Birthday Dinner for Terry

Yesterday was the husband's 33rd birthday. Originally I planned an elaborate meal. Then I realized he'd probably rather have his favorite homemade pizza with pepperonis and jalapenos.

Here's what we had:


sausage stuffed mushrooms

Pepperoni and jalapeno pizza. (See below for Terry's crust recipe.)

an interesting Shiraz-Viognier blend recommended by a gentleman at our local Spec's store

black-bottom cupcakes

RECIPES

Sausage stuffed mushrooms from The Girl Who Ate Everything.

Black-bottom cupcake recipe is from David Lebovitz as seen on Smitten Kitchen.

Perfect pizza dough is adapted by Terry from the recipe book that came with our KitchenAid stand mixer. Click here for printable recipe.

Sweet Potato Brownie Bars

I love sweet potatoes. 

I like them 

in pies

in pot pies

in whoopie pies

as fries

mashed

baked

cooked into soups, stews, and chowders

in cookies

in cakes

for breakfast or lunch

in dinner and dessert.

I rarely meet a sweet potato recipe I don't enjoy, and they're so versatile (and tasty!) that I'm always looking for new ways to combine them with other flavors.

This fall I've been searching for a perfect recipe to combine the flavors of sweet potato and chocolate. I think I've found one. It's a layered bar inspired by a recipe for cookie dough brownies. Two of the layers are all about chocolate, and a few chocolate chips sneak into the third layer as well.

On the ground floor: cinnamon cayenne brownies. In the middle: sweet potato cream cheese filling that tastes a lot like my Grandma's sweet potato pies. Up top: bittersweet chocolate glaze.

  

I'm adding this recipe to the Holiday Recipe Exchange. Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Scharffen Berger.






And check out more sweet potato recipes from Foodista:

Sweet Potato

Zucchini Cashew Bread

Some unexpected teaching work fell into my lap week before last. That kept me from baking or posting for a bit. But I'm back. This morning before breakfast I was hastily snapping photos of zucchini bread.

Also before breakfast this morning I checked C & C Cakery's blog hoping to see results of The Movemeber Manly Cupcake Challenge. The results are up, and my Beer & Pretzels Cupcakes won! 

If you haven't already seen the lineup of excellent cupcakes that were submitted for this challenge, you can ogle them here. I was particularly fond of this one, which features a caramel-scotch frosting; this delicious-sounding, perfectly decorated vegan one; and this one with a cookie barbeque grill that actually lights on fire. Thanks to the folks at C&C for hosting such a fun challenge!



Now about that zucchini bread:

My husband and I try to have breakfast together every morning. It gives us a chance to talk for a few minutes as we start the day. It's one less meal that we eat alone at our desks while working. And it usually convinces our finicky dog to eat her breakfast, too.

This is Penelope. She only eats when we eat. If we don't sit down to breakfast together, she doesn't eat her breakfast. (This picture was taken when I was getting ready to move back to Houston last year. She was helping, of course.)

Terry leaves at 6:30 every morning (and sometimes I leave  that early as well), so breakfast needs to be pretty straightforward. Muffins and quick breads are good options. They're delicious for breakfast. They're handy for snacks. They're perfect thank-you gifts for the neighbor with whom Terry sometimes carpools.


Keep reading for details on our current favorite quick bread, which was very tasty this morning with some bacon left over from making chipotle sweet potato corn chowder last night.

Beer and Pretzels Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across C&C Cakery's Movember Manly Cupcake Challenge, and I knew immediately that I wanted to enter. After a brainstorming session with the husband, some recipe writing and testing, and a full day of baking, I'm ready to share the recipe for Beer and Pretzels Cupcakes.

These cupcakes feature a rich, spicy brown ale cake with a brown ale custard filling. They're topped with caramel buttercream and homemade soft pretzels.

 

Why are these cupcakes so manly? Three reasons:

• They bring that classic pair of manly comestibles--beer and pretzels--together in a delicious baked good.

• They're bigger and badder than your usual cupcake recipe. When I think about how the men in my life cook, I visualize the vast quantities of food they prepare. They like to cook for crowds. I picture my father-in-law grilling steaks for the whole family on a Friday night, and I picture the five-gallon pot of chili my husband cooks every fall when he invites 40 to 60 of his closest friends over. In that quintessentially manly more-is-more spirit, this recipe yields 24 ultra-rich cupcakes and 32 soft pretzels.

• They feature some of my favorite man's favorite flavors. My husband loves caramel, loves soft pretzels, and loves a good micro-brew. This cupcake has all of that and more.

Sweet and Spicy Peanut Butter Dip

I love happy accidents that result in tasty dishes: tossing in the wrong spice only to discover it tastes better than what the recipe called for; making a last-minute substitution because you're out of an ingredient and finding that it tastes wonderful; completely misunderstanding your mother-in-law's tried-and-true recipe but creating something new and delicious in the process.

Last week my husband and I were pressed for time one evening, and we were hurriedly working together to pack lunches for the next day. We needed to whip up a new batch of dip to go with fresh veggies. I had a printed recipe, which I handed to him after rattling off the short list of ingredients that we needed to pull out of the fridge. He was measuring out some ingredients; I was chopping some other ingredients. He was working from the page I handed him while I was working from memory. We were both tossing ingredients into a single mixing bowl.

Then we found ourselves staring into the mixing bowl, him holding a bottle of soy sauce and me holding the canister of brown sugar.

Me: This doesn't look right.

Him: But we're following the recipe you gave m--oh.

Me: Oh?

Him: That's not the dip recipe.

Me: Oh.

Fortunately for our veggies, the recipe we intended to follow was printed on the same sheet of a paper with a chicken satay marinade. We had commingled the dip ingredients with the marinade ingredients. We made just a few adjustments to finish it off. The result is a wonderful, creamy, spicy dip that would be good on crackers as well as vegetables.

Click here for printable recipe.


Ingredients

• 1 cup smooth, no-sugar-added peanut butter (we use an all natural one that contains nothing but dry roasted peanuts)
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons chili paste
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• juice of 2 lemons

Directions
Mix all ingredients together. Chill. Serve as a dip for fresh veggies.