A Better Mug Cake, Take 2 (As in, better than the Better Mug Cake!)

I know it's been a while. Things have been crazy, but they are finally calming down.

Here's a quick run down of what I've been up to in the past two weeks:

• Successfully finished my first year of graduate school.
• Completed my first internship for the program.
• Started a cool second internship for the summer with a trade magazine.
• Attended "opening night" for the 2012 drum corps season!
• Ran in the Run for Your Lives 5K in Indiana...I didn't make it out "alive," but I had a blast doing it!
• Bought new running shoes (in anticipation of the awful things that would happen to the old ones at RFY).
  
• Got my first "big girl" job--still working out the details, but I'll update on that a little bit later... =)

Anyway, all of this busy-ness has meant less time than usual for cooking. I've been making some tasty summer salads to take to work for lunch, and I'll be posting some recipes for those later.

But, salads? Surely that's not why you're here, looking at this post...

No, you're here because you've seen my claim for a better, better mug cake. I'm not exaggerating, either. This cake is faster and simpler, with fewer ingredients, and completely amazing. And fewer calories than the original!

The great thing about this mug cake (aside from all of the above benefits) is this: it makes a tasty, delicious chocolatey sauce at the bottom of your mug. And the more milk you add, the more sauce you get! (Although I suspect you would eventually hit the law of diminishing returns with that one...but I haven't yet.) It reminds me of the pudding cakes my friends and I would make at sleepovers back in high school: dense, chocolatey cake with a rich sauce underneath to spoon on top, that we'd eat straight from the pan at some point after midnight. I'm pretty sure that cake came from a box, but this one certainly doesn't have to!

Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me figure out where I found this recipe. (I'm usually very good about these things...but the site never made it to my bookmarks!) So, I'm not trying to plagiarize, and if you know where the recipe came from, please tell me so I can link to it. And leave a raving review.

Saucy Chocolate Mug Cake (Or, the Best Mug Cake Ever)
Serves one

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp skim milk (or a little more...) 
• Toppings and/or mix-ins

Some of the usual suspects...

Steps

1.  Combine the dry ingredients in a microwave-safe mug with a fork.

Mix it up!

2.  Add the vanilla and milk. Stir to combine. Add a spoonful of chocolate chips or other mix-in if desired.

What's a well-loved recipe without a little spill on it?

3.  Microwave on high for 45 seconds. Check the cake--it should be mostly dry on top, but you should be able to sort of tilt it back and forth by pressing gently near the rim of the mug. That's a good sign that your sauce is alive and well down at the bottom. Microwave for 10-15 seconds longer if necessary.

An 8-oz mug works fine, as long as your heart can can handle
the pop-up effect. If you're afraid of overflow, use a bigger mug.

4.  Top with Nutella, peanut butter, or whatever. Or just dig in! Enjoy!

Before topping--I realized I never got a good picture of the
"saucy" part--but trust me, it's down there on the bottom!!

4.  Top and enjoy!

Topped with Trader Joe's Almond Cocoa Spread
and a few chocolate chips.

Very good! And around 200 calories, depending on how much milk you add, and your mix-ins and toppings. Enjoy.

Spaghetti Squash with Peanut Sauce

The quarter is FINALLY winding down for me. Tests are over, projects are ending, and only one paper and a few hours of grading stands between me and the end of my first year in graduate school. It's sure been an interesting ride.

All of the craziness means that my food choices have been of the "quick and easy" variety. So, today I'm sharing two recipes that are simple, fast, and go great together: spaghetti squash and peanut sauce. They're easy and delicious, and in a pinch you can make the entire meal in the microwave (as I did when our kitchen sink was clogged and stove top cooking was out of the question).

Spaghetti squash is a really interesting vegetable. At first glance it just looks like a big yellow squash:

2 1/2 pounds of squash-y goodness.

But once you hack it open (and believe me, hack is the right word), it's full of pumpkin-like seeds and pulp, and a thick layer of flesh made up of little strands or "noodles."

See?

