Muffin Tin Mini Apple Pies

Most bloggers have a super cute story as to why they decided to make something. Well, for this recipe, I realized that I had a bunch of apples that were going to go bad and I needed something to do with them. I didn't want a large pie since I just won't eat it all. Quick search for mini apple pies in pinterest and I got nothing! Lots of tarts and turnovers but no muffin tin mini pies. So google to the rescue! This recipe came from food.com. I found a few recipes that used pre-made pie dough, so I went to kroger to pick one up. But there was lard in both options. I know lard is nothing to worry about but when I thought about lard vs butter, I decided to make my own. ... now I want to see the ingredients on the croissant rolls...

The crust isn't super tasty. I think I'm used to buttery crust. I might add more butter to the dough next time...

Pie dough start. Cutting butter into flour is hard. 

After four tablespoons of water. For my final dough, I needed 8 tablespoons - it's dry here. 

Rolled out dough! 

Four inch diameter - what would be four inches? Apparently most sport drinks!

Pressed into the muffin tin. As per directions, I didn't pre-grease. I stuck it in the fridge while I made the other stuff.

Apples! 

Cut up - had to shoo the hubby away from the cut apples. 

Filling ingredients. I only had fuji apples, so I used just one cup of sugar ... it was still pretty sweet. 

Even pre-baked...this was yummy!

Muffin tin size takes a good amount of filling! 

I am not a pastry chef - this is as good of a top that I could do

So cute! Once cooled, they came out easily!

You can see how small they are by the knife

I tried to take a "slice" of mini pie but it didn't work

Delicious! 

Recipe from Food.com (for 12 mini pies):

Crust
2 cups flour
2/3 cup butter (chilled)
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons water
Filling
5 medium apples (peeled and chopped up into small pieces)
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
6 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter (chilled)

Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Get muffin pan out. No need to grease it.
2 In food processor blend flour, salt and butter until it looks like little peas.
3 Add in water and blend just until it looks like it's sticking.
4 Take out and combine it by hand until well blended.
5 Roll out on lightly floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick.
6 Cut 12, 4 inch circles with cup or bowl.(You will need to roll out twice).
7 Note: you can use the rest of the crust for anything you may want to do on top of the pies.
8 Press each circle in muffin tins until all the way up each side, to form little bowls.
9 Mix by hand all filling ingredients and spoon into muffin bowls.
10 Cut up butter into 12 little pieces and place one piece on each pie.
11 You can decorate them anyway you like with extra crust, or just leave plain.
12 Bake at 425 degrees for 16-18 minutes. (Until crust is light brown and apples are bubbling).
13 When cool, just loosen with a spoon and they'll come right out!

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/mini-apple-pies-so-easy-not-much-hassle-286704?oc=linkback

Lentil soup - Turkish Style

For our honeymoon, my husband and I went to Turkey! It was an amazing trip with an amazing about of good food. One of our favorite dishes was lentil soup.

I have never tasted lentil soup because in my mind it sounded like bean soup. Gross. But in Turkey the lentils are so delicate that they're not a large part of the soup but still add a ton of flavor. I have no idea how they make such good soup but I decided to give it a try.

For the first time pinterest failed me. There were not many lentil soups and to be honest, this isn't the most photogenic of dishes so I can see why.

I did a simple google search and found this recipe from food.com:

1 cup red lentil, washed and cleaned
4 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup mild onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup white potato, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)


Directions:
1 Place the red lentils in a colandar and rinse.
2 Sift through to remove and debris or damaged beans.
3 Place the washed and cleaned lentils into a medium pot with the stock, potatoes, onions and paprika.
4 Bring the pot to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
5 Loosely place a lid on the pot leaving slightly ajar as to allow some evaporation.
6 Cook for 40-40 minutes until the lentils are tender.
7 Add salt and pepper to taste.
8 Place all but 1 cup of the soup into a blender or food processor and blend briefly.
9 Return blended soup to the pot with the reserved cup of soup.
10 Heat through.
11 Makes four servings

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/turkish-red-lentil-soup-140836?oc=linkback

All the reviews were positive so I tried it out. My only issue? No red lentils! I went to Target and Kroger and there were only green lentils. There is a difference between the two but I had no choice as I certainly wasn't going to go to ANOTHER store to find red lentils. Also, I used turkey stock vs veggie stock. Obviously in Turkey they would only use veggie stock but I used what I had.

Rinsed the beans and attempted to look for defects but I guess the organic lentils were checked through before hand.

Cut up some potato and onion

Added everything to the pot with the stock and water and cooked! 

I finally got to use my immersion blender! It was fun to muss up about half the lentils

To be honest, it started to look like a bean soup. So I added an extra cup of stock and two cups of water to have a soup consistency.

Lentil soup! I suggest serving it with lemon and a dab of greek yogurt! It was delicious! 

Quinoa in the Rice Cooker!

There are so many quinoa recipes. Quinoa salads, mac and cheese with quinoa, quinoa muffins and cakes, etc etc. Cooking quinoa is the first step for most of these recipes and considering how horrible I am at cooking rice over the stove, I was not really interested in trying to cook quinoa. I then noticed that many people suggest cooking it in the rice cooker instead. Why not? I mean quinoa is a grain very similar to rice, would it really work in the rice cooker?

