Spice Up Your Life

Deciding to make enchiladas an open and shut ‘queso’

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date August 15, 2019

Queso fresco enchiladas have lots of green chile flavor, using the diced peppers and salsa verde in the recipe.

When I was in grade school, our family used to frequent a now defunct Mexican restaurant called Zaki’s.

For some reason, at that age, I was particularly fond of making bets with my dad, and I can remember two challenges that centered on that restaurant in particular.

The first was a bet I won. The waiter came to the table and asked if we preferred corn or flour chips with our salsa.

“What do we normally get? Flour, right?” my dad said.

“No. It’s corn,” I told him.

And then the bet came into play. Dad ordered the flour, and I bet him a month of him making my bed (these were the things that were important to me back then) that he was wrong about our usual order.

And he was.

It was a glorious month of relaxation as he came through on his end of the bargain each morning.

The second time was more of a challenge than a bet, when I announced that I thought I’d like the cheese enchiladas the restaurant served rather than ones that included meat.

My mom tried to warn me that it might be a bit intense to have an entire plate of just cheese-filled enchiladas, but of course, my dad got me to take up the challenge.

I thought back to that day when I recently made a batch of enchiladas myself—although I included chicken and some other elements in mine.

I didn’t really follow a recipe for this one, although I would give credit to Gina Homolka on her blog “Skinny Taste” for inspiration. If you go to her site at https://www.skinnytaste.com/enchiladas-verdes-green-enchiladas/, you’ll see a lot of similarities to the recipe I present here.

Queso Fresco Enchiladas

Queso fresco enchiladas have lots of green chile flavor, using the diced peppers and salsa verde in the recipe.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword cheese, enchilada, green chile, queso fresco, salsa verde

Ingredients

1 pound cooked shredded chicken
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons cumin
salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces diced green chile peppers drained
10 ounces queso fresco
16 ounces salsa verde
10-16 six-inch flour or white corn tortillas
2-3 cups shredded Mexican style cheese blend

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Prepare a 9×13-inch baking dish by spraying it with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine the shredded chicken, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper, green chiles, and queso fresco. Pour in about 1/2 cup of the salsa, too, and stir to combine.
Dump about half of the remaining salsa in the bottom of the prepared pan.
Warm the tortillas based on their package instructions to soften them. Place a large spoonful of the chicken filling in the center of each tortilla and roll it tightly and place them side by side in the pan, seam-side down, packing them closely together.
Once the dish is full (I ended up having to finish my filling out in a second, smaller baking dish), pour the remaining salsa over the top and then sprinkle liberally with the Mexican style cheese blend.
Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown on top.
Let them rest for at least five minutes before serving.

These enchiladas were great and reheated wonderfully as leftovers. I paired them with some Mexican rice, and they were an excellent dinner.

And if you did want to just make vegetarian enchiladas, you could easily leave out the chicken and include some fresh peppers or beans instead.

This recipe definitely turned out better than my cheese enchilada challenge of yesteryear. Being the stubborn kid I was, I finished the plate, but my stomach was unhappy with me for the rest of the evening, and I never ordered that particular dish again.

I guess that leaves my father and I tied when it comes to Mexican food challenges. It’s probably about time I took him out to dinner to see if I can get back in the winner’s circle—although I doubt he’d agree to any bed making this time.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 15, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Tags cheese, green chile, Mexican, queso fresco, salsa verde

Main Dish

Expand your ‘chorizo’ns with potato tacos

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date August 8, 2019

Chorizo con papas, or chorizo and potato, tacos are a crowd pleaser with tons of great flavor.

My sister and I have a fundamental difference in opinion when it comes to potatoes in Mexican food.

I’m in the “absolutely” camp, and she’s in the “never, ever” camp. I discovered this philosophical divergence one day when I recommended a local restaurant’s chorizo and potato fried tacos to her, and we were both shocked by the other’s preference.

But since she is absolutely wrong, I decided to make a homemade version of chorizo and potato tacos without the fried shell this week, and they were awesome.

If you’re not familiar, chorizo is a sausage that is full of lots of great spices. For this recipe, you’ll want to get the Mexican kind that is raw rather than the Spanish kind, which generally comes already cooked. It’s also a beautiful color, and I always enjoy cooking with it, since it creates this gorgeous red hue in the pan.

And if you’re not well-versed in Spanish, “con papas” just means “with potatoes” in this recipe’s title.