You can treat it like a vegetable and turn it into a side dish, or use it like a noodle and make it the foundation of a meal. You're probably not going to fool anyone into thinking it's pasta, but the spaghetti squash is delicious in its own right, and you still get to twirl it around your fork.

Oh, and did I mention they are cheap? Spaghetti squash usually goes for about $.69/pound at my Kroger, and I snagged this one for $1.75. A 2-1/2 pound squash is plenty for two people to eat as a main course; if you're cooking for one, just wrap the uncooked half in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. It will keep for several days until you are ready to use it.


Quick Spaghetti Squash
Serves 2

Ingredients

1 small spaghetti squash (about 2-1/2 pounds)
Desired toppings (meat, veggies, and/or sauce of your choice)

Steps

1.  Remove any stickers and wash the spaghetti squash with soapy water.

2.  Pierce the spaghetti squash at least once with a knife. Microwave it on high for one to two minutes. This  softens the squash just enough to make it easier to cut and clean. (I don't think your squash will explode after two minutes in the microwave, but I pierce it just in case!)

3.  Remove the squash from the microwave and place on a cutting board. Use a large knife to cut it in half either way. The thing you need to know about the spaghetti squash is that the strings run in rings around the squash, not from end to end. If you cut it in half lengthwise (which is more difficult, since you have to deal with the stem), you're cutting the strands in half. If you cut it across its "equator" (which is easier) you'll get full strands but the halves are a bit trickier to deal with as they are less stable. 

Aside from pre-cooking for a minute or two, I really
haven't discovered the "trick" to making this easier.

(Or, poke some holes in it, cook it whole, and deal with it later--but it's going to be very hot, so be careful!)

4.  Use an ice cream scoop, melon baller, or a sturdy spoon to scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp. Word on the blogosphere is that you can clean and roast the seeds just like pumpkin seeds, but I haven't tried it.

I love my ice cream scoop for this.

5.  Place both squash halves cut side down in a microwave-safe dish (like a glass pie pan). Add about 1/3 cup of water to the dish. Microwave on high for about 7 minutes, then check it and continue to cook in 1-minute intervals as needed. When cooked, the flesh should be soft and easily pierced with a fork.

6.  Hold a squash half with a potholder and carefully use a fork to fluff the strands (works best if you pull the tines against the grain of the squash). Scrape the strands out into a bowl or cutting board.

How neat is that?

7.  Eat the squash as is, add some butter and Parmesan, or top it with a sauce. Spaghetti squash is one of those foods that can take on other tastes very well. Help it along by undercooking the squash just slightly, and then tossing the strands with the sauce in a pan over low heat for a minute or two. The sauce will latch on to the squash, and you'll end up with perfectly cooked strands.

Although many of the recipes you see for spaghetti squash treat it like pasta, I think it works better with Asian flavors. Like peanut sauce. My recipe below is the result of reading a lot of recipes and testing a few. Many recipes call for coconut milk, which I don't particularly care for, but if you like it you can replace half the water with it.

Peanut Sauce
Enough for one 2-1/2 pound spaghetti squash

Ingredients

1/4 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy, your choice)
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp lime or lemon juice
1 clove crushed garlic
1/2 cup water
Sriracha hot sauce and/or crushed red pepper, to taste

Steps

1.  Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until bubbling and thick. Or, combine the ingredients in a microwaveable bowl or container and heat in 30-second intervals until combined. Add more water for a thinner sauce.

You can serve the peanut sauce hot or cold.

2.  Store any leftover sauce in the fridge for about a week. You may need to thin the chilled sauce with water before serving.

Combine your spaghetti squash, peanut sauce, and any veggies or proteins you like.

Spaghetti squash with peanut sauce and some stir fried chicken.

How do you like your spaghetti squash?

Mangia! Going back to my roots with homemade pasta

This week has been a good week. We're getting close to the end of the quarter and classes are a little crazy, but things have been good otherwise. I'm wrapping up the project with the hospital, and I started training for my summer internship. I also got to spend the whole week with Paul, which is always a treat--it's funny to think that we won't be long distance for too much longer!

