Tic Tac Toe...for a Cause

Ever find yourself wanting to help non-profit organizations but don't have the money to do so? What if I told you playing a simple online game can help raise up to $5000 to help those affected by cancer? The candy company Tic Tac created an online game that will raise money for Cancercare, a national nonprofit organization that provides free, professional support services to anyone affected by cancer. Every time this game is played, Tic Tac will donate $1, up to $5000, along with the $100,000 donation Tic Tac already made.

Interested in playing? Visit Tic Tac's website and play a few games. Even if it's one or two games, every dollar counts.

If you are going to be in the Times Square area on August 19, 2009, Tic Tac and CancerCare will attempt to set a Guinness World's Record for the most games of Tic Tac Toe played simultaneously.

Angel Food Cupcakes

Angel food cake is probably one of my favorite cakes ever. Probably because I rarely have it. I don't buy bakery goods and finally bought a tube pan a few months ago from the thrift store for $2. Still haven't attempted the actual tube cake, but if you don't want to deal with the hassle of letting it cool upside down, twisting the pan, etc, try it in cupcake form. Much easier to serve plus no frosting is needed. All you need is lemon zest.

Angel Food Cupcakes


Looks so plain but tastes oh so good!

3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup cake flour (click here for substitution)
5 egg whites, room temperature
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of one lemon

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

2. In a small bowl, sift together flour and 1/4 cup sugar.

3. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until foamy, about 1-2 minutes. Add cream of tartar and salt. Gradually add in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, beating on high speed the egg whites to soft peaks. Gently fold in vanilla and lemon zest. Then fold in flour mixture, adding it in two or three additions.

4. Fill muffin cups pretty full. Bake for 16-18 minutes, until golden brown. The tops will spring back when lightly touched. They are also lightly sticky. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Source: Two Peas and Their Pod

Tuesdays With Dorie - Brownie Buttons

Ever have a dream about food? Ironically, two days before making Dorie's Brownies Buttons, which was this week's pick, I had a dream about baking brownies. Or at least attempting. It was 2 AM and I was melting together chocolate and butter. Once I realized it was going to take 20 minutes to bake, I decided I wanted to go back to sleep and put the pot in the fridge, thinking oh it's just butter and chocolate. It'll be fine until tomorrow. Scary thing was this dream felt real. I was in my kitchen, at my stove, using my pot. I even made sure to check the kitchen for any evidence of brownie baking when I woke up haha

Here's the crazy part. I had a bar of baking chocolate in the cupboard, which I was going to use for these buttons. When I went for it, I couldn't find it. I brought everything out. WTF? Where's my chocolate?! I started thinking but could not come up with anything made recently that used my chocolate. Possible conclusions are my brother ate it, having no job really does affect my memory, or I used it to bake brownies in my dream. Considering that last one is just silly and my brother never goes in that cupboard, I'm left with my memory failing. I even looked through my camera pictures, but nothing sticks out.

I couldn't run to the store (or make anyone run to the store), so I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips. Don't know if I had enough because I don't have a kitchen scale. I kinda want to get one of those. Anyway, I filled 16 mini cups like Dorie said. Next time, I will probably make 12 because the buttons were so tiny and barely rose.

Did you know peanut butter chips do not melt very well? I was going to dip half in pb, half in semi-sweet chocolate. When I melted the pb chips, it just was not smooth. While they were hardening in the fridge, I got the brillant idea of sprinkles. Makes them much more fun.



Thanks to Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen for this week's pick. I hope she didn't have some crazy dream about baking these. You can find the recipe on pages 106-107 in Baking: From My Home To Yours or on Jayma's blog.