The recipe I used comes from the blog “In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen” by Maggie Unzueta. You can find the original post at https://inmamamaggieskitchen.com/chorizo-con-papas-or-mexican-chorizo-with-potatoes/. I added more spices and some peppers to my version. I also eliminated the oil in the recipe, since chorizo generally has plenty of grease on its own, but if you have trouble with it sticking, you might add that back in. Finally, I just cooked the potatoes in the pan rather than boiling them first to eliminate dishes.

Chorizo con Papas

Chorizo con papas, or chorizo and potato, tacos are a crowd pleaser with tons of great flavor.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword chorizo, potatoes, tacos

Ingredients

1 pound Mexican pork chorizo remove casings, if applicable
1 small onion diced (I used yellow)
1 jalapeno diced (remove ribs and seeds to decrease spiciness)
1 Anaheim pepper diced
1 pound potatoes diced into 1/4-inch pieces
1 packet of Sazon Goya seasoning
garlic salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large skillet with a lid, brown the chorizo, breaking it apart. Once it is cooked through, transfer the chorizo to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain.
Leave only about one tablespoon of grease in the pan and add the onion, peppers, potatoes and spices.
Stir to coat the ingredients in oil and cover the pan. Every few minutes, remove the lid and stir, scraping the bottom to remove any bits.
If the pan becomes too dry, either add a little oil or add a little water (which is what I did) to help steam the vegetables.
Once the potatoes are fork tender, add the chorizo back into the pan and stir. Let the chorizo heat back up and then serve in your favorite taco vessel. (We used flour tortillas.)

We served our tacos with shredded cheese, fresh spinach and some avocado. The recipe author suggests fresh cilantro, too. Really, anything that you like on other kinds of tacos will probably be good on these, although I saw no need for any salsa or tabasco sauce on these, since they had a great amount of flavor on their own.

We also had a lot of leftovers from making this recipe, and the tacos reheated really well in the microwave, which made for some good lunches for us to take to work.

The only regret I have is my sister will never realize just how delicious a batch of chorizo con papas can be, but you can’t win them all, and I can’t help it if she doesn’t know what’s good.

Maybe someday she’ll come around.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 8, 2019.

Tags chorizo, potatoes, tacos

Main Dish Side Dish

Don’t leave dinner ‘scalloped’ to chance

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date August 1, 2019

Scalloped potatoes are relatively easy to put together and customize, depending on your mood and crowd.

I have apparently been misinformed about the difference between scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin for my entire life.

I always thought they both had cheese involved. But after I decided recently to make scalloped potatoes, I discovered that the dish has no cheese at all, and it led me down a rabbit hole of food research.

I discovered that although I’ve always thought “au gratin” just meant “with cheese,” it actually just refers to “the verb ‘to gratinée,’ [which] as used today, means simply to give a dish a golden brown top,” as I read in an article on the site “Culinary Lore.”

The article also argues that an “au gratin” dish may really just refer to the type of vessel you cook it in and nothing to do with the ingredients at all.

So then I wondered what made something “scalloped,” and I found an article from “Cook’s Info” that has a couple possible explanations, from taking the word from a French cooking technique where oysters were cooked in scallop shells to an English dish referred to as “collops,” which “meant, among other things, slices of meat.”

So I went from thinking they were both cheesy dishes to finding out that cheese isn’t a requirement for either one. Nonetheless, I did find a recipe on the blog “Spend with Pennies” that I decided I wanted to try—despite its lack of cheese. You can find it at https://www.spendwithpennies.com/scalloped-potatoes-recipe/. I added extra garlic in my version.

Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped potatoes are relatively easy to put together and customize, depending on your mood and crowd.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Keyword garlic, scalloped potatoes

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1 onion diced
6 cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk I used skim
1 cup chicken broth
3 pounds potatoes sliced thinly
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a large sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Saute until the onions are soft and then add the garlic. Once the garlic starts to brown slightly, add the flour and stir it around for about one minute.
Turn the heat to low and whisk in the milk and broth. Turn the heat to medium high heat and continue whisking until the sauce thickens. Add in the salt and pepper to taste.
While the sauce cooks, spray a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with cooking spray and layer in about one-third of the sliced potatoes into the bottom of the dish.
Season them with salt and pepper (I also added some red pepper flakes for mine.)
Pour one-third of the sauce over the top and then repeat the layers, ending with the rest of the sauce and some more salt and pepper.
Cover the pan with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the potatoes are done through.
Turn the broiler on high to get a little color on the top of the potatoes. Leave them under the broiler for about three minutes.
Let the potatoes cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

If you are in a mood for cheese, you could easily sprinkle some between the layers on this dish. I think a grated parmesan would be especially nice.