I figured I'd try it out. The key seems to be that for every one cup of quinoa, you must add two cups of liquid. I chose to use one cup of turkey stock and one cup of water for one cup of quinoa. Also, it was noted that one cup of uncooked quinoa becomes three cups of cooked quinoa. Since my rice cooker is a three cup cooker, I only used one cup of quinoa.

Uncooked quinoa

Though probably already cleaned, I rinsed it just in case

Just ran it under water in a strainer. Then put it in the rice cooker with a cup of stock and a cup of water

Tada! Worked perfectly! 

Delicious. I also added a couple of cloves of garlic to add flavor. Yum! 

Why eat quinoa? It's a great carb that's delicious and ...

From Fabfitfun.com

Egg in a Turkey Basket with Cheese and Spinach

After the success of the Egg Muffins I had been making them off and on for awhile. But I saw this cute egg cup on Pinterest and thought I would give this version a try. The deli meat essentially holds the full egg together with whatever other ingredients you want to add. I chose spinach and swiss cheese!

Turkey slices in the muffin tin

Simply put the deli meat slices into the muffin tin (I doubled up since we use thin sliced meats). 

Add the other ingredients you would like in your egg in a basket (I used chopped spinach and swiss cheese). Ignore the other muffin tins, I decided to make egg muffins to freeze in the spare muffin tins. 

Then add an egg to each deli meat basket. So good! (FYI: the egg muffins were just egg whites, cheddar and spinach). Pop them into a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes and you're done! 

I topped them with salt, pepper and some parmesan cheese. 

Hm...with easy crusty bread. So perfect together.

I actually cooked them for 13 minutes. I regret this. I love a good runny egg and they were a little over cooked for me. If you like a more set egg yolk (like in this picture), then I would suggest 13 minutes.

I served it with fresh baked Easy Crusty Bread which I made with olives in it! We had an amazing brunch!

I made the spare egg muffins since I wasn't sure how well the egg yolks would freeze (or how safe that was). Have you ever frozen slightly runny egg yolks? Does it turn out OK when you reheat?

Baked Egg Cups From Thesimpledelights.com

12 Eggs

12 thin slices of deli ham (round)

1/2 Cup of your favorite cheese (I used Parmesan)

1/2 Cup diced scallions

Fresh cracked Sea Salt and Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400.  Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  Lay a piece of ham in each hole creating a little ham cup.  Crack one egg into each hole and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake the eggs for about 12 minutes…until the white is firm and the yolk is still nice and runny.

Carefully remove each egg from the muffin tin and top with grated cheese and scallions.  Serve hot!  Yield: 12

Five minute Garlic Feta Dip. Just Three Ingredients!

As always, I'm running late and forgot to make an appetizer for a house visit. How I'm always forgetting one last step or ingredient is crazy but apparently consistent for me. Well, this weekend we went over to our cousin's house and volunteered to bring over something to snack on. I had totally forgotten and looked in to the fridge to see what we could bring. Feta Dip!

I recalled this pin I saw and checked to see if I had everything. It was so simple, I thought for sure I would be OK. So if you have a bunch of feta in your fridge, good oil and garlic you can make the base of this easy dip. After those ingredients the rest is to get fancy!

It asked for 8 oz of feta. two cups was very close to the 8oz I measured on my food scale

I used a ton of garlic, like three cloves. Recipe says to use only one but we love garlic! 

Add feta and oil to the mixer and go at it! I added half the oil in initially and then added more in slowly but ended up using it all! 

That's it! Simple right! The recipe calls for lemon but we thought it was already a bit sour.

I cut up some cucumbers for a light snack

Here's the recipe from SweetPaul.typepad.com

Lemon and feta dip
Serves 4

8oz feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil+ extra for serving
fresh thyme

Place feta, lemon zest and juice, garlic and olive oil in a blender and blend until smooth.
Spoon into a bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with thyme.
Serve with grilled tomatoes and grilled pita bread drizzled with olive oil, salt and thyme.

So Easy Gingerbread Rice Crispy Treats! Gingerbread Man Melting...

Image from mystore411.com

I found these at the grocery store and instantly thought...how would those taste as a rice crispy treat??? I got a bag of regular mini marshmallows as well, just in case they were horrible.

Just to be sure, I checked out Kellogg's official recipe for this master piece (not the official text):

• 6 cups of rice crispy cereal
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• Half a bag of marshmallows

1. Melt butter
2. Add marshmallows
3. Add cereal 
4. While still warm, dump onto greased or wax papered dish and flatten
5. Wait till cool and then enjoy!

So I obviously half the recipe for each type of marshmallow I was using. And in my forever attempt to get rid of our halloween candy, we stuck in a bunch of our favorite chocolates in them.

hmmm...melted butter

I'm melting!!!

Buahahaha

The wax paper helped to use only half of the pan for each type

Tada! with the added candy

The easiest treat ever