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It’s definitely been awhile since my last Kitchen Conundrum… This whole once a week thing just isn’t quite working out for me. Somewhere between working, photographing, and everything else.. well, life happens!

Anyway, I actually made this recipe a couple months ago! (That tells you how busy I’ve been!) This is one of Colin’s favorite meals, and I must admit, I’m quite fond of it as well! I used to make it often before we went overseas.  It’s so easy and fast to make that it’s perfect for any type of family:  busy couple like ourselves, or even the on-the-go mom with four children!  I mean, fresh veggies, ravioli, and pesto – how can you go wrong!?!?! This recipe is from a cookbook I found at Tuesday Morning called Betty Crocker Annual Recipes 2005.  It has a photo with every recipe which is a HUGE deal to me!

This recipe is actually called Spring Ravioli with Pesto Cream.  You start off by boiling some water and cooking the ravioli as instructed.  The recipe calls for the frozen ravioli, but I tend to use the Bertolli refrigerated kind.  Then you sauteing green beans, roma tomatoes, and yellow bell pepper (or capsicum as aussie and kiwi friends would say).  While those two thing are going, in a separate bowl mix sour cream, pesto, and lemon peel.  Once the raviolis are finished, drain and add to the vegetables.  Add the sour cream and pesto sauce and mix until warm and sauce is evenly spread.

WA-LA!  A yummy homemade pasta dish!  And not to mention good for you and full of color!

So here’s the recipe for Spring Ravioli with Pesto Cream:

2 tsp – olive oil or vegetable oil
8oz – green bean, cut into 1 1/2 in. pieces
1/2 medium yellow bell pepper cut into 1/2 in pieces
3 roma tomatoes, cut into 1/2 in. pieces
1/2 tsp – salt
16oz – frozen cheese filled ravioli (from a 24 oz bag)… as I said I just use the package of Bertolli refrigerated ravoili.  It’s a few more ounces, but I think it turns out fine!
1/2 cup – sour cream
3 TBSP – basil pesto
2 tsp – grated lemon peel

Hope you try it and enjoy!  It really is a great summer dinner!

By:  Andre’a Feldhaus – who obviously needs quick, easy, and delicious meals… cause i’m SO FAR BEHIND! lol

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While we were in New Zealand, we stayed a week with an awesome family.  Louise was a vegetarian and had the sweetest boy Liam (see pics of them here).  Anyway, Louise was an excellent cook and made some authentic vegetarian “kiwi” foods.  About 2 months ago, I started craving this one dish that she made us… pumpkin cannelloni.  All I have to say is, thank goodness for Facebook!  I was able to send Louise a message and within a day or so, had the recipe to settle my craving!

A couple things to note… 1.)  Pumpkin in Australia and New Zealand would be squash to us.  Most of the pumpkin they eat is either butternut or buttercup squash to us.  2.)  In NZ, they use grams to measure with… instead of cups or ounces.  It’s a bit tricky sometimes to figure out how much you really need!  3.)  This recipe was put out by a company called Wattie’s.  This would be similar to Green Giant here in the States.  Well, actually, probably bigger because they make EVERYTHING it seems like.  Wattie’s is a staple food item name in any Kiwi pantry or fridge/freezer.

So, now to begin.  Pumpkin (or squash) is a pain to work with for because cutting the rind off is SO hard to do.  But if you can get past that… it’s worth it!  (And I must say on a side note… I used to despise squash.  I hated the taste and texture of it.  For some reason, over the past couple years of being overseas, I grew to like it… maybe it’s an acquired taste?)

Here’s a couple of photos of me getting the pumpkin ready.  Once you de-rind it and scrape out the seeds on the inside, you can either roast it or microwave the pumpkin.  This, obviously, cooks the pumpkin and makes it soft to work with.

I chose to roast the pumpkin.  I just put the pieces on a cookie sheet and stuck it in the oven for 30 minutes or so.  Once it came out, I was able to mash it.