And after all of my research, I’m now aware that almost no one knows what the true difference between scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin is, since almost every region where those dishes exist has a different recipe for each.

I’d like to set the blame on the shoulders of the French and their cooking techniques, but I suspect that it probably goes back to the English speakers in our past who just wanted to sound fancy. In reality, there’s not much fancy about scalloped potatoes, but boy, do they still taste good.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 1, 2019.

Tags garlic, scalloped potatoes

Cookies Dessert

You’ll love these caramel apple cookies to bits

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date July 25, 2019

Caramel apple oatmeal cookies have bits of caramel and fresh apple sprinkled throughout a soft oatmeal cookie dough.

While hunting for something in the freezer recently, I caused a bit of an avalanche of frozen food and discovered a bag of caramel bits tucked away on the bottom that I was gifted a few weeks ago by someone cleaning out their pantry.

I’ve never used caramel bits in baking before, and although I was tempted to just open the bag and eat them like candy, I decided it might be better to transform them into something so I could share the caloric wealth with family and friends.

From what I can tell, Kraft might be the only vendor that sells something called “caramel bits,” but the recipe I found for some caramel apple oatmeal cookies could also be achieved by buying normal-sized caramels and chopping them up.

I will also admit that this is clearly more of a fall recipe, but I’ll eat caramel any time of the year.

This recipe comes from the blog “Brownie Bites” by Erin Browne. You can find the original post at http://www.browniebites.net/caramel-apple-oatmeal-cookies/. I doubled the vanilla in my version.

Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies

Caramel apple oatmeal cookies have bits of caramel and fresh apple sprinkled throughout a soft oatmeal cookie dough.

Course Dessert

Keyword apple, cookies, oatmeal, salted caramel

Ingredients

1 cup butter softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups old-fashioned or quick oats
11 ounces caramel bits
2 small Gala apples peeled, cored and diced

Instructions

(You’re going to refrigerate your dough, so no need to preheat your oven yet.)
Beat the butter and sugars until fluffy, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Mix in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and oats until everything is well combined.
Stir in the caramel bits and diced apples.
Refrigerate your dough for about three hours or overnight. (I sped this up by putting mine in the freezer for an hour instead.)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper.
Scoop the dough in about two-tablespoon-size scoops and place them about two inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.
Refrigerate the rest of the dough while the first batch bakes.
Let the cookies cool before placing them in a container. If they’re too warm, the caramel bits will want to melt out of the bottom of the cookies.
Using two baking sheets will let you keep going with the rest of the dough while each batch cools.

I normally advocate for putting warm cookies into an airtight container pretty quickly after coming out of the oven, but in this case, these are such soft cookies that they hold up better if you let them cool down before storing them.

I really liked the flavor of these, and while I thought at first I should add in a little cinnamon, too, these didn’t need it. They were great the way they were.

This is probably a good sign that I should clean out my freezer more often. Who knows what kinds of treasures are hidden away in there? More likely, who knows what kinds of strange, freezer-burned mysteries may be concealed beneath bags of frozen vegetables?

This piece first appeared in print on July 25, 2019.

Tags apple, caramel, oatmeal

Main Dish Microwave Side Dish

It’s tough to see one more empty seat at the table

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date July 18, 2019

Scalloped broccoli won't heat up your kitchen with the oven and makes for a good side dish for a big family meal.

A couple weeks ago, our family gathered around my maternal grandmother’s table, enjoying a meal with her along with all of the cousins and their children and spouses present.

It was sometimes a bit loud and boisterous, and there was plenty of laughter as we all ate way too much while telling stories and catching up. It was a rare moment when everyone was able to come.

This past weekend, we were all there again, minus one very noticeable presence: Grandma.

After losing my grandpa in March, she went to join him last week. She was ready; we were not.

Grandma’s table expanded several times over the years as grandchildren, significant others and great grandchildren continued to join our family, and although it seemed like there were always more places set every time we gathered, the amount of leftovers seemed to stay constant. She taught us all to cook for an army, and as she often said, if you left hungry, that was your own fault.

