Black Forrest Cake

 

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 cup milk or buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil 

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup boiling water

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup powder sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cherry pie filling. 

1.  Preheat oven to 350 Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray.

2.  Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.

3.  Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter until well combined.

4.  Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center of the chocolate cake comes out clean.

5.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.

6.  Whip whipping cream with vanilla and powder sugar until still.

7.  Lay first layer of cake on board or plate, add a little whipped cream icing on top of cake. Add cherry filling to middle. Add a wall of icing around cherry pie filling to keep it in the center of cake. Add top layer of cake. Cover in whipped icing, add cherry pie filling to middle of top layer. Decorate as you like.

Lasagna

 

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• 1 1/2  pound spicy Italian sausage

• 1 pound lean ground beef

• ½ cup minced onion

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes

• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste

• ½ cup water

• 6 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, divided

• 1 teaspoons dried basil leaves

• 1 teaspoons salt, divided, or to taste

• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

• 3/4 teaspoon fennel seeds

• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 12 lasagna noodles

• 16 ounces ricotta cheese

• 1 egg

• 1 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced

• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese 

• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• • 1. Cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic in a Dutch oven over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and water. Season with, 4 tablespoons parsley, basil, 1 teaspoon salt, Italian seasoning, fennel seeds, and pepper. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

    2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining 2 tablespoons parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

    3. Preheat the oven to 325 

    4. To assemble, spread 1 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with 1/3 of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with 1/4 of the mozzarella cheese slices and shredded mozzarella. Spoon 1  cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers twice, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.

    6. Bake in the preheated oven for one hour m Remove the foil and turn oven to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until top is golden brown. Rest lasagna for 15 minutes before serving.

Birria Ramen

This soup is really good if you like spicy you're going to love it. I did change a lot from the original recipe. I will leave the link for the original so you can check it out. I love Birria tacos so I knew this was going to be good. I don't like cloves in any dish besides dessert and especially  Birria tacos. I left the cloves and cinnamon out of the recipe, I also changed the beef broth out for chicken broth.

Here is the original recipe https://www.marionskitchen.com/birria-ramen/

3 lb beef short ribs, bone in.

1 T salt

1 t pepper

2 T olive oil

1 onion, chopped

7 cups Chicken stock

1 package 10oz ramen

Marinade

1 7oz can Chipotle peppers in adobe sauce 

1 14oz can crushed tomatoes 

1/4 cup rice vinegar 

6 cloves garlic, chopped

1 t  Oregano 

1 t cumin

Toppings

1 cup chopped cabbage 

2 soft boiled eggs

1 jalapeno 

1 lime, quartered 

Fresh cilantro to top

Place beef ribs in a deep rectangle container, sprinkle all sides with salt and pepper.

Place all marinade  ingredients in a food processor,  blend until smooth. Pour mixture over beef ribs making sure they're well coated. Refrigerate over night. 

Next day place a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add olive oil, followed by the chopped onion.  Saute gently for two minutes.

Add the short ribs to pan scraping off excess marinade beforehand (reserve marinade). Cook, turning often for about 5 minutes until all sides are a golden brown. Pour reserved marinade over beef short ribs in pan, followed by the beef stock. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and cook for 4 hours until the meat is very tender and the bone has fallen out.

After 4 hours scoop up roughly half of the red oil that is sitting on top of the broth and place into a separate bowl or container for later.

Place a frying pan over high heat and add about two tablespoons of the excess oil. Shred the beef, when oil is hot add beef to pan and cook until crispy.

While the beef is crisping turn the broth up to high and when it starts to boil add your ramen noodles and cook until tender.

Divide between four bowls, add your Ramen, broth then top with your beef short ribs, cabbage, soft boiled egg cut in half, cilantro, jalapeno and lime.

Biscuits

 

These biscuits are really good. I will put the link to her page down below hope you get a chance to go over and visit her page.

https://sugarspunrun.com/easy-homemade-biscuits/#recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter very cold (85g), unsalted European butter is ideal, but not required

¾ cup whole milk¹ (177ml) buttermilk or 2% milk will also work

• For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.
• Preheat oven to 425F and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Set aside.
• Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.
• Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or (preferred) use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir.
• Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
• Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough).
• Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable. 
• Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough.
• Use your hands (do not use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2 ¾" round biscuit cutter with flour. 
• Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet.
• Repeat until you have gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than ½" apart on baking sheet. 
• Once you have gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.
• Bake on 425F for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown.
• If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm and enjoy.

Wonton soup

 

I picked up one of those huge bags of the cilantro chicken wontons from Costco. I knew I wanted to make soup with it but it wasn't for sure what I was going to do with the rest since it's a lifetime supply for Just the Two of Us. But I think I will be making the soup a few more times so it should have a package covered and I may actually have to get another one before they go off sale.

Next time I think I will get some mushrooms maybe some dried shiitake and soak them in boiling water for a little bit and then add them to my soup, even chopped up broccoli would probably be really good and baby bok choy would be great in it. I like the mushroom and baby bok choy together ideal. I only had a zucchini and garlic and a little bit of ginger in my refrigerator so I just threw those in. But it's really a tasty quick soup. Be great for a cold night and something fast and easy to make when you get off work. From start to finish this didn't take no more than 20 minutes to make.

6 cups chicken broth

1-2 T  soy sauce

1/2-1 t finally grated Ginger

2 chopped garlic cloves

I  added one finely diced zucchini to it since that's all I had. But if I would have thought about this ahead of time I would have added shiitake mushrooms and baby bok choy.

4 thinly chopped green onions

30 small Frozen wontons. I used the chicken cilantro ones from Costco. Any wontons would work.

salt and white pepper to taste 

Sesame seed oil

garnish with chopped cilantro.

Add the first six ingredients to your pan and bring to a boil, add your wontons and cook until they're done about 5 to 7 minutes. Add your salt and white pepper to taste.  Ladle into your serving bowl and drizzle a little sesame seed oil on top and garnished with some cilantro.

Enjoy!