Then I added the parsley, cottage cheese, eggs, salt and pepper.  One thing I have learned is that pumpkin itself is quite bland… so don’t go stingy on the salt and pepper.   Once it was all mixed together, I put the mixture into a gallon size zip lock bag to pipe.  I cut a slit at the bottom of the bag and squeezed the pumpkin filling into the manicotti tubes.

Once all the tubes were filled and placed in the pan, I poured the canned tomatoes on top and covered the pan with foil.  (This keeps the moisture inside the pan to cook the pasta tubes.)  Then I let it cook at 375 degrees for a little over an hour.  The last 10 minutes I actually removed the foil and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top to melt.

Here’s the final product.

Of course, mine didn’t turn out quite as good as Louise’s did, but they still tasted great!  Here’s the link to the original recipe: http://www.foodinaminute.co.nz/Recipes/recipe_default.aspx?recipeid=88 Hope you enjoy!

By:  Andre’a Feldhaus… vegetarian cook for a day

This next recipe I found on the food network as well (can you tell that I LOVE the food network!)  Anyway, I actually watched Tyler Florence make these Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars the same day as I was watching about the pretzels (my last kitchen conundrum).  But they both looked so delicious I had to try them both.

I ran into a couple of problems, which is nothing new to me.  I rarely make anything where I don’t run into problems, but it’s usually my fault.  This time I found a box of graham cracker crumbs in the pantry!  Who knew they made already crushed up graham crackers?!?!  (Talk about getting lazy!)  This was actually a really handy thing, however, it made making the crust a bit difficult.  You see, the box had it’s own directions on how to make a graham cracker crust…. while Tyler Florence had another.  Tyler’s recipe actually calls for 9 graham crackers crushed.  Well, I had to google search how many cups equaled 9 crushed graham crackers.  When I mixed all the ingredients together for the crust, it didn’t seem quite the right consistency.  I should have just followed the Keebler’s recipe for graham cracker crust on the box… oh well.

I made it past the crust issue and started in on making the filling.  I got my mixer out and put in the cream cheese, eggs, and lemon zest.  What made this recipe sound so good to me, what the fact that it called for real lemon zest and juice.  When it came to the lemon juice, Tyler Florence said to filter the juice through your fingers.  That way all the seeds and lemon chunks won’t get in the cheesecake.  Here’s a couple of photos of me filtering out the seeds…

Look how lovely my hair looks… NOT!  I seriously had no idea my hair looked that scary.  Why don’t people tell me these things!

I did run across another problem… I was too excited to start baking, that I didn’t quite let the cream cheese warm up to room temperature.  This caused the batter to be a bit lumpy.  I was kinda sad about that, but it was my fault, and what could I really do at this point.

I finished mixing the batter and poured it into the pan (which Tyler recommends lining with parchment paper!  Very helpful for these!)  Then I sprinkled the blueberries on top – and for this I had some frozen ones that I de-frosted.  Probably not the ideal thing to do, but I was able to finish up the bag and rid something from the freezer.  YES!  (That’s why they look a little wrinkly.)

Here’s the final product coming out of the oven.  The only bad thing about this recipe is, you have to let the cheesecake bars cool when you take them out of the oven, and then put them in the fridge for at least 3 hours.  Talk about torture!  You have to wait forever just to eat them!  UGH.  But for me it was worth it.  I loved them!  However, I will admit, a few of my other family members thought they were just “ok”.  I think the lemon flavoring was quite strong for them… so beware if you decide to make these.  Make sure you like lemon!

Here’s the recipe for the Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

For the base:

• Butter, for greasing
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 9 graham crackers
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

• 16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 2 lemons, zested and juiced
• About 1/2 cup sugar, eyeball it
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• Powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

For the base:

Grease the bottom of a 9 by 9-inch baking pan with butter. Then place parchment paper over the top, pressing down at the corners. In a food processor, process the sugar, cinnamon and graham crackers until you have the texture of bread crumbs. Add the melted butter and pulse a couple of times to fully incorporate. Pour into the lined baking pan and gently pat down with the base of a glass. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes until golden. When done set aside to cool.

