Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi is a favorite in our house, and currently I'm in a love, hate relationship with the stuff. It's delicious, it's simple, and it's easy to mess up. There, I said it - it may be easy, but it is also so easy to mess up and there is no repairing this once it has turned out bad.

Sometimes it's the look, sometimes it's the taste, and sometimes, it's just a whole lot of, "I know for a fact, that I did this right. What went wrong?" This can either make you dance with joy or defeat you and you'll have to come back with gloves swinging to make sure you get it next time.

I've failed 3 times, and I've made successful dishes 5 times. These are totally worth it when they do come out correctly and when you can find the time to do them. I recommend spreading it out over a couple of days as it's not overwhelming and a lot to do all at one time.

Ingredients:
makes about 4 servings +

For gnocchi:

4 large sweet potatoes
olive oil
cinnamon
cardamom
brown sugar
flour
foil
salt

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C), while that is preheating take the sweet potatoes and scrub them lightly under warm water. Now, pat dry and take a fork, poke a few holes all around the sweet potato and rub a light layer of olive oil on them. Do not forget this step as it seals them. Though, you could even roast your sweet potatoes instead to also take as much moisture out as possible. Wrap in foil and let cook until soft - about 40-45 minutes.

Once out of the oven, set aside and let cool. You can stop here and resume the next day or continue.

Take cooled sweet potatoes and scoop out of the skin into a large bowl. Season however you wish. I used cinnamon, and cardamom with a touch of brown sugar. Take your foul and add about 2 tablespoons at a time, folding until you get almost like a sticky dough texture. You do not want to over flour so take your time and watch very closely. Take dough and place on floured surface, rolling into a long pieces. I'd advise flouring your hands and rolling them in more flour if they are still too sticky. Take a dough cutter (if you don't have one, just simply use a knife) and cut into about one inch thick pieces. You can take a fork and create creases on the gnocchi to help them better soak up any sauce you may use or you can use a gnocchi board. When using the board, lightly flour your thumb and press the gnocchi onto board, rolling back and forth.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and drop the gnocchi in a few at a time. They will be finished once they float to the top of the water. Take out immediately and let dry, completely. Continue to do this until all of your gnocchi is cooked.

You can now use the gnocchi like this or you can pan sear them in a little brown butter and sage. My husband loves sweet potato gnocchi with chicken, bacon and apples in a brown sage butter sauce. It's delicious and can be dressed up or dressed down. I hope you won your battle against the delicious gnocchi!

Any love hate relationships with any foods you enjoy?

Apple Pie Braid

 I'm an apple lover, and when I say lover, I mean I'll choose to make anything apple over anything else.  I've been trying to get out of this habit, but apples are just so good, all year round and they compliment so many foods, even savory ones. I've had dough that I made sitting in the fridge and it's been calling my name; I resisted as I was craving hand pies but not the time to make them with my daughter becoming increasingly impatient with me while I'm in the kitchen. I guess she may be a tad jealous of my love for cooking, but if only she knew, my heart would always truly belong to her. 

I'm not a fan of shortening in pie crusts or dough. I don't think you get the flakey light crust, the heavenly taste or feel like you do when you use butter. I was also ecstatic to find another blogger who agreed with this and made a delicious dough that I could use. I have my own recipe my family has used forever but I think hers will now by my go to. Its just so good, and simple. This is not like a other braid recipes that uses actual bread dough with yeast. It's far better.

This post is suppose to be about this delicious dessert BUT, let me direct your attention elsewhere for a second. If you've never heard of Scoutmob, you've been missing out. I love the site with a burning passion, as strong as my passion is for baking, I'm also about supporting local businesses, buying local, and supporting small businesses Now, as I'm overseas it's much harder to do that but Scoubtmob makes it easier. My husband knew I needed a new cutting board and a rolling pin and he bought this custom made from Richwood Creations. When you buy from him, you're also giving to children in his area. If you're stationed overseas as well, or just overseas and want to buy you will have to use shipittoapo.com or an other site that will ship over. That's the only down fall but totally worth it in my eyes. Supporting a cause and a small business, what's better than that?

My husband wins so many husband award points for this score and the thought behind it. My rolling pin says 'made with passion & love' and the cutting board has our wedding date. To have someone understand the love I put in when I'm cooking and baking, makes me just want to cry. I'm definitely lucky in life and love. What a keeper, and I'm so thankful to have a love like this.