This week I also accomplished one of my culinary goals: making pasta from scratch. I sort of inherited my great-grandmother's pasta maker, and decided it was time to put it to use. If you've never seen one of these things (and I hadn't until I saw this one), they're pretty nifty:

Still in the original box. If you look closely, you'll see the
price: $19.95.

Unboxed. The first slot is for rolling and the other two are
for cutting different widths.

The unfortunate thing is that even though I have my great-grandmother's pasta maker, I don't have her recipe. My guess is that (like a lot of the things she made) she never needed one. The recipe you see below comes from Italian Cooking Made Easy and uses both semolina and all-purpose flour. Semolina is coarser than regular flour and makes the dough a little sturdier, which is good if you are using a pasta maker or making a stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini.

I've tried to show some of the technique through the pictures, but if you're really interested in trying this I highly recommend watching a few videos. This one by chefpaulm52 on YouTube is one of the best one around.

So after studying up on my pasta-making technique and finding an available photographer (Paul) for capturing action shots, I made some pasta!

Homemade Pasta
Serves 2 as a main dish, probably 4 as a side

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1/4 cup semolina flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 eggs

 Steps

1.  Combine the two flours and salt in a bowl. Pour onto a work surface like a wooden cutting board or a clean countertop. Mound the flour and form a well in the center. Beat the eggs and olive oil together, and then carefully pour them into the well.

Keep the egg contained in your flour volcano.

2.  Using a fork, carefully knock some flour into the egg a little at a time, stirring to combine. Keep the walls of your well intact as much as you can to corral the egg.

An action shot of the stirring process.

A close up of the flour going into the egg.

Eventually, you'll end up with a gooey flour mess that looks something like this:

You'll keep adding flour as you knead the dough.

3.  Gather the flour mess together and start to knead it, incorporating more flour as needed. My method was to form it into a log (lying vertically) and then fold up about a third from one end and press down with the heel of my hand, and then fold it up the rest of the way and press down again. Then I rolled it with both hands until it was a log again (now lying horizontally).

Add flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking.

4.  Keep kneading it and adding flour as necessary for at least ten minutes. Eventually, the dough will start to change. It won't feel so dry and will become easier to knead. It will become softer and smoother, and sort of tacky. It will start to feel...a lot like Play-Doh, actually.

See the difference?

Once this happens, ball it up in your hand and poke a finger in. If the dough bounces back all the way, you're done kneading.

The finger test.

Wrap the dough in some plastic wrap and let it rest for 30-60 minutes at room temperature.

The dough's tired--it needs a break.

5.  Now you're ready to roll! Cut the dough into small pieces, and keep them covered with the plastic wrap until you're ready to work with them. Take one piece of dough and flatten it with the floured heel of your hand. Run it through a wide setting on your pasta maker.

You don't have to go through each setting on the pasta
maker--the instructions for mine said to run the dough through
number 7 a few times, then number 4 once, and then
number 2 twice.

Fold the piece of dough in thirds (fold the ends in so you end up with a nice rectangle), flatten it, and run it through the wide setting two or three more times, folding after each rolling. This helps knead and stretch the dough a little more.

Run the dough through a medium setting, and then a thin setting once or twice (without the folding step). Then, switch over to the cutting blades! We used the wide noodle blade, which resulted in a fettuccine shape.

Cut noodles and dough waiting to be rolled.

Toss the cut noodles with a little flour to keep them from sticking together. At this point you can refrigerate or freeze the noodles, or lay them out to dry.


6.  To cook the fresh pasta immediately, boil a pot of salted water and add the noodles. Be sure to shake off the excess flour before you throw them in the pot.

Into the pot they go!

Cook the fresh pasta for only about 2 minutes! Then, drain it and serve as you normally would.

That's what I call a balanced meal.

This pasta was probably one of the best things I've ever made! It had a great texture and just the right amount of "bite." Two minutes was the perfect cooking time.

Another blurry action shot. Paul couldn't wait to dig in!

Yum!

