Buttermilk Syrup

 This past Sunday I had the chance to host my family for Sunday breakfast. Our weekend breakfast tradition is generally waffles, but I decided to go out on a limb this time and try something new. My fabulous friend Sherry has this amazing buttermilk syrup recipe that I just had to share with my family. I knew they would love it, and love it they did. They couldn’t get enough of it. It’s a cinch to make and is so much better than anything bottled you can get.

photo credit: williams-sonoma

I served the syrup over aebleskivers, (or ebelskivers) which are a cute, little, sphere shaped Danish pancakes. I must admit that I didn’t make these. It not because I didn’t want to, but more because I didn’t have the right equipment. I don’t one of these (see above) special aebleskiever making pans. I see them in the Williams-Sonoma catalog and have wanted to try them for quite some time. Alas, this was not that time. So, taking yet another idea from fabulous Sherry, I headed over to Trader Joe’s and picked up a bag of, dare I say, frozen aebleskievers. Frozen or not, these babies were delicious! The best part is you can cook a ton in the oven at the same time, about ten minutes total, and they don’t get cold waiting for the others to cook. Just sprinkle with powdered sugar and top with this buttermilk syrup and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven. If you’d like to make your own, get your self a pan, and then check out the variety of recipes Willams-Sonoma has for making aebleskievers. Enjoy!

Buttermilk Syrup

1 cube butter
1/2 cup buttermilk (low or reduced fat works also)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Bring above ingredients to a boil and make sure sugar is dissolved.

Add 1/2 tsp baking soda and continue stirring.
(Adding baking soda will double the amount of syrup by foaming and might spill over onto the stove. Use a pan is that double the size you think you would need to avoid a mess!)

Left overs will keep in fridge for a couple weeks.

Chocolate Buttercream Cake (or Cupcakes)

Making this recipe happened for two reasons. The first, and most common reason I make anything, I've been wanting to try this recipe. And two, I still had quite a bit of the German chocolate cake frosting that I thought I'd try on another variety of chocolate cake.

As I sit her on my computer and look and a ton of different blogs and cooking websites searching for new recipes to try, across the room sit my lonely cookbooks, just longing to have their pages flipped through. I have made a point of collecting some good books, but find that I barely look at them. So as a small goal, I want to try to cook out of them more often and then share the recipes with you. Here's the first one. This recipe comes from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, and while she has many different cookbooks, this is the original one. I have seen Ina make this cake in a tiered form on her show, and you can find the recipe online here. I was comparing that recipe with the one in the cook book, and it looks like she just doubled the recipe to make the larger cake.

I really liked this recipe. I actually don't have a ton of chocolate go to cakes, so was glad this one worked out. I made the recipe as written except omitted the coffee. I know the coffee just gives a depth of flavor, but I don't have coffee around, so I just omitted it.  I decided to put them in cupcake form, just for fun, and topped them with the left over frosting, and some new chocolate frosting (recipe to come). The recipe makes an even 24 cupcakes. Next time I think I will try this out in cake form.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
The Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients
1 3/4 all-purpose flour
1 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 extra large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanila extract
1 cup buttermilk at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream at room temperature
2 tablespoons brewed coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together flour cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, on high speed, about 5 minutes
Combine the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee (if using) in separate bowl.
On low speed, add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture alternately in thirds, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture.
Mix the batter only until blended.

Pour batter into two 8-inch, butter and floured, round cake pans, or 24 cupcakes.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes on a rack. Remove from pans to finish cooling

Smothered Pork Chops

I have been wanting to branch out and try cooking with different types of meat instead of just the boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I know there are a million ways to prepare chicken, and I'm not even close to trying them all out. But the other day I noticed some trimmed pork loin chops on sale. I decided to buy them and find the recipe later. And boy did I find a good one. Not knowing what kind of recipe I wanted to try, I just searched foodnetwork.com until I found a recipe that looked good, and used ingredients I had already, I did not want to go to the store. I came across a recipe from Tyler Florence called Smothered Pork Chops. This recipe appealed to me because, like I said, I didn't have to go to the store, it used buttermilk, which I had left over from the chocolate cake I had just made, and it made gravy, and how I do love my sauces!

This recipe was very simple to follow. I was so excited I didn't have to go to the store that I didn't realize I only have vegetable stock, not chicken stock. I decided to just use it, and it may have altered the flavor a bit, and I know the color was a brighter orange, but it was still a very tasty dish so it must not matter too much.

I followed the recipe exactly. Dredge the pork chops in a flour mixture, brown them, remove from pan, add liquid to make gravy, put chops back in and cook until done! That's it. A few things, I made four pork chops, like it calls for, but I had way more flour mixture than needed. So next time I might cut that down by half. I'm not the best at cooking pork chops just yet. I had to cut mine open to see if they were done. And I know that's a no no because all the juice can run out, but I didn't want under cooked meat. I also would have liked more gravy, so I'll probably adjust the recipe next time to include more liquid. But this was a great weeknight dinner. It was quick, the husband raved about it, and, like I said, you'll most likely have all the ingredients in your cupboard. (I know most of us don't usually have buttermilk just lying around, so I looked up buttermilk substitutes and it's super easy to make if you have milk and vinegar. Here is a good article with a few different recipes for buttermilk.) I served the pork chops up with rice and asparagus (my husbands go to vegetable).

Smothered Pork Chops