Saturday Morning Snapshot
Let’s do this thing…
State of the Blog
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I hope you are spending it exactly how and exactly with whomever you want to.
We were in full-on Valentine’s Day mode here on the blog this week. Up first was my favorite ham and potato soup, perfect for a cozy night in with the one you love. On Wednesday, I posted a super simple, super easy pink hot chocolate recipe. That recipe really took off on StumbleUpon, so if you found the blog via SU, howdy! We ended the week with my small batch cinnamon rolls and guys, I am so glad to have finally posted this recipe. I did so many test batches of these amazing things that my freezer is filled with them!
Next week I finally get to publish a recipe I’ve had floating around my brain for years, we’re starting a new, recurring set of posts called “Waste Not,” and we’ll continue our February soup and stew series with recipe number three.
Recipes/posts released this week were:
Easy and Comforting Ham and Potato Soup – Pure comfort food in a bowl. Easy, fast, and low-calorie, this is one of my favorite busy weeknight meals. Pink Hot Chocolate With Mason Jar Whipped Cream – The cutest hot chocolate ever, with homemade whipped cream! Easy Overnight Cinnamon Rolls for Two – A rich and indulgent breakfast with outrageously amazing cream cheese frosting. Make the rolls the night before, throw them in the oven in the morning, and enjoy your breakfast in bed. No fuss, stress, or mixer needed!
Pop-culture Corner
Anyone seen any good movies lately? I’m usually an avid moviegoer, but I haven’t made it to the theaters yet in 2016. I might try to catch The Revenant before the Oscars, but I don’t know. That’s a long movie and I don’t love Iñárritu.
The Hamilton cast will be performing the show’s opening number at the Grammys this Monday!!! In other news, I will be watching the Grammys this year.
What’d you think of the Captain America: Civil War trailer that dropped during the Super Bowl? I wasn’t super into most of the adds this year, but I was pretty in the bag for this one.
Bryan Fuller is helming the new Star Trek series for CBS. I repeat, Star Trek is returning to television under the care of my very favorite show runner. Today is a happy day.
And speaking of Fuller shows, you can and should make this origami Hannibal heart for the murder husband in your life this Valentine’s day.
Meal Planning
Saturday: Pizza Margherita Sunday: Chicken Curry Monday: Easy Creamy Chicken Pasta with Bell Peppers Tuesday: Light and Healthy BLT Salad Wednesday: Panini Thursday: Chicken in Cream Sauce Friday: Tortellini Soup
Pink Hot Chocolate is the cutest hot chocolate ever with homemade whipped cream you can make in a mason jar!
Photos have been updated. Don’t worry. You’re in the right place. 😉
Well, Valentine’s Day is just a few days away. Where do you come down on our national hearts and flowers day? Love it? Hate it? Sort of tolerate it?
I’m totally split. On one hand, it’s a holiday that places undue stress and expectations on people in and out of relationships. On the other hand, it’s a day on which people give me flowers and candy, and it gives me an excuse to make things like Overnight Cinnamon Rolls for Two and maybe my Mini Chocolate Sheet Cake , soooo…
How ever you feel about the day, I have a super quick and easy Valentine’s Day recipe for you that’s too cute to resist: Pink Hot Chocolate with Mason Jar Whipped cream.
How delighted would partners, kids, roommates, Airbnb guests, whomever you are sharing your Valentine’s Day with, be to come into the kitchen and find a cup of this stuff waiting for them?
Making the Pink Hot Chocolate is so fast and easy and the whipped cream uses good old fashioned elbow grease, no mixer necessary. If you have a mason jar, a couple minutes, and a dream, you can make this.
Two notes on the recipe: make sure to use white chocolate you like the taste of by itself. It should go without saying, but this is what your hot chocolate will taste like. I used low-quality chips that I like fine in cookies but would never eat by the handful in one of my first test cups, and the resulting hot chocolate was so gross I nearly scrapped the entire recipe. For the next cup, I used higher quality chocolate and it was amazing. Good chocolate makes all the difference!
And on the whipped cream, depending on your altitude, type of cream, stamina of your shaking arm, the consistency of your finished product may vary from pipeable to spoonable. Either way, it’s delicious! And if you want guaranteed stiff, pipeable whipped cream, you can always whip it the old fashioned way–with an electric mixer. 😉
More Hot Chocolate Recipes
- Easy Hot Chocolate (Classic)
- White Hot Chocolate
- Rich and Thick Hot Chocolate
- Chai White Hot Chocolate
- Frozen Hot Chocolate
- Snickerdoodle Hot Chocolate
Ingredients
Whipped Cream
- ▢ Pint-sized mason jar with lid
- ▢ 1/4 cup cold heavy cream
- ▢ 1 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
- ▢ Dash of vanilla optional
Pink Hot Chocolate
- ▢ 2 cups milk
- ▢ 4 oz good-quality white chocolate chopped
- ▢ 2-4 drops red food coloring
- ▢ Sprinkles optional
Instructions
Whipped Cream
- Put your mason jar in the freezer for 15 minutes, so it is very cold.
- Pour in cream, sugar, and vanilla.
- Screw on lid and wrap the jar in a towel if it is too cold to hold. Shake vigorously until you no longer hear liquid sloshing inside, about 5-7 minutes. Check the consistency of your whipped cream before setting in the refrigerator while you make your hot chocolate.
Hot Chocolate
- In a small saucepan, heat milk. Add chocolate and stir until completely dissolved and milk reaches desired temperature. Do not allow to boil. Remove from heat and stir in food coloring.