Anyway, enough with the sappy stuff, onto the recipe....

Ingredients:

For the dough I used: smitten kitchen (see for instructions)

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted, very cold butter

1 egg (used for egg wash later)

You will half the dough and wrap in plastic wrap and place within the refrigerator until ready to use, if not using within a week, freeze it for future use. 

For the apple pie filling:

3-4 large apples (I used pink lady apples)

one sliced lemon

3 tbsp brown sugar

cinnamon

ground cloves

cardamom

nutmeg

For the glaze:

1/3 cup powdered sugar

5 tsp heavy whipping cream

a pinch of salt and vanilla extract

I wanted a slight chai taste within my apple pie, you can use whatever spices you deem tasty for your apple pie. I also didn't measure them as I spiced to my own taste. 

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, which is also a bit more than 200 C - on my german oven it says max after 200 C. Flour a surface and roll dough out. I have no method to my madness, I just rolled it until it was my desired thickness. Close to 16 x 8 but it just honestly need to be a nice even circle. Once rolled out, move to a lightly greased cookie sheet, (preferably with wax paper or foil to reduce sticking and burning) make 1 inch cuts on both sides of the dough so you can braid, leaving the middle untouched as the apples will go here.

After that is done, set a medium pan on medium high heat. While the pan is heating, peel and chop apples to the size of your choice. Mix ingredients together and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the apples. Bring to a boil and mix together until tender - about 5 to 10 minutes. Let apples cool a bit before adding to your dough.

Add apples within the middle of dough and start folding one over the other. Left to right or right to left, however you prefer. It's very easy and you can't go wrong. Now that you're finished you will now mix the egg with a little water to apply the egg wash to the braid and place into the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a nice golden brown.

Place onto a cooling rack with paper towel under to catch drippings from glaze. It's best if the glaze is brushed on while apple braid is cooling. The glaze will be a thicker texture, and that is how it should be. It will become thinner as brushed over hot braid.

Serve warm with ice-cream or your favorite glass of wine.

Brownie Speculoos Swirl Cookies

Lately, I've been spending time with my little girl and my husband. Having a baby is an amazing experience but it is also hard. I can't seem to balance out having time for myself and doing everything I need for her, I'm slowly learning how to do it, but of course, it's taking time. I find happiness in baking in my kitchen, baking or cooking up a dish off the top of my head or trying out a new recipe - I haven't gotten to do that much lately, mostly I've been throwing things in the crockpot and leaving. My husband knows I've been having the itch, took the baby and demanded that I find something to bake while he took care of her. I simply have to say best. man. ever.

I have so many things I could make for dessert, S'mores Baked Donuts, Speculoos Apple Tarts, Apple Dumplings, Scones, etc the list goes on. All of which will grace the blog in the coming week but I opened my cabinets and I had chocolate, just sitting there and calling my name. I love boxed brownies, don't get me wrong, but nothing is better than making something from the heart, homemade and from scratch. I pulled out the chocolate and an idea popped into my head - if I was going to make a speculoos apple tart with the actual cookies, why not include speculoos in my brownies since I had the cookie butter?

My love affair with speculoos was started long before we moved to Germany, though Germany has made it far worse. The rising craze for the stuff here is outstanding and fun to say the least because it makes for coming up with new ways to use it, that much for exciting.

I went to town in my kitchen as my husband hovered over me, asking what I was doing. Why I was doing that. Dipping his fingers all over my kitchen, being simply impatient to the final product. I love that he is supportive and wants to learn how to make things. Once they were done, I was over the moon. They came out moist, rich and exploding with flavor.

If I had to do anything different though, I would have swirled the crunchy speculoos cookie butter into the batter instead of swirling it. It would have had far more of an intense flavor and impact on the final product OR I would have food processed speculoos cookies and made a crunchy bottom for the brownie cookies. Either way, there is always a next time to experiment.

Notes: If you want even more chocolate melt down the 7 oz, and add another 5 oz of chopped chocolate into the batter for a chocolate lover's heaven.

Ingredients:

Brownie Cookie (adapted from Bakers Royale)

• 7 oz of chocolate, chopped (5 oz unsweetened, 2 oz semi-sweet)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350º degrees (150º C), line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside | Recipe makes about 14 one inch cookies. - most likely could have made more if I didn't make them so thick. 