For the filling:

Add cream cheese, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar to the food processor and mix until well combined. It should have a smooth consistency. Pour onto the cooled base and then cover with blueberries. They will sink slightly but should still be half exposed — as the cake bakes they will sink a little more and break down.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the center only slightly jiggles. Remove from the oven and cool completely before refrigerating for at least 3 hours. Once set, remove from pan using the parchment lining and slice into 10 rectangular bars. Dust with powdered sugar.

By:  Andre’a Feldhaus – food network star wanna-be

A couple weekends ago, we were in Eden relaxing with family and enjoying the company of an old friend.  We ended up watching some shows on the food network (of which I – Andre’a – am addicted).   As we were watching, we came across this recipe by Guy Fieri for homemade soft pretzels.  I can’t tell you  the last time I had a soft pretzel, so let me just say, it looked delicious!  It looked and sounded so good that I decided to buy the ingredients and give it a try.

I’ve never made homemade pretzels before so I was a bit nervous.  And it did prove to be a little more difficult than I expected.  Mixing the dough was the easy part.  Then we had to roll it out and fill the center with cheese.  That was a bitt tricky, but I was able to fold over the dough and pinch the edges closed so the cheese would stay in the center.  Anyway, here are some of the photos Colin took of me as I was making and shaping the dough.

The final products looked great… I could hardly wait to taste them.  Two things I noticed:  First off, Colin was in charge of salting the pretzels.  We bought a sea salt grinder that he used to grind salt chunks onto the dough.  However, poor Colin could only see the big chunks of salt that came out onto the pretzel… not the fine powder that came along with it.  So our pretzels ended up a bit more salty than we anticipated.  And secondly, to be honest, for as much work as it was to make them, they weren’t overly spectacular.  I would seriously probably just save a ton of time and go to target and buy one in the food court.  But it was fun to make them and learned a lot.

Here’s the recipe for Guy’s Knot for Nuthin, Everything Pretzel

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water, 110 degrees F
• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus 1/2 cup for work surface
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups grated sharp Cheddar
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1/2 teaspoon poppy seeds
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 teaspoon dehydrated onion flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
In a glass measuring cup, add the warm water and the yeast. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes.

In a food processor fitted with a dough blade, add the dry ingredients and the Parmesan and pulse together 3 times at 5 second intervals. Add in 1 egg and the warm water and yeast mixture. Mix until the dough comes together, pulse for 10 second intervals 3 times. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface or cutting board. Knead 10 to 12 times, adding a little flour, if sticky. Cut the dough in half and set aside.

Roll out 1 piece of dough to a 12 by 17-inch rectangle, about 1/4-inch thick. Sprinkle 3/4 cup of the Cheddar in the middle (short way). Fold 1/3 of the dough over, and sprinkle with 3/4 cup of the Cheddar. Fold the last third over and pinch the edges closed. Roll with a rolling pin to form an 11 by 15-inch rectangle. Cut into 1 1/2-inch lengthwise strips.

Pinch the cut edges together and then roll into cigar shape. Form into a pretzel shape and put on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat. Repeat with second ball of dough.

Beat the remaining egg and the milk in a small bowl. Mix well. Brush the formed pretzels with the egg mixture and then sprinkle evenly with the poppy seeds, sesame seeds, onion flakes and kosher salt.

Bake until nicely browned, about 16 to 18 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool. Serve warm or room temperature.

By:  Andre’a Feldhaus… master baker (or san angelo wedding photographer)

Last week, I was going through and cleaning/organizing my mother’s pantry.  I noticed she had TONS of baking ingredients… way more than she would ever use.  (I think they were supposed to be for baking holiday goodies, but we ran out of time!)  So, I had a challenge… trying to find a good recipe that would use quite a few of these ingredients to clear some shelves in the pantry.  Well, since we had a few packages of the block cream cheese – I decided on a cheesecake.  (Now I’ve baked a real cheesecake one other time, and it didn’t turn out too well.  It was a peach cheesecake, and although the flavor was amazing, it cracked on the top and sunk.  It was very traumatic!)  But hey, that was a few years ago, so why not try again!  Then I found lots of chocolate chips, marshmallows, and nuts.  Perfect for Rocky Road.  How can you go wrong combining two of my favorite things… cheesecake and rocky road ice-cream!?!?!

