Sweet Potato Bread Pudding

So this delectable dish is what I decided to make for the church dinner tomorrow. Because December just calls for a ridiculous amount of sweet potatoes. I tweaked this recipe for Pumpkin Bread Pudding and was so pleased with how it turned out! It calls for pumpkin bread, but I had some leftover Cream Cheese Pound Cake that was turning rather dry, so I decided to use that. I also didn't have any pumpkin, so I used sweet potatoes instead. I also added some pumpkin pie spice, since I wasn't using pumpkin bread. Yuuuuuummy! The pound cake got nice and soft, but not soggy, and the custard formed a wonderful sauce underneath the crust, that just begs to be poured all over the top.


It was the perfect balance of sweet and spicy, creamy and crusty, with a delicate underlying flavor of sweet potato. You could add whipped cream, but with that custard sauce, I just didn't think it needed it.



Here's my tweaked recipe.

Sweet Potato Bread Pudding

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tbs vanilla
  
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 cups pureed sweet potatoes
  
• 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  
• Cream Cheese Pound Cake, cubed and dried, recipe here

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Combine the cream, milk, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.

Whisk together the yolks, sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, and sweet potato puree in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in the hot cream mixture until combined.

Scatter the pound cake cubes in a buttered 9 by 13-inch baking glass baking dish. Pour the custard over the bread, pressing down on the bread to totally submerge it in the custard. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow the bread to soak up some of the custard.

Place the pan in a larger roasting pan and pour hot tap water into the roasting pan until it comes half way up the sides of the glass dish. Bake until the sides are slightly puffed and the center jiggles slightly, about 1 hour.

Remove from the oven and water bath and cool on a baking rack for at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm, spooning custard over top.

The big news!

It's a...

It's another soup day!

It's starting to get chilly around here! This past week has been a beautiful 70s week, but next week is forecasting low 30s and snow. Eh. But of course, there's always the benefit of more soupful days. : )
A few days ago I tried my hand at a Butternut Squash soup suggested to me by my sister.
Butternut Squash is one of my favorite foods in the whole world. I really don't think I could get sick of it. And it's a positive powerhouse when it comes to nutrients! One cup has 107% of your daily beta-carotene intake, which may help prevent acne, cancer, and macular degeneration. It also has tons of fiber, lutein (which again helps with macular degeneration and possibly colon cancer), potassium, and thaimin (a brain booster, that may help with memory and mood!)
It also has a significant amount of magnesium, which may be beneficial for allergies, asthma, cardiovascular health, high bp, and kidney stones. Wow! It also has lots of vitamin B6 and C. Talk about a healthy veggie.
I've had rather unsuccessful experiences with squash soup in the past, but have always thought it sounds just amazing. So I decided to give it one more shot. And this one had bacon and cream cheese in it, so I figured my chances were a lot better. : ) It was actually quite good! Very creamy and smooth, with a deep, yummy squash flavor. I thought it was a bit thin, so I ended up making a roux with the leftover bacon fat and flour, then mixing in a ladle of the soup, before whisking it into the soup. That seemed to thicken it up, and I think we enjoyed it more that way, but if you like thinner soups, it was really just fine. It was even better the next day reheated, after the flavors had intensified a little bit. However, although we enjoyed it, I doubt I'll go to the trouble of making it again. It was just weird enough that it wasn't something we'd eat often. But it was a fun experiment!


Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

6 tablespoons chopped onion
4-6 slices of bacon
6 cups mashed, roasted butternut squash (I usually half mine, drizzle with olive oil, and roast them in the oven at 450 for a couple hours, or until fork tender...add some butter and salt and this also makes amazing mashed squash.)
3-4 cups chicken stock
a sprinkle of cayenne pepper
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (you could definitely cut this back, maybe even in half)

Saute onions and bacon together in a skillet until bacon is cooked and onions are translucent. In a saucepan, bring chicken stock to boil. Puree squash and cream cheese in a blender or food processor in batches until smooth. Add to chicken stock in saucepan, and heat through. Add bacon and onions. Do not allow to boil.


*If you want a thicker soup:
Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of flour over bacon grease in skillet. Stir together and cook until the flour absorbs the grease and turns brown. Allow to bubble and cook for a few minutes. Turn off burner and add a ladle full of soup to the skillet, stirring to combine. Add about 1/8 to 1/4 cup of the roux to the saucepan, whisking well to dissolve. Continue to cook soup until it reaches desired thickness.

I have one more soup (for now) in my archives to post...it's been my husband's favorite so far, so you know it's good!

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Mmm. Fall and soups just go together so perfectly.


Every night I want soup. Of course, it could be because we're being stubborn and haven't turned the heater on yet, and soups are just so warm. But either way, they're good.


Last night we had Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup. Yummy! I kind of made it up from a variety of different soup recipes, and then added my own twist, so I'll try my best to recreate the recipe here. Here goes!



Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

First things first, cook your wild rice in chicken broth...I'm not very good at cooking wild rice. I always boil out of broth at least twice, and the rice starts sticking to the pan. And it always takes way longer than the instructions say it should. So I usually end up with undercooked rice. But if you can do it right, it's amazing. Or you could just be smart and buy the Uncle Ben's version. I'm just not that bright.