When we were younger, Grandma made us all elaborately decorated birthday cakes every year. I almost always requested a spice cake, and when she asked what dishes we’d like to see for our family dinner together to celebrate, I requested her scalloped broccoli.

The broccoli casserole was a favorite amongst all the grandkids, which I suspect had less to do with the broccoli and more to do with the fact that it had plenty of cheese in it.

I decided that making that dish was the perfect way for me to honor her memory and all of those elaborate meals over the years, so I opened the handwritten cookbook she gave me for my 16th birthday, following the directions written in her beautiful cursive.

I’m not sure if anyone has ever shed nostalgic tears over broccoli before, but I definitely did.

So this week, my recipe comes from the kitchen of Lola Franklin—one of the best cooks I’ve ever known.

Scalloped Broccoli

Scalloped broccoli won't heat up your kitchen with the oven and makes for a good side dish for a big family meal.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Keyword broccoli, casserole, cheese, cream of mushroom, rice

Ingredients

32 ounces frozen broccoli
1 pound American cheese cut into chunks
2 cups minute rice
1 cup milk
2, 10.5- ounce cans cream of mushroom soup
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large pot, add the frozen broccoli along with three cups of water. Put it over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the broccoli is cooked through.
While the broccoli is cooking, add the cheese (Grandma used to either get the loaves of sliced American cheese to use or would request it from the deli counter), rice, milk and soup to a large, microwave-safe casserole dish with a lid.
Drain the broccoli and stir it into the other ingredients.
Microwave on high, with the lid on, until the cheese is melted and the rice is cooked through (somewhere between five and 10 minutes, depending on the strength of your microwave).
Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

This is a great dish for leftovers, which I can attest to after being sent home with many Tupperware containers of it over the years.

After mixing up my batch of broccoli, I have to admit it didn’t taste as great at Grandma’s. I doubt I’ll ever be fully satisfied with my version of it, though, since I won’t be enjoying it with one of the most influential women in my life.

Over the years, she taught me much more than just cooking skills around her dinner table. As she loaded up our plates, she also demonstrated how to be resilient, to be caring, to love unconditionally, and to always put others first.

As we spent our last family meal together, Grandma watched my mom, her daughter, bustling around the table, her own plate still empty as she made sure that everyone else was getting their fill and each dish was making its way around.

She looked across at me and said, “I’d be shocked if she ever actually sat down and ate.”

“I wonder where she got that from,” I responded.

“Hey, now,” she said, a gleam in her eye and a wry smile on her face.

I’ll miss sharing those meals with her as we all try to move forward, but she’ll most certainly always be with us at our family dinner tables and other gatherings we host with friends through the years.

If nothing else, Grandma taught me that life can always use an extra large scoop—of love and, of course, of ice cream.

This piece first appeared in print on July 18, 2019.

Tags broccoli, cheese, cream of mushroom, rice

Side Dish

I finally found the cooking method I’ve ‘bean’ looking for

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date July 11, 2019

Fresh green beans are a beautiful and delicious addition to the summer dinner table.

I absolutely adore green beans. They’ve been near the top of my favorite veggies list since I was little.

My normal ways of preparing them is to open a can, dump them in a microwave-safe container with some salt and pepper and heat them up or to fry up some bits of bacon in a pot and then add the canned beans and seasonings.

But despite my pedestrian preparation of green beans, I am always drawn to fresh ones in the produce aisle when they show up each year. Unfortunately for me (and probably because of my years of canned bean consumption), I’m not a huge fan of crunchy cooked green beans and I seem to struggle to cook them in such a way that they don’t get mushy and overdone.

I still grabbed a big bag of them recently, though, vowing to finally conquer fresh green beans once and for all.

And I totally accomplished it.

So, I thought I would share my green bean process with anyone else who struggles with the perfect line between crispy and mushy fresh beans every summer. I don’t have a specific source for this one, as it’s a product of lots of trial and error over the years, although I’m sure I’m not the first one to try such a preparation.

Fresh Green Beans

Fresh green beans are a beautiful and delicious addition to the summer dinner table.

Course Side Dish

Keyword garlic, green beans, vegetables

Ingredients

1-2 pounds fresh green beans
About 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
6-8 cloves garlic minced
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste optional

Instructions

Cut or snap the stem end of each bean off (I also snapped the longer ones in half so they’d fit in my pot more easily.) and wash them thoroughly.
Put the beans in a large pot and cover them with cold water.
Bring the pot to a boil and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes or until they’re just fork tender.
When the beans are almost done boiling, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the beans are done, drain them well and then add them to the skillet, stirring to coat them in oil.
Add in the garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and stir again, letting the beans sit for a couple minutes on each side before stirring them around. Your goal is to get just a little bit of char on the beans and brown the garlic.
When the garlic is browned, remove the beans from heat and serve immediately.