I searched for a recipe online and decided on the one from cook.com.  I got all my ingredients out, and started in on the baking.  I will admit, I do have one reoccurring cooking problem… sometimes I get really excited to actually get started, that I skim the instructions and mess up things.  Thank goodness, usually it’s nothing major.  Let me explain what my mistake was this time.  The recipe called for 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream and 1 cup of chocolate chips.  You are supposed to take the heavy cream and 1/4 cup of the chocolate chips and heat them to make a chocolate sauce to mix in with the cream cheese mixture.  Well, me (zoned in to the baking mindset), skimmed the instructions and read it wrong.  I just read to heat the heavy cream and the chocolate chips.  So what did I do?  Yes, I melted the whole cup of chocolate chips with the cream!  I let that cool and moved onto making the cream cheese filling.  Right before I poured the chocolate sauce into the cream cheese mixture, I decided to read on.  That’s when I found out I had (apparently) made too rich of a chocolate sauce.  So I had a choice… do I only mix part of the sauce in with the cream cheese mixture, or do I pour all of it in there.  I decided to follow one of my husband’s all time cooking rules:  You can always add a little more of butter, vanilla, chocolate, or garlic.  So, into the cream cheese went the whole pan of chocolate sauce.  How bad can it be, right?

I will also say, I aspire to become a real baker.  I don’t really know what that means for me and my life, but it truly is a passion.  That being said, i’ve seen many shows on the food network where they bake things that are set in a roasting pan of water.  (usually things like custards.)  I’ve never actually made anything where I needed to do that.  Well, to my surprise, this cheesecake recipe said to!  I put my cheesecake pan into a roasting pan filled half way with boiling water.  I felt like I stepped it up a notch in my baking skills.  Kinda random and nerdy, I know, but I felt like one of the “big dawgs!”

Well, after the buzzer rang, I took the cheesecake out of the oven.  It looked perfect!  There were no cracks on the top and it didn’t sink at all!  SWEET!  Then was the moment of truth.  I cut a small sliver (because I had a feeling it would be a bit rich) and gave it to Colin… who was warned of my slight mistake.  He took one bite and without saying anything, stood up and gave me a big hug.  Score!  He said it tasted fantastic.  I’ve only had a small bite myself, but it does taste great and is quite rich.

One last random note:  I was in a bit of a hurry when I was decorating the top.  I put the marshmallows around the edge and then made some more chocolate sauce to drizzle on the top.  Since I was trying to do things quickly, I used the big plastic stirring spoon that I melted the chocolate with, to drizzle the sauce on the cake.  This was not a good idea.  I would advise you use always use a small spoon so the drizzling stays in thin lines.  Mine had a couple large splotches from the big spoon.  Oh well.

Also… I was too scared to take the cake off the metal base, so yes, it’s in the pictures.

ROCKY ROAD CHEESECAKE: recipe from cooks.com

1 1/2 c. chocolate wafer crumbs
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Press in bottom of 9 inch springform pan. Wrap outside of pan tightly in foil.