Assemble
- Pour into cups, spoon on whipped cream, and top with sprinkles.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutritional Information Whipped Cream Adapted From: Food Wishes
Old Photography, Circa 2016
Green eggs, ham, and cheddar cheese in a buttermilk crust make a fun and delicious tribute to one of Dr. Seuss’ most beloved works. So tasty you might not want to share them with the kids!
This might sound a little odd coming from a grown-up human being, but I LOVE Dr. Seuss. In college, I worked for three years doing one-on-one therapy with autistic children, which meant I spent many hours reading and reading children’s books with my clients. Dr. Seuss’ books were the only ones I never ever tired of. I still have half of them memorized and some nights when I can’t sleep, I see how far into The Lorax I can recite before I drift off.
March 2nd is Dr. Seuss Day ( Read Across America Day ), so now seemed the perfect time to post this Green Eggs and Ham Mini Quiche recipe!
This idea has actually been bopping around in my head since my therapy days, but as some of you may know, many autistic children have a hard time with oddly textured foods like eggs. Getting them excited about eggs that were suddenly a new color too would have been a hard sell. And since I don’t have kids yet, I’m sharing them here today in hopes that you’ll share them with your kiddos/nieces and nephews/students/ random kids on the street just kidding don’t do that that’s a terrible idea .
These things are made with purely kid-friendly ingredients. We start with the amazing flaky buttermilk crust, add diced ham, egg, a little green dye to give us our titular color, and then top the whole thing with cheddar cheese.
Bonus, this particular pie crust recipe is SO easy to work with. You make it in the food processor so you don’t have to worry about hand cutting butter into the flour, and it is so much easier and more forgiving to work with than your usual fat and flour pie crust. It’s perfect for when you have little hands helping you cut and roll, and it is what I use any time I am making something that requires more hands-on time than just draping and cutting. Believe me, this is not the last time you’ll be seeing this dough recipe on the blog.
The end result is these super simple, super adorable mini green eggs and ham mini quiches, and guys, they ARE SO GOOD.
I realize I made these intending them to be a kid’s snack, but leave out the food coloring and they are still the best quiches I’ve ever made. Once I tasted them, I was of half a mind to just publish them as regular mini quiches so adults would try them too!
What I’m basically saying is: I will eat them in a house. I will eat them with a mouse. I will eat them here and there. I will eat them anywhere!
The buttermilk pie crust in this recipe now has its own post on the site. If you’d like to see a step-by-step walk through for making this dough, go check it out.
Ingredients
Buttermilk Crust
- ▢ 1 cup ( 8 oz) cold unsalted butter cut into 1-inch chunks
- ▢ 2 1/2 cups ( 350g ) all-purpose flour
- ▢ 1 tablespoon sugar
- ▢ 1 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 2/3 cup buttermilk
Filling
- ▢ 1/2 cup cooked ham diced very small
- ▢ 2 large eggs
- ▢ 1/4 cup milk
- ▢ 3-4 drops green food coloring
- ▢ Salt and pepper
- ▢ 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
Buttermilk Crust
- Before you begin measuring everything out, place the cubed butter in the freezer to chill.
- Sift together flour, sugar, and salt, and pour into the food processor. Add butter and pulse until butter is cut into the flour, but still has visible chunks.
- While pulsing, slowly pour in the buttermilk and continue to pulse until the buttermilk is incorporated into the dough. At this point, your dough should look like rough crumbs and just hold their shape if squeezed together. The dough will look a little scary, but don’t worry. It’s supposed to look like that!
- Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and dump half of your dough (crumbs) onto the sheet. Gather the edges and press tightly together to form a 1-inch thick disk. Do the same with the rest of the dough.
Rest
- Refrigerate for at least an hour, up to 24 (I like to make the dough the night before).
Prepare Crusts
- Preheat oven to 400°F and spray your mini muffin tin with cooking spray.
- On a floured surface, roll out your disks to 1/8-inch thick. Cut into 24 to 30 2 1/2-inch rounds. Press rounds into muffin tin.
- Pre-bake crusts for 10 minutes. If the centers of the crusts have puffed up, gently push them down with the back of a wooden spoon.
Prepare Filling
- Turn the oven down to 375°F.
- Whisk together eggs, milk, and food coloring.
- Add about a teaspoon of ham to each cup. Pour egg mixture over the top of the ham, filling to nearly the top of the crust. Do not overfill!
- Sprinkle salt and pepper over each of the cups. Top each with cheese.
- Bake for 11-14 minutes until your filling is set and cups are lightly golden.
Notes
Used To Make This Recipe
Small Yield Instructions: This recipe halves cleanly, no cooking changes needed. Make Ahead Instructions: This dough will keep in the refrigerator for 48 hours or up to 2 weeks in the freezer. Ham can be cut up to two days in advance. If you are short on time the day you need these, I recommend making them completely in advance, freezing, and defrosting them day of. You really can’t tell they were ever frozen. Freezer Instructions: Allow to cool completely and freeze in an air-tight container. To reheat in the oven, bake on a cookie sheet at 350°F until warm, about 10 minutes. You can reheat small batches in the microwave by cooking them for 1 to 2 minutes.
If you make these, I would love to see them! Tag me @bakingmischief onTwitteror #bakingmischief onInstagram!
I was so excited to use this Dr. Seuss hat in the photos, but you can’t really tell what it is, so here’s a cat in the hat instead. 😉