These also reheated as leftovers really well, which was nice, because I made way more green beans than we could eat in one meal.

And they turned out just how I like them: a beautiful bright green, plenty of flavor and no crunch when biting into them.

I know a lot of people will argue with me about crunchy beans, but if you’re like me and would rather not have that crisp texture, I’d recommend giving this method a try.

And, of course, there’s always the canned variety, but who wants to get out the can opener during the time of year that gardens are overflowing with fresh veggies?

This piece first appeared in print on July 11, 2019.

Tags garlic, green beans, vegetables

Cookies Dessert

Sprinkle in some fun this Fourth

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date July 4, 2019

Cheesecake sprinkle cookies come together quickly and add lots of color to your dessert table.

For July 4th this year, Joey and I were invited to spend the afternoon and evening with my sister and brother-in-law, and of course, my wonderful niece.

She’s quickly approaching 2 years old, and although she probably won’t stay up long enough to see any fireworks this year, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of fun playing in the backyard before it’s time for bed.

I’m also going to bring along a little treat to spoil her just a bit, since that’s what aunts are for (at least that’s what I decided long ago).

So, when I was looking online for a recipe to use a box of cheesecake flavored instant pudding, I found in the back of my pantry, I discovered the perfect Fourth of July treat to share: cheesecake sprinkle cookies.

They’re perfect for the Fourth because there’s no frosting to melt, they don’t require refrigeration, and they’re full of bursts of color, just like Fourth of July fireworks.

The recipe I found came from the blog “Simple Sweet Recipes.” You can find the original post at http://simplesweetrecipes.com/sprinkles-cookies/. I doubled the vanilla in my version.

Cheesecake Sprinkle Cookies

Cheesecake sprinkle cookies come together quickly and add lots of color to your dessert table.

Course Dessert

Keyword cheesecake, cookies, instant pudding, sprinkles

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
3.4 ounces cheesecake instant pudding mix
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sprinkles plus more for topping cookies

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Add the baking soda, pudding mix, and one cup of flour and mix until combined. Add the other cup of flour.
Once everything is combined, mix in the sprinkles.
Roll the dough into about one-inch balls and place them about one inch apart on a baking sheet. Press a few extra sprinkles into the top of each cookie.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the cookies are set (they won’t really brown on top). Let them cool for a bit on the cookie sheet before transferring them to an airtight container.

I didn’t think there was anything that screamed “cheesecake” about the flavor of these cookies. Really, they’re just excellent, soft sugar cookies that look super fun.

The recipe author suggests that you could use other types of instant pudding, too, so you could easily toss in some vanilla or even lemon with these if you don’t want to use the cheesecake flavor. I’m tempted to try using chocolate, but then again, I’m always tempted to use chocolate.

After I finished this batch, I couldn’t wait to get them over to share with my family, but since I decided to bake several days early, I’ll just have to let them sit in their container on the counter until then.

But, since I also believe in sampling my own baking, I’m just hoping they last that long.

This piece first appeared in print on July 4, 2019.

Tags cheesecake, instant pudding, sprinkles, sugar cookies

Bread Breakfast Dessert

Sweet roll recipe is the only ‘bun’ for me

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date June 27, 2019

No one will be able to tell that you completely transformed a cake mix into these delectable chocolate sweet rolls.

When I first started going solo in the kitchen as a youngster, I was very concerned with cooking by the book.

Mom never minded me hovering over her shoulder (or if she did, she hid it really well), and I asked a lot of questions.

Once I felt ready to make meals on my own, I asked her to help me write out my own recipe cards, which I still have in my recipe box at home. My favorite one is for canned corn. She didn’t make fun of me when I asked her to help me write down the steps for how to heat it up and how much salt and pepper to add, and from the food stains on my notecard, I clearly used the “recipe” more than once over the years.

Nowadays, though, I’m a lot more adventurous and tend to tweak recipes regularly and without hesitation. Such was the case recently when I used a recipe for cake mix cinnamon rolls to make chocolate sweet rolls instead.