Vegetables- You could use whatever you want here. This was not a premeditated soup, so I just used whatever I could find, which was:

1 cup dry wild rice, cooked to package instructions
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 carrots, chopped
About a cup of frozen corn
About a cup of frozen peas
A few cloves of garlic
A couple of chicken breasts, chopped
I used a packet of Creamy Chicken flavor from a package of ramen I had laying around, just for some extra flavor.
1/4 cup of flour (approx.)
5 cups of milk (approx.)

While your wild rice is cooking, saute the veggies and chicken breast in some butter and olive oil until everything is nice and cooked. Once it's all cooked, mix in your packet of seasoning (or various seasonings of choice.) Allow it to simmer for a few minutes, then sprinkle everything with flour. Just sprinkle in enough to cover everything, but probably not more than 1/4 cup. Stir that all together and allow to simmer for another couple of minutes. Now pour in as much milk as you want...this is variable, because it depends on how brothy you want your soup to be. I like brothy soups, so I used probably 4-5 cups. If you're not like me, and you actually have chicken broth left after cooking your rice, you can use that and just cut back on the milk. Stir until the flour's all mixed in, then add the rice (and broth if you have it.) Now just let it simmer on low until it's thickened a little and is nice and bubbly. Taste and adjust with salt if needed.


Tomorrow I'm making Butternut Squash Soup!

Pretzrolls...

So I think I've stumbled on something amazing. My new favorite roll recipe. And it's so easy. It's actually a soft pretzel recipe. But when I tried them the first time, the pretzels were so soft that they didn't really hold their shape very well, and weren't really the right consistency for pretzels. But the flavor!



Lovely. They actually have that sweet pretzel flavor. So this time, instead of making them pretzel shaped, I just made them into pull apart rolls.


And they were marvelous. I ate like five of them with supper. I'm pretty sure they could have been my supper. And they're so easy! They're supposed to raise for an hour, but I think I only let them sit for about 30-40 minutes, and they turned out just fine. I'm not the best at planning ahead, so it works out great for me. : )


Here's the recipe I used. I just made three little balls for each roll and put them in a greased muffin tin.


I didn't do the baking soda wash on them, but just brushed them with butter and sprinkled with sea salt. Then, after they came out of the oven, I just brushed them with butter again. Yum yum yum!!

We had it with Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, but that will be a recipe for another day...

Party in your mouth!

So, the wonderful thing about potatoes and eggs is they are cheap! We currently have lots of potatoes and eggs, and so I've been trying to find creative ways to use them. I've found my favorite. Potato-Crusted Quiche. Mmmmm. I believe my husband's exact words word "It's like a party in your mouth!" I used this recipe from Tasty Kitchen, but made some alterations, so I'll just post my version on here. I used ham instead of pancetta, didn't have any spinach so I left it out, and added swiss cheese and some garlic. I also thought the egg mixture was a little thin, so I added an extra egg. It was truly amazing. The sweetness of the swiss cheese and the saltiness of the ham blended perfectly with the sundried tomatoes. And the layer of the potatoes on the bottom...I can't describe it, but they just added a whole other layer of buttery, tender deliciousness. I can't wait to have the leftovers for lunch on Monday!



Potato-Crusted Ham and Swiss Quiche with Sundried Tomatoes

• FOR THE POTATO CRUST:
• 1 pound Red-skinned Potatoes, Cut Into 1/8-inch Slices
• 1 Tablespoon Butter, Melted
• ¼ cups (packed) Grated Parmesan Cheese
• ½ teaspoons Kosher Salt
• ½ teaspoons Freshly Ground Black Pepper

• FOR THE FILLING:
• 3 ounces ham Cut Into 1/2-inch Dice
• two cloves of minced garlic
  
• 4 whole Eggs
• 1 cup Whole Milk
• ⅓ cups (packed) Parmesan Cheese
• ½ teaspoons Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• Sundried tomatoes
• Three slices of swiss cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine the potatoes, melted butter, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Coat a 9-inch pie plate with cooking spray and arrange the potatoes in concentric circles on the bottom and sides of the dish. Make sure to cover the spaces between each potato slice with another, as the slices will shrink during cooking and you want to avoid having gaps between the potatoes. Bake until the potatoes are light golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

Tear up one of the slices of swiss and layer on the potato crust.

Fry the ham with the minced garlic over medium heat, until browned. Spoon on top of the potato crust. Layer on sundried tomatoes. Sprinkle with some of the parmesan.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, pepper, remaining parmesan, and last two torn up slices of swiss.

Pour on top of the ham and tomatoes. Bake the quiche until the eggs are set and golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. To test, insert a small sharp knife into the center of the eggs. If it comes out clean, the eggs are set.

Let the quiche cool for 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.

My hutch.

So when we moved to our new home here in Colorado, we didn't have a dining room table. Well, we had one, but it was hideous. The chairs were fabric covered roller chairs. Roller chairs. For the dining room. Ew. Oh, and they were missing a bunch of buttons. So there were nails sticking out the backs of them, so we had to put pillows on them so we didn't stab holes in our backs. I didn't like that table. So I decided it was most definitely not worth moving. Anyway. So when we got here, we just didn't have a table and chairs for awhile. And then we found a beautiful used set on craigslist! Score one for a decent craigslist in a big city. : ) The best part was, there was a matching hutch!



I've always wanted a china cabinet/hutch of some sort. And it was even better timing because the place we are renting has a little more limited cabinet space, so the hutch gave us the extra room we needed.



I love the distressed look, and the chicken wire on the doors. I use the wine rack to store all my vinegars...sneaky, huh!
Isn't it pretty? : ) And it makes my plates look so lovely.