Carrot cupcakes

Here's the continuation of what I did with carrot pulp. I made carrot cupcakes. I would have to say, I really liked the cupcakes more than the cookies. With or without the frosting, these cupcakes are tasty. Also from King Arthur Flour.

Recipe:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/3 cup diced walnuts (optional)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup grated carrots, lightly packed; about 2 medium-large carrots

1. Add all of the wet ingredients in a mixing bowl--the eggs, water, and oil--and mix by hand or with an electric mixer on medium. By the way, if you want to frost your cupcakes, take out your cream cheese and butter to let them reach room temperature. It helps to break them into smaller pieces.

2. Add all of the other ingredients, minus the carrots. Mix until combined.

3. Stir in the carrots.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

5. Line your cupcake tins with paper and fill the papers, leaving 1/2 inch room at the top for expansion. (That makes me think about Starbucks...would you like room?).

6. Bake for about 12-14 minutes. To test if the cupcakes are done, insert a toothpick, knife, or fork. If it comes out clean, the cupcakes are done.

7. Take the tins out of the oven. Turn the cupcakes on their sides to let steam escape, or else the bottoms can become soggy. Let them completely cool to room temperature before frosting.


Cream cheese frosting: this made too much frosting for me, because I like my cupcakes with only a little frosting. I would say cut this by 1/3 or 1/2 and you'll be good.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
one 8-ounce package cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (aka Confectioner's sugar), sifted.
milk or cream to adjust consistency of frosting, if necessary

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese (make sure they are room temperature) on high until mixed. Add the salt and vanilla.

2. Add 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar in small batches. Beat on low at first, otherwise the sugar will go flying. Increase the speed to high until well mixed. Add more sugar if you want the frosting to be thicker/sweeter.

3. Frost your cupcakes.

Delicious!

Carrot Cookies

So one of the doctors whom I work with recently received a juicer as a gift from a patient. I wish I got gifts that expensive! Anyway, he went and bought lots of fruits and vegetables to make juice out of, including carrots. When I was using the juicer, I was sad about all of the carrot pulp that I was throwing away. The next day at work when I make more juice, I decided to take the carrot pulp home. I made carrot cookies and carrot cupcakes (see other post) with them. Since the juice was already extracted from the carrots, I added a few splashes of milk to make sure it didn't turn out dry.

This recipe is from King Arthur Flour (yes, I use this website a lot), which they call Take-10 Super Cookies.

Recipe:

1/2 cup toasted nuts
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) boiled cider (for great flavor; substitute maple syrup or dark corn syrup, if desired)
1 cup shredded fresh carrots
1/2 cup dried cranberries, packed
1/2 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, organic preferred
1 1/2 cups quick rolled oats

1. Chop your nuts and toast in a pan on a stove on medium heat for about 3 minutes. You could also toast in an oven or toaster oven, but I have a tendency to forget about them and end up burning the food.

2. Mix oil, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt, vanilla, syrup, and egg by hand or with an electric mixer on medium or high until smooth.

3. Mix in the carrots, cranberries, chips, and nuts until combined. Then the flour and beat on low until mixed.

4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets or line with parchment paper (I used a silicon baking sheet).

5. Add in the oats and stir until mixed.

6. Drop the 1-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the pans. It should make about 30 cookies. I made 12 huge cookies instead. If you make larger-sized cookies, make sure to press them until the dough is even. These cookies don't spread out much in the oven, so you can space them pretty close together, like an inch apart.

7. Bake for about 12-15 minutes. They will be soft, so let them cool completely on the pans before moving them.


They were pretty healthy, minus the amount of sugar in them. The cranberries became slightly juicy, which contrasted nicely with the toasted nuts. I didn't use quick rolled oats....I tried using steel cut oats. The result: the oats were not cooked all the way. All in all, a pretty good cookie.

Stewed Sausages

So this week has been a great week for quick easy meals! Here is number two from the last week after the salmon was made. It was great and super easy to make, the hardest part is really just chopping up the veggies. Here is how it goes:

Ingredients:

4 large Italian Sausages (about 1 lb total)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

3 large bell peppers of any color

1 onion (white or red)

2 jalapeños

Oregano, Parsley, Thyme, Salt and Pepper for seasoning

1 cup dry red wine

1 tablespoon of butter

1/2 bag of Trader Joe's Israeli couscous

1 1/2 cup of chicken broth

3 tablespoons of butter

Start by putting your sausages on a skillet to cook while you chop your veggies. You will just let them go getting nice and charred on all sides.

Also start your couscous, by following the instructions on the bag or putting the chicken broth and butter in a pot to boil.

Once you have your veggies all diced you will soft them in a skillet. To dice the veggies refer to Tammy's picture in a previous post on how to dice an onion. For bell peppers just slice them in half, and remove the inner core. Then slice some long strips of bell pepper length wise, take a handful of bell pepper strips and slice them horizontally in about 1/2 inch intervals. You can just slice the jalapeño horizontally. Add your oil to the skillet and heat, then add your veggies. It will look like this:

Your sausages should look like this when they are done.

Here is your butter and chicken broth.

Your veggies will take about 15 minutes to soften, which is perfect because uncooked sausages take about 15-20 minutes to cook and become stewed. When your veggies are done they will look like this. While your veggies are stewing you should also have a boiling pot of chicken broth. Add your couscous to the pot and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Then add your red wine and let it cook for about 2 minutes with the sausages, then add the butter and cook until melted.

Put everything together and eat!

YUM!