Speculoos Cookie Butter

• Crunchy or Creamy - Can be found at your local store or easily made, also known as Biscoff.
• Bowl for melting

Place the 7 oz of chocolate into a pot over low heat and stir until melted. If you have bad lucky with melting chocolate and it burning, take a bigger pot, fill it with water and put the smaller pot into that one. It will keep the chocolate from burning even if you can't watch it while keeping it warm and smooth. I used different chocolates because I personally didn't want anything too terribly sweet, you can use whatever ratio of chocolate you'd like. Once melted, set aside.

In a large bowl, add eggs, sugar and vanilla mix with a stand or hand mixer for 15 minutes - until pale and creamy. (it will be a lighter yellow and creamy looking in texture, this part is important) Add flour, baking powder, and the melted chocolate (this would be where you'd add the extra 5 oz of chopped chocolate to the batter if you want something for the ultimate chocolate lover) - let sit for about 5 minutes. 

Spoon 1 tablepsoon of mixture onto wax paper for larger cookies, spread out a bit if possible. If you'd like brownie texture more than cookie, do 1 1/2 tablespoons and don't spread out as much. If you'd like more of a cookie texture, add 1/2 of mixture but spread out a bit more for a cookie feel. I personally wanted the brownie feel still so I made them thicker, which left them moist and delicious on the inside. 

Now, swirl cookie butter into batter and bake 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven so keep an eye on these babies. 

I loved this recipe and I will be making many changes to it, especially flavors wise. I hope you all enjoy. What's your favorite way to have brownies?

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Best Filet Mignon, EVER!

I only have one picture of this, simply because it was an experiment. I honestly, had no clue what to do with the filet mignons I pulled out of the freezer the other night and thawed. My husband said this was the best I'd ever done on a filet, and he wants it again very soon! I love when my little cooking adventures turn into something far beyond what I had imgained.

Here is everything you'll need.

For Filet:

2 6.oz Filet Mignon
1 tsp Garlic
1 tsp Mediterranean

Salt & Pepper

1/2 tsp Cilantro
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

For Homemade Mash:

4 Red Potatoes
Boiled Water
1 tsp Salt
Fresh or Frozen Spinach

For Caramelized Onions:

Yellow Onions

1 tbsp White cooking wine

Sugar


This is actually very fast and easy to cook. Fill a pot with hot water, and place the stove on medium. Put some salt in the water, cut up red potatoes with or without skin and let cook for about 30-40 mins. Once done, season to your own taste. Take a pan and cook fresh spinach until wrinkled or take frozen spinach and cook in microwave, and drain water. Add spinach to mash potatoes and set to the side.

Take filet mignon and place on a napkin for a good 30 to 60 mins before cooking to let some extra water out, so you don't end up steaming the filet, instead of pan searing it. My filet mignons came with bacon on them - if yours comes with bacon as well, heat the oven to 350 and cook the bacon for about 10 mins and set aside when done. Heat up a skillet or cast iron with a little extra virgin olive oil to coat it. Do not add any seasoning to filets before cooking them, you'll understand why afterwards! Once the skillet is heated, place bare filets into skillet and let them cook for 4-6 mins on each side for medium-rare, and longer for medium and up. When it's to your desired taste, place on a wooden cutting board that is seasoned with the seasonings recommended for the filet or experiment on your own. Place hot filets on cutting board for 5-10 mins and let the juices drain. Sprink a little more seasonings on top of filet, and let sit. You can either cut them into slices at this point or leave it whole.

You can use the same pan you cooked the spinach in for the caramelized onions so there isn't a lot of dishes to wash. Spread extra virgin olive oil on the bottom of smaller skillet pan and place the onions in, sprinkle with just a pinch or two of sugar, mix, and let sit until one side of a light brown, and add 1 tbsp white cooking wine, and let reduce and then brown the other side, and you're done.

After everything, I cut the filet mignons, placed them on top of the homemade mash mixed with spinach and then placed the bacon I set on the side on top of the filet (I cut them into smaller pieces) and last but not least, top everything off with the caramelized onions.

I hope you all enjoy! I've been so inspired lately, so many more recipes to come. <3 p="p">