer’s. Another stat I found on WHFoods – “Much research has focused on the beneficial phytonutrients in cabbage, particularly its indole-3-carbinole (I3C), sulforaphane, and indoles. These two compounds help activate and stabilize the body’s antioxidant and detoxification mechanisms that dismantle and eliminate cancer-producing substances. I3C has been shown to improve estrogen detoxification and to reduce the incidence of breast cancer.” So eat up, Mom!

OK, ready for the funky colors?

cabbage casserole

Cabbage casserole
from Recipezaar.com
Serves about 12
Printable recipe

1.5 lbs ground pork or beef
1 med. onion, chopped
dash of garlic
dash of oregano
32 ounces spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup rice
dash of basil
1 head cabbage, shredded
4 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions:

Boil cabbage for 3 minutes, then drain thoroughly.
Brown onion and pork  with spices, then drain.
Place 1/2 cabbage in 9×13 casserole pan. Top with 1/2 meat mixture, then 1/2 spaghetti sauce and 1/2 rice. Repeat.
Top with cheese. Cover and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Remove cover and make sure cheese is melted.

Wanna see that funky color again?

purple food is fun!

Now, a few notes: I did half this recipe and it worked great. I used 1 lb. ground pork for the 1/2 recipe. Also, I only had a cup of spaghetti sauce, so I added about a half-cup of water to it and it worked out great. I’d suggest adding the spices to either the meat or the spaghetti sauce.

This recipe, per recipezaar, has about 300 calories per serving. Not too shabby for something considered a comfort food in my family.