I'll never know how my pasta compares with my great-grandmother's...but I'd like to think she'd be proud.  

Noodles with Swiss Chard and Peanut Sauce

Well, it's been a while. A very eventful while.

In the past month since I last posted, I witnessed Paul's graduation and celebrated Mother's Day. I've seen a roommate evicted and discovered that the kitchen sink was clogged. I've finished the first draft of my project for Cincinnati Children's. I've done a six-mile run, my longest to date. And though I haven't told you much about it, I have done quite a bit of cooking.

I've had to be creative the past couple of days because the kitchen sinks are still clogged, which means I can't make too much of a mess. It's difficult to clean up without a garbage disposal, a dishwasher, or even just a place to wash your hands. So, I've armed myself with paper plates and plastic utensils for the duration, and gotten friendlier with the microwave and toaster oven. More on that later.

For now, it's back to happier times. To cat times. To these cats:

Lila & Squish.

These cats belong to my friends Doug and Stacy, who went off to Boise last week and needed a house/cat sitter. Which means that I got to spend almost a full week with these little (adorable) balls of fur. The cats really aren't important to this story. I just like them and the picture.

Anyway, the point is that taking a mini-vacation from my house was pretty nice. I'm a creature of habit, but sometimes I need to shake things up.

A food related example: spinach. I have been buying pre-washed, organic baby spinach in plastic tubs for months now. Every week it went in the cart at the store. Every week it ended up on my sandwiches, sauteed with my eggs, wilted in my pasta...and finally I just couldn't take it any more.

Enter the new leafy green on the block: Swiss chard. Similar health benefits, but prettier. And cheaper, too. I got a bunch (organic) for about $1.50.

My roommates' reaction: "What is that giant vegetable?"

Now I've seen chard popping up in recipes for a while now, and had a vague idea of what it was, but it took my spinach ennui to help me take the leap. And I have to tell you, this stuff is pretty tasty. To me, the greens taste like thicker spinach, but in a way that is different enough to keep me interested. It's a little crisper, maybe. The stems taste sort of like beets. Which is odd, because I don't really like beets, but I like these stems. So in short, Swiss chard tastes like things I don't feel like eating, but in a way that makes me feel like eating chard. (My relationship status with Swiss chard: It's complicated.)

Anyway, here's how you prepare it:

1.  Fill a large bowl or a clean sink with water. Add your chard and swish it around to clean the leaves. If there is any grit, it will sink to the bottom.

2.  Using paper towels or a salad spinner, dry the chard. (I suppose you could also do this after you cut it--might be easier that way!)

3.  Lay a leaf on the cutting board. Cut off the end of the stem and discard it. Run the tip of a sharp knife along both sides of the stem to separate the greens.

Easier than it sounds, I promise.

4.  You can leave the stems whole or cut them up (assuming you want to eat them--some people throw them away). I chopped mine up like celery.

Chard comes with different colored stems. Mine was just red, but
I've also seen yellow and white in the supermarket. Sometimes stores
bunch several varieties together and call it "rainbow chard."

5.  Bunch or roll up the greens and slice them. I don't think it's the conventional way of doing things, but I like to roll them up from a short end and then slice so that I end up with long ribbons of chard. They mix well with pasta that way!

Pretty and healthy.

6.  Store your chard greens in a paper towel-lined bag or plastic container. I washed out one of those spinach tubs and used that. Store the stems separately.

You'll probably end up with more than you thought.

After you chop it all up and see how much space it takes, you'll probably be wondering what you are going to do with all this chard. Well, you can eat it raw, saute it, steam it, boil it, stir fry it...you name it. But for some more specific options, The Kitchn's Open-Faced Ravioli is a great choice. Or, if you've cut it into nice long ribbons, a noodle dish might be appropriate.