FILLING:

1/2 c. heavy or whipping cream
1 c. miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
3 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. flour
1/3 c. marshmallow creme
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
5 lg. eggs, at room temperature
1 c. chopped pecans, divided

Heat cream and 1/4 cup chocolate chips in small saucepan over low heat, stirring until chocolate is melted; cool. (or if you’re me… heat the 1/2 cup of cream with the whole 1 cup of chocolate chips – then cool!) Beat cream cheese and sugar in mixer bowl until fluffy. Beat in flour, then chocolate mixture, marshmallow cream and vanilla until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

By Andre’a Feldhaus

So here it is… my first kitchen conundrum blog. I have been thinking a lot about what I want this to entail… and I’ve narrowed it down to pretty much anything in the kitchen. As much as I wanted to, i just couldn’t narrow it down any further. There is just too many things that go on in a kitchen. Some days it might be a yummy dessert recipe that i stumbled upon, or a quick easy meal for the busy on-the-go family, or maybe just a new amazing kitchen gadget that I discovered. Whatever the topic may be, I hope you find my little side blog “the kitchen conundrum” a fun and useful site to read.

Ok… now for the real topic. I have this yummy soup recipe that I got from a friend I met in New Zealand. Her name is Eliza and she made this Chicken Spinach Enchilada soup for about 8 of us. I thought it tasted delicious so I asked for the recipe (which I will share at the end of this post). I’ve made it twice now. The first time was a 3-4 months ago. It was the perfect Sunday afternoon lunch on a chilly day… and it wasn’t hard to make or time consuming! Double bonus!!!
The second time I made it… today (Tuesday), I changed it up a bit. I was going through my parents refrigerator after the holidays and noticed a ton of leftover turkey. We’d already had turkey sandwiches and made “turkey” spaghetti instead of chicken spaghetti… so our options we beginning to dwindle. But, I HATE to waste food, so I was up for the challenge. I immediately thought of this Chicken Spinach Enchilada Soup recipe. I decided I would just substitute the turkey for the chicken. Yeah, the turkey might be a bit stringy, but I figured it would still taste great while getting rid of the turkey.
I only needed a couple things at the grocery store – which meant I was using up a lot of things in the kitchen (which I LOVE to do)! The recipe does call for one box of frozen block spinach thawed and the juice squeezed out. Well, I found one box of spinach in the freezer, but since I needed to double the recipe i needed more. I didn’t have time to thaw another box of spinach so I just bought a bag of fresh spinach. I started getting everything out to begin cooking, when my mother told me she had quite a bit of frozen turkey broth from when she cooked some of the leftover turkey awhile ago. Uhhh, brilliant! Using up even more things in the freezer! So my simple soup recipe that i was going to make with only substituting the chicken, was getting further and further away from the original recipe. Thank goodness I love to experiment because I had no idea how this would turn out. And on a quick side note… don’t be afraid to change recipes up a bit. I (on multiple occasions) have taken out a spice that I’m not too fond of and replaced it with one i prefer… or just added some more veggies, or different veggies. That’s half the fun of cooking!

So, now I was using turkey instead of chicken, real turkey stock instead of chicken stock, one box of block frozen spinach and a bag of fresh spinach, frozen onion intend of a fresh one, and added a bit of garlic – which wasn’t in the recipe. And the cooking began. I will admit, I am a bit of a health nut… this meaning, when possible i use the healthier alternative. For example: fresh ingredients instead of frozen or canned, lower or non fat items instead of full fat, and possible lower sodium. While I was heating up the turkey stock, I could tell it was a tad fattier than I would usually make, but for the sake of cleaning out the freezer… it was worth the sacrifice (and it would obviously taste better).

Here’s some more pics of the final product… what i will just rename as Turkey Spinach Enchilada Soup. It is served with tortilla chips and cheese and with all the changes I made to the recipe, it still tasted amazing.

Try it out for yourself! And don’t be afraid to substitute different ingredients. It won’t always be good (said from experience) but a lot of times it’s still just as delicious… and a lot of fun.

The original Chicken Spinach Enchilada Soup recipe:  from Eliza
Place cooked chicken breast cut up in skillet
throw in some onion
once sauteed, add can of cream of chicken soup and
2 cups of chicken broth and
a block of frozen spinach thawed and juice squeezed out.
1/2 tsp cumin and chili powder
bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minute.
serve with tortilla chips and cheese

(this recipe probably serves 3-4 people)

by:  Andre’a Feldhaus… wanna be master chef