I actually used two authors’ recipes as my basis for this week. The rolls recipe comes from the blog “Norine’s Nest.” You can find her post at https://www.norinesnest.com/cake-mix-cinnamon-rolls/. The other recipe started as the filling recipe for some sweet rolls by Kate Wood on her blog “The Wood and Spoon.” You can find her recipe at http://thewoodandspoon.com/chocolate-sweet-rolls/. I made changes to each to come up with the concoction below.

Cake Mix Chocolate Sweet Rolls

No one will be able to tell that you completely transformed a cake mix into these delectable chocolate sweet rolls.

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Keyword cake mix, chocolate, glaze, icing, sweet rolls

Ingredients

Rolls

1 Dutch chocolate cake mix
2 packages yeast instant or active
1 teaspoon salt
5 cups flour
2-1/4 cups hot water

Filling

6 ounces dark chocolate chips or chop up a bar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons espresso or instant coffee powder I used a mocha-flavored
1/2 cup powdered sugar
about 1/2 cup sliced almonds or your favorite nut, chopped

Icing

1-1/3 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk you may need to add more
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

In a mixer with a dough hook (or you can start by mixing with a wooden spoon and switch over to kneading to bring it together), combine the cake mix, yeast, salt and two cups of flour.
Mix until it’s well combined and add the water slowly while the mixer continues to run.
Add in the rest of the flour, and mix until everything is well combined and the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl to form a ball.
Turn the dough out onto a well-floured workspace, sprinkle the top with more flour and knead five or six times with floured hands until it forms into a well-shaped ball.
Cover the dough with a clean cloth and allow it to rise until it’s doubled in size (mine took about 20 minutes).
When the dough is almost ready to work with, combine the chocolate chips and butter into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the mixture is smooth. Add the remaining filling ingredients except the sliced almonds and set aside.
Punch the dough down and roll out into a large rectangle about 1/4-inch thick.
Spread the filling out evenly over the entire rectangle of dough and sprinkle on the almonds.
Tightly roll the rectangle from the long side so that you get a nice, long, snake-like roll.
Cut the roll into 1-1/2-inch thick slices.
Grease two 9×12-inch pans and place the slices, with one of the cut sides up, into the pans. Space them out a bit to give them room to rise.
Cover both pans with a clean cloth and let them rise for about 30 more minutes or until they double in size.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until they are a golden brown.
Before serving, mix the icing ingredients together until smooth. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk until you get the consistency you like.
Let the rolls cool for about 10 minutes, and then drizzle or spread the icing over top of them.
Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

These were absolutely delicious. I immediately delivered them to friends and family to get them out of the house before we ate too many of them ourselves.

The best part of this recipe is that it’s super easy to customize. Just choose another cake mix and filling ingredients, and you have a completely new type of sweet roll to enjoy.

Younger me would have been amazed at how off script I went with this recipe, but we all start somewhere. Looking back, I’m just so thankful I had someone willing to patiently show me the ropes in the kitchen—canned corn recipes and all.

This piece first appeared in print on June 27, 2019.

Tags cake mix recipe, chocolate, glaze, icing, sweet rolls

Beverage

You’ll pine for this fresh summer treat

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date June 20, 2019

Agua de piña, or pineapple water, is a traditional Mexican drink that helps to beat the heat this time of year.

Last week, we walked into one of our favorite restaurants in Hutchinson, a little hole-in-the-wall called El Rodeo that serves up tons of amazing Mexican food.

I have explored all over their menu, and I have yet to find something I didn’t like. I’m especially a sucker for their chorizo and potato fried tacos, which are crispy and perfectly seasoned. My mouth is watering just thinking about them right now.

This visit, my eye was drawn to a large container of pretty yellow liquid sitting next to the ever-present and always-tempting container of horchata (now there’s a recipe I need to try at home, too).

“Pineapple water,” I was told when wondering what it was.

I immediately ordered a big glass, and I was not even slightly disappointed, so of course, I researched pineapple water, or agua de piña.

An article by Gilda Valdez Carbonaro explains that aguas frescas (fresh waters) are popular in Mexico from spring through early fall and are made with a variety of fruits, seeds and other fresh produce (horchata, a rice-based drink, is considered an agua fresca, too).

If you’re not familiar, don’t think of it as a smoothie or as just a normal fruit juice. It’s in a league of its own, and it’s amazing.

The recipe I decided to use was from Douglas Cullen on the blog “Mexican Food Journal.” I changed nothing about this recipe, because it was literally three ingredients—and it was awesome. You can find his original post at https://mexicanfoodjournal.com/pineapple-water/amp/.