Noodles with Swiss Chard and Peanut Sauce
Serves 1

Ingredients

2 oz long pasta, such as linguine or fettuccine
1 1/2 cups Swiss chard greens, cleaned and cut into ribbons
1/4 cup of Swiss chard stems, cleaned and sliced
1/2 cup snap peas
1/4 cup carrot, sliced into disks (half a medium carrot, or a handful of baby ones)
1 clove garlic
1-2 tsp cooking oil
Soy sauce
Sriracha hot sauce
2-3 tbsp prepared peanut sauce (homemade or store-bought--I don't have a good recipe yet!)

Steps

1.  Boil a pot of salted water (or add soy sauce to the water) and add the pasta. Cook it for the minimum time indicated on the package. When there is about 4-5 minutes left of cooking time, add the carrots. When there is about 2 minutes left, add the peas. Drain.

2.  Meanwhile, heat the oil in a nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Add the chard stems and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the chard greens, garlic, and soy sauce and sriracha to taste. Saute for another minute or two, until the greens are just wilted. Turn the heat to low. (You could just as easily boil the chard with the noodles too--I just happen to like the sauteed texture better--or saute all your veggies. It's up to you!)

3.  Add the drained noodles and vegetables to the frying pan. Pour the peanut sauce on top. Toss everything together (tongs work well for this) and cook for another minute. Serve with extra condiments, if desired.

Noodles, veggies, and sauce. Does it get any better?

The great thing about this recipe is that it's adaptable and a great way to clean out the fridge. With so many veggies, you don't need a huge serving of pasta. And once you get a feel for how long different kinds of vegetables need to cook, it's easy to switch things up. You could also add chicken, beef, tofu, or some other kind of protein to this dish, or use a different kind of sauce.

So, have you tried Swiss chard? What do you do with your leafy greens?

A Better Mug Cake

Friday's pudding post has had me thinking about dessert, so I thought I'd share another dessert recipe with you while we're on the subject.

If you've been anywhere near Pinterest, StumbleUpon, or any of the hundreds of cooking blogs out there on the internet lately, chances are you've encountered the mug cake. As fads go, this is one of the ones that you either love with all your heart, or you hate.

Taking a cue from the multitude of recipes and comments I've read, there seem to be two main problems with the standard mug cake: too eggy, or too oily. Most recipes use a whole egg for one little mug cake, so I can see how that would be overpowering. Oil adds richness to the cake, but too much is not a good thing.

After experimenting quite a bit with the mug cake and the mug brownie, I think I've created a pretty good recipe. Maybe not the best, but, as the title claims, at least a better recipe than the standard one floating around.

My first attempt was based on a mug brownie recipe that left out the egg altogether, thereby solving one problem, and I further decided to eliminate the oil by replacing it with plain nonfat yogurt. The results were edible, but the cake was gummy and a little too tangy for my taste.

For my second attempt, I surmised that a completely nonfat mug brownie probably wasn't ever going to taste that great. So I used just a tablespoon of oil in the batter, and it was better but still suffered from the gumminess problem many people have experienced with these cakes. It really needed a little bit of "lift" to improve the texture.

The recipe that I'm giving you here is the third variation, no eggs and no oil involved. I used just a pinch of baking soda to make it lighter and fluffier without egg. I also swapped out the oil for something better...peanut butter! The (odd? weird? interesting?) thing about this cake is that you don't really taste the peanut butter, but it adds that element of fat that you need to keep it tasting like cake. Sometimes I play it up by adding a dollop of peanut butter on top.

Chocolate Mug Cake
Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• Dash vanilla
• 4 tbsp flour (sometimes I sub instant oats for one or two tablespoons--the texture takes some getting used to, though)
• Pinch of baking soda (really, just a pinch will do!)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3-4 tbsp skim milk
• Toppings (optional)

Steps

1.  Start by adding the peanut butter and vanilla to a 12-oz microwavable mug. Microwave on high for about 30 seconds until the peanut butter is melted.

Add the peanut butter...

...and get it nice and melty.

2.  Add the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and cocoa powder to the mug.

Dry ingredients next.

3.  Add 2 tbsp of milk and stir with a fork to combine, being sure to scrap the sides and bottom of the mug. Add more milk as needed until the mixture looks like cake batter.

