Banana Chocolate Chip Monkey Bread

It’s socially distanced outdoor bbq day here at the crooked cabin and I’ve decided to finally make the banana chocolate chip monkey bread which is a terrible dessert to make seeing as it’s traditionally picked at with your hands. Inspiration strikes and it cannot be ignored!

I saw this Tasty video pop up on facebook a very long time ago and kept it saved and bookmarked for the day I felt motivated enough to make it and today was the day. I love monkey bread and I feel like it’s so fun to pick at something with your friends like this and enjoy something sweet and gooey but now with serving forks and in shifts. It’s a little less magical but that’s okay.

Monkey bread is super easy but always fun and I enjoyed the addition of chocolate chips and banana in the building process. This tasty video/recipe is super easy to follow and I think it came out great. Honestly it could’ve used a little more bake time for the middle pieces but I’ve been noticing this oven needs a little more time so that’s just a nuance I have to keep taking into account when I bake here.

I wish we had more people to enjoy it and I feel like in the right crowd it would do super well. Next time I think I’d make them into cupcake sizes just so they’re easier for people to enjoy.

Mushroom Carbonara

Not gonna lie, today was a rough day. I woke up not feeling too great but had the day off work which made it feel a little daunting during social distancing. Everyone else in the house got up to work or video chat with friends but I didn’t have major plans today and felt drained before I even opened my eyes. It’s a sunny day but it’s still clocking on under 50 degrees so it’s a little tough to go out for a hike. Instead, I decided to cook and get my spirits up so I checked out my list of recipes I want to try and figured out I had just about everything I needed to make Molly Baz’s Mushroom Carbonara. Of course, I’ve only seen the Bon Appetit video but I was super excited to see that it’s actually a Basically recipe which made it even more motivating to make today. High success rate for delicious food; it was a task for the morning.

So I started off browning the mushrooms, cooking the pasta, and cooked off the onions and garlic. (I didn’t have shallots so onions would do today.) The mushrooms went well it started to smell super great. I made the egg/parm sauce and combined everything together. All in all, it was a super easy dish to make with a simple amount of ingredients. I’m not good at keeping herbs on hand because I always end up wasting them when they wilt in the fridge. I need to get a little herb kitchen garden going so I can just pick what I need when I’m cooking.

Caleb came back in for lunch right as I was finishing up and got the first taste. I was pretty happy with the consistency of the eggs and the cheese was melting as I scooped the pasta into my bowl. He okayed the pasta and get more excited about the flavor as he had a bite with mushroom and got everything together. I figured I could’ve cooked the mushroom down a little more because some pieces weren’t cooked down all the way but it wasn’t a bad doneness the way it was. I”m happy with this and the ease of it and the return from it was great. Not a perfect day but this helped.

Tie-Dye Cookies

I’ve been wanting to make these cookies for some time now but haven’t felt super motivated to do it. I’m trying to cut down on the number of baked goods we have in the house because if there are too much they don’t get eaten and I don’t want so much food to go to waste. I also don’t want to have too many sweets laying around that make us feel like we need to eat them before they go bad. Healthier fruits are the way go to for snacking so I don’t want to make too much temptation. Still, I was feeling motivated on Sunday and decided to make Rick Martinez’s Tie-Dye Butter Cookies.

Rick is super cute in his video and like most people, I grew up liking tie-dye. My mom is a huge fan and gets excited when she sees tie-dye things that are super colorful. What a better way to spend Mother’s Day. I didn’t end up going home but it was really nice to think about her while I was making them and I'm excited to show her photos of it then next time I see her.

The recipe for the tie-dye cookies are super simple and I liked how quickly the dough came together. I still haven’t gotten cookie cutters so I ended up using an egg mold to cut the cookies our and that worked out fine. They’re a little large but they didn’t spread in the oven and ended up being the perfect thickness and they just melt in your mouth.

The glaze was also super simple and the recipe says to split it and make two colors but Ii actually did 1 batch of just white and i split the other half into red and then blue. Honestly, I was a little worried they would be kind of patriotic accidentally but figured if they mixed together they would be a really nice purple which did happen.

I tried to scoop a spoonful of white glaze onto all the cookies then drizzles spoonfuls of the red and blue on top and kind of swirled them around just like in those paint pour videos that were so popular not that long ago. I should’ve done them in batches because the glaze hardened a little on the last few before I could get to them and swirl them. It was messy but I had a really nice time with it. I do love the unexpected nature of tie-dye and paint pours and I love the way these cookies came out.

These remind me of the hard glazed cookies from the grocery store that I loved so much growing up that I have such a hard time finding now. Everyone uses frosting now that is too much and I’m happier with a glazed icing like this. These are going on my baking list and I’m going to be making them a lot more for gatherings in the future. A huge party pleaser for sure.

Empanadas

I love empanadas. This isn’t something we ever ate growing up but when I went to college I started exploring Rochester and one of the hidden gems in Rochester’s public market is Juan and Maria’s Empanada Stop. They have the most amazing empanadas that are amazing as you walk through the bustling farmers market. There’s always a line for these slightly oily pockets but they’re so fast its always a good time. I’ve gone to the market just for these and it’s always worth it.

Cut to recently, watching Bon Appetit, where Gabby makes empanadas and like before, she makes them look easy. I checked out her recipe on their website and it was actually pretty easy with a simple dough. I switched out the filling for some ground beef and onions that I had in the freezer and it was simple. Caleb isn’t a fan of beef so we just made him some chicken empanadas and it worked out well. I like recipes like this that allow for adjustments easily. While the dough came together well it was a little tricky to roll out eventually. I packed and fried these guys but honestly, I’m not a fan of the dough and the butteriness of it takes me out. I had fun making them but I think this is something I need to leave to Juan and Maria.

Tortilla de Papas

I had the day off of work today and decided today was the day to try my hand at an elaborate breakfast of Tortilla de Paps. Gabby from the Bon Appetit test kitchen makes this and I’ve never heard of it before but I’m always up for a new cooking technique and since I had time today I wanted to give it a shot. Caleb and I were going to make this on Sunday but it was the weekend and neither of us felt particularly inspired to wake up and cook something that took a while so we skipped it. But now we have a 4lb bag of potatoes and need to get moving on that so I had some more drive today.

Gabby somehow makes things feel so doable and easy so I walked into this with some skepticism but confidence. Boy was I wrong. Tortilla de Papas is a tricky dish for sure with cook times all over the place. This is one of those things you just have to know how to make. I decided to cut the recipe in half because we don’t need 2lbs of potatoes and 10 eggs. This felt like a good move but in the end my egg to potato ratio was off and I didn’t get a good egg sear on one side because the egg had all cooked on the first side (pictured here). This took me close to an hour to make which was rough and while it tasted fine, it was a lot of work for an average dish. An omelette with onions and potatoes would’ve tasted about the same without all the oil everywhere. The potatoes are poached in oil and the whole thing just had a layer of oil around it. I’d op for something lighter and more flavorful next time. An interesting dish but too much time for not enough payout for me.