Agua de Piña

Agua de piña, or pineapple water, is a traditional Mexican drink that helps to beat the heat this time of year.

Course Beverage

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword agua de fruta, pineapple

Ingredients

1 ripe fresh pineapple
6 cups water
1/2 cup sugar

Instructions

You will want to make this in two batches, because it will overflow your blender otherwise.
Begin by cutting your pineapple into chunks. The best way to slice a pineapple, in my experience, is to cut the top and bottom off of it. Then cut it into quarters. Slice out the little bit of core on the edge of each quarter. Then slice your knife down through the fruit but not through the skin. Start by slicing it in half lengthwise and then do the same going the other direction, cutting the fruit into about one-inch chunks.
Now, carefully run your knife between the fruit and the skin, and it should easily come off in perfect-sized chunks. If any of the green bits come away with the fruit, trim it off.
Combine half of the pineapple, water and sugar in a blender and blend until everything is smooth. Repeat with the second half.
Pour the mixture into a pitcher or jug through a fine strainer (I had to keep jostling the contents of mine, because it was getting clogged up as it strained).
Serve at room temperature or out of the fridge. No ice needed.

This is an extremely satisfying drink, and while there is added sugar, it doesn’t hold a candle to drinking a pop, a glass of Kool-aid or even a lot of fruit juices you can buy.

As a side note, if you’re nervous about buying fresh pineapple, the goal is to find one that gives just a little when you press on it, and the best rule about ripe pineapple is that the better it smells, the riper it is.

I was pretty sad when the last glass of agua de piña left our fridge last week, and I suspect there may be a couple more batches in our future this summer.

It also pairs great with a couple fried chorizo and potato tacos, which come to think of it, will likely be in my future as well.

This piece first appeared in print on June 20, 2020.

Tags agua de fruta, pineapple

Dessert Snack

Cherry Garcia brownies makes friends ‘Grateful Fed’

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date June 13, 2019

Cherry Garcia brownies are patterned after the Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor of the same name.

Over the seven years since I started writing this column, my family has gotten very used to being guinea pigs for new recipes.

So much so, that when I showed up with a dish of still-warm brownies for a board game night with my sister and brother-in-law last weekend, my sister looked at me and said, “I’m going to get quoted about this, aren’t I?”

I just shrugged, but yes, Sis, you are.

As I often do when summer rolls around, I bought a big bag of fresh cherries last week, and these brownies seemed like the perfect candidate to include them. I also might have spent some time sampling cherries while I baked, too. Job hazards.

My sister said she generally hates the taste of cherries and chocolate together (she might be adopted), but she gave two thumbs up for the new recipe.

I found this one by Lauren Miyashiro on the website “Delish.” You can find the original at https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a48932/cherry-garcia-brownies-recipe/. I doubled the vanilla, added more cherries and specified a dark chocolate brownie mix in my version.

Cherry Garcia Brownies

Cherry Garcia brownies are patterned after the Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor of the same name.

Course Dessert

Keyword brownies, cherry, dark chocolate

Ingredients

1 box dark chocolate brownie mix plus ingredients it calls for
8 ounces cream cheese slightly softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup pitted and quartered fresh cherries
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare an 8-by-8-inch baking pan by spraying it with cooking spray.
Prepare the brownie mix according to package instructions and dump into the prepared pan. Set it aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, vanilla, egg and sugar until it’s light and fluffy (mine actually ended up mostly soupy, which works, too. Just make sure it’s well combined).
Stir in the cherries and chocolate chips and dump the cream cheese mixture over the brownie mix in the pan. Swirl the mixture with a knife to get some of the cream cheese layer into the brownies.
Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted down into the brownie layer comes up clean (mine took a bit longer than 45 minutes) and the cheesecake layer on top is set up.
Let the brownies cool a bit before slicing. I stored mine in an airtight container in the fridge.

I would recommend cutting these on the smaller side, because they’re a bit rich. The top is creamy, and the bottom is dense and chewy. And then there’s a little layer in the middle between the cheesecake and the brownie layer that’s perfectly gooey.

We had a great time playing games and eating brownies together, and we all decided the recipe was a winner, which was the only winning I did all night.

Maybe next time we get together I can earn some victories with the board games in addition to the kitchen.

This piece first appeared in print on June 13, 2019.

Tags brownies, cherries, chocolate chips, dark chocolate