Now is the time to indulge your cake batter
fantasies, without risk of salmonella.

4.  Place the mug in the microwave and cook on high for one minute. I always use a 12-ounce mug just in case, but this cake doesn't rise nearly as much as the ones that use egg in them.

Check the cake and continue to cook in 15-second intervals as needed, being careful not to overcook. Mine are usually done after a minute, although there's usually a small uncooked spot on the very top in the center. But since there's no egg in the batter, I don't worry about it!

Mug cakes are not the most photogenic food.

5.  Top the cake with a dollop of peanut butter or Nutella, sliced fruit, or whatever you like.

An attempted close-up of the texture.

My honest opinion: cake made in the microwave will never live up to "real" cake baked in the oven. That said, if you are going to make cake in the microwave, you don't have to settle for a gummy blob. Read recipes and comments, experiment, and see what happens.

So, what do you think? Have you tried mug cake? Do you have an even better recipe?

Chocolate Pudding for One

One of the challenges of cooking for one is dealing with my favorite meal of the day: dessert.

I only really bake brownies or cookies when I've got someone to give them to (students and housemates are great for this, most of the time). Muffins and other baked goods only get made when I can claim some space and stash a few in the freezer.

That means that the solo dessert-eater is a bit limited in choices, especially if you don't live with other people who are willing to eat the rest of that two-tiered chocolate cake for you.

The mug cake/mug brownie craze is one option, and I'd have to say it's a pretty good one. Some other choices are ice cream and hot chocolate, also good. But sometimes I get sick of them, and sometimes I just want something different. When that happens, I turn to this recipe: chocolate pudding.

Mmmmm.. warm, homemade pudding.

I know what you're thinking: isn't that what they make pudding cups for? Yes, probably, but I never seem to think that far ahead when I grocery shop, plus who knows if I'll feel like pudding that week or not. Personally, I find it easier to just keep a lot of basic ingredients on hand, so that I can make whatever appeals to me when I want it.

This recipe actually derives from a hot cocoa recipe on the Eating Well site. I found it when I was in a hot chocolate mood, and the short list of ingredients appealed to me. As I read through the comments, I was intrigued by one reviewer's observation that simply adding more cornstarch to the recipe resulted in something more pudding-like. I took the idea and ran with it.

The recipe you see below makes enough pudding for one chocoholic, or probably two regular people. The full serving is about 170 calories if you use skim milk. (I haven't tried it with nondairy or any other type of milk.) If you want to make hot cocoa instead, reduce the amount of cornstarch to about 1 1/2 teaspoons. Or, if you get tired of waiting for your pudding to thicken I suppose you could just drink it instead.

Chocolate Pudding
Serves one, but is enough to share!

Only four basic ingredients! And you probably have them!

Ingredients

1 cup milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Dash of vanilla, optional
Dash of salt, optional

Steps

1.  Heat milk in a saucepan over the lowest heat setting.

I've found that this funny looking flat spoon is the best
stirring utensil for this. You can use a whisk in the beginning,
but switch to a spoon for the best pan-scraping ability.

2.  Stir in sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa. Add a dash of vanilla and/or a pinch of salt, if desired. Whisk or stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until combined.

It looks messy at first.

But it will come together!

3.  Heat, stirring frequently. Scrap the sides and bottom of the pan with the spoon often.

If you're bored at this point, you could probably just stop
and have hot chocolate.

4.  The mixture will eventually begin to thicken. When it comes to a simmer (slow bubbles every few seconds), stir constantly.

Look for the slow bubbles.

5.  Cook and stir until the mixture reaches a thin pudding consistency. (It will thicken some as it stands.) Pour into a bowl or container.

At this point, if you've planned ahead, you can refrigerate your pudding to eat later. Press a piece of plastic wrap into the pudding surface if you want to avoid the pudding skin, or just cover it loosely if you happen to like the skin.

I, however, seldom realize that I want pudding until I really want it right then. So I just pour it into a bowl and let it cool a bit while I wash the dishes, and then eat it while it's still warm.

Top it with strawberries or banana slices!