Wild Mushroom Soup

I cannot express into words how much I love Marx Foods. For starters, how exotic and gourmet their ingredients are. Boar sausage? Who knew! But what really gets me is their staff. They tend to give away little samplers - spices, dried mushrooms, dried chiles - and when they do, I always receive a nice, hand-written note from whoever sent it. Even the emails seem personal because they would comment on one of my blog posts, letting me know that they actually visited and read my blog. Many kudos! Once I get a real job and pay off my loans (ha yea right), I will splurge on your products. It just might take five years XP

ANYWAY

Marx Foods was offering samples of dried mushrooms. You got to pick four types (except for dried morels because they were out when I read the post), so I chose porcini, oyster, black trumpet, and maitake. I knew immediately I wanted to make cream of mushroom soup. After searching, I finally decided on a recipe from Closet Cooking. For the herbs, I used fresh parsley because that's what I had. I have no idea if I used a pound of mushrooms or not. Doubtful, but eh it looked like enough. Also, I didn't have time to roast the mushrooms because I didn't plan ahead :X

The nice thing about dried mushrooms is you can rehydrate them and use in any mushroom recipe. You let them soak for about 30 minutes. Then you strain the liquid through a coffee strainer to remove the dirt particles (I guess it was dirt??). Tada! Now you have mushroom stock for soup.

There are some arguments as to whether this is cream of mushroom soup. Yes, there is cream but it's not thick like the kind from the can. I tried not to blend the soup too much because I wanted chunky mushroom soup.

Wild Mushroom Soup




1 pound mushrooms, any combination, cut into slices/chunks
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, thyme, or sage, chopped
4 cups soup stock (chicken or veggie)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream

1. If using dried mushrooms, place into bowl and cover with hot water. Let sit for 30 minutes or until tender. Drain liquid into a coffee strainer. Measure the amount, subtract from 4 cups, and use chicken stock for the remaining amount. For example, I had 2 cups mushroom stock, so I needed 2 more cups of chicken stock. Chop mushrooms if needed.

2. In a large skillet, saute onion in oil for 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and parsley and saute for 1 minute. Pour in soup stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Pour small amount of soup into a blender. Blend until desired consistency is reached (I let mine be a little chunky). Pour into a clean saucepan. Repeat until all of the soup is blended. Please be careful because hot liquid will expand and make a mess of your kitchen if you try to blend too much at once.

4. Reheat soup until hot again. Turn off heat. Mix in cream. Serve.

Makes: 6-8 servings

Source: Adapted from Closet Cooking

Box? I Need No Stinkin' New Box

Remember when Murray needed a new box?


Fed Ex box? But...but...what's wrong with my old one?


See? I have plenty of room!


It was only a matter of time until Murray invented the three-sided box haha Mushroom soup coming tomorrow, stay tuned!

Tuesdays With Dorie - Classic Banana Bundt Cake

This week's recipe was an easy and yummy one - Dorie's Classic Banana Bundt Cake. Funny story about this cake. I almost ended up with a half-baked cake. You see, our oven door has been acting up. You could still open it, but it wouldn't open all the way, maybe 75%. Fixing the door was on the to-do list. Well, after baking for 30 minutes, I removed the cake from the oven, closed the door, and covered the pan with foil. Then I opened the door... and then I opened the door.....I said open door!! The door just would not open. Thoughts raced through my head. It's half-baked. It won't fit in the toaster oven (lol ok really? I have never, ever used our toaster oven before and that was the first thing that popped into my mind.) Can I run to someone's house? We spent about 5 minutes wrestling with the door until it FINALLY opened. I was nervous when time was up because I didn't know if the oven would give me back my cake. Took a few tries, but we got it out.



This tastes just like banana bread. My only concern is the recipe called for two sticks of butter. Wow, that's a lot, so I used margarine instead. I also used half sour cream, half Greek vanilla yogurt because I didn't have that much sour cream left. This cake is very moist, and next time, I will add nuts or chocolate chips. I did use the lemon glaze Dorie suggested. At first, I was banana and lemon??? But I tried it anyway. Of course, I tend to bake at night, so it was getting slightly late, and the cake was still a little warm to the touch. That's why you can't actually see my glaze because it melted. You could still taste it though.

After that night, we fixed the hinge on the door. Did you know the oven door actually comes off? Yea, me neither.

Thanks to Mary of The Food Librarian for picking this week's recipe. It was an enjoyable one, indeed. You can find the recipe on page 190 of Baking: From My Home To Yours or on Mary's blog.


I think it's time for a new box...