Name: Pumpkin Tres Leches Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Yield: 20 servings
Ingredients: 1 cup (8 ounces) sweetened condensed milk; 1 cup (8 ounces) evaporated milk; 1 cup (8 ounces) whole milk; small amount of butter for greasing the pan; 2 cups (9 ounces or 255 grams) all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder; 1 teaspoon (6 grams) salt; 1 teaspoon (3 grams) ground cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) each allspice, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg; 8 ounces (2 sticks or 16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted; 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree (or you can use 15 ounces of pumpkin puree you made yourself); 4 large eggs; 1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) granulated sugar; 1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) brown sugar (light or dark is fine); 2 cups (16 ounces) heavy cream; 3 tablespoons corn syrup; 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pumpkin Tres Leches Cake

October 16, 2015

Pumpkin tres leches cake has the traditional flavors of the season-pumpkin and spices-with all the gooey goodness of a tres leches cake!

I have a confession to make. I have never, ever, not even once, consumed a pumpkin spice latte.

You might say I’ve put my foot down. I have principles, you know.

I realize that sounds silly and overdramatic. I just honestly don’t understand how the pumpkin spice latte (or PSL, if you’re so inclined) infiltrated our culture so deeply. In September and October, my Facebook feed is full of two things: football and pumpkin spice lattes. I’ve seen quite a few pumpkin spice latte memes, this one being my personal favorite.

Here’s the problem that this white girl who, yes, does enjoy yoga pants, has with the ubiquitous PSL: no. pumpkin. Just the spices that typically accompany pumpkin…cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ground ginger (by the way, you can buy this in a jar as pumpkin pie spice).

If it actually contained pumpkin, I’d probably be all about it (well, probably not, because I’m too cheap to actually purchase anything from Starbucks…but I probably would have at least tried it). Heck, if it was called a spice latte I’d probably have tried it. In fact, I think that Starbucks used to have a latte called Gingerbread Spice, and that I was okay with.

My point is, my love for pumpkin runs deep. I loved pumpkin when pumpkin wasn’t cool. I am still the only member of my family who essentially Hoovers up the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving (I make one and then I’m the only person who touches it because you can’t have Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie) and I love it in savory recipes too. As a cake? Yaaaaasssss. ??

I was dreaming of pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing (because doesn’t that sound divine?) when it hit me: pumpkin tres leches cake. I love a good three milks cake, with sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk (some recipes call for heavy cream instead of whole milk, but I don’t think that’s necessary or traditional) soaked into the cake, topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream. What’s not to love? I adapted a recipe for standard tres leches cake from Cook’s Country, adding pumpkin and, yes, pumpkin pie spices. What I got was a sweet, tender, moist, amazing pumpkin tres leches cake…that you’ve got to try!

Yield: 20 servings

Pumpkin Tres Leches Cake

20 minPrep Time:

40 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

For the Sauce

1 cup (8 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (8 ounces) evaporated milk
1 cup (8 ounces) whole milk

For the cake

small amount of butter for greasing the pan
2 cups (9 ounces or 255 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (6 grams) salt
1 teaspoon (3 grams) ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) each allspice, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg
8 ounces (2 sticks or 16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree (or you can use 15 ounces of pumpkin puree you made yourself)
4 large eggs
1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) granulated sugar
1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) brown sugar (light or dark is fine)

For the Frosting

2 cups (16 ounces) heavy cream
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with butter and set aside.
Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a large microwave safe bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and microwave until the milk has browned slightly and thickened. This only took five minutes in my microwave but may take more or less time in yours. Start with 3 minutes and check frequently.
Whisk the evaporated milk and the whole milk into the thickened sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a second medium bowl, whisk together the butter and the pumpkin.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, combine the eggs and the sugars on medium speed (if using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment) until glossy and slightly thickened. Add the pumpkin/butter mixture and beat until well-incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three additions, beating until fully incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake until the cake bounces back when you press lightly on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and use a skewer to poke holes all over the cake. Pour the sauce over the cake. Allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then cover with foil and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
To make the frosting, beat the heavy cream, corn syrup, and cinnamon with an electric mixer (using the whisk attachment if using a stand mixer) on high speed until soft peaks form. If there is any liquid that hasn't absorbed into the cake, carefully pour it off. Spread the whipped cream over the top of the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve and up to 3 days.

https://chattavore.com/pumpkin-tres-leches-cake/

Click here to print the recipe for pumpkin tres leches cake!

Pumpkin tres leches cake has the traditional flavors of the season-pumpkin and spices-with all the gooey goodness of a tres leches cake! | chattavore.com

Baked Flautas (Vegetarian)

October 14, 2015

These baked flautas are filled with a tasty vegan filling plus perfect sautéed vegetables and cheese (if you aren’t going for a fully vegan meal) and baked to a crisp!

I don’t know about you, but after my mortgage, food is by far the biggest expense in our budget. We’re pretty frugal people overall…we don’t spend a lot of money on clothes and we spend a lot of time agonizing over other expenditures before making them. When it comes to food, though, we don’t cut an awful lot of corners.

I tried couponing for a while, back before the blog days, but found it to be a major time suck that really didn’t save me a whole lot of money, especially considering that the kinds of foods that I buy a lot of are NOT the kinds of foods that it’s easy to find coupons for. After starting the blog I all but abandoned coupons. No way do I have time for it these days. Now, we buy everything we can at Aldi (which we found a little bit scary before we started shopping there regularly and discovered that the food is great quality on the cheap) or Costco and then pick up the rest at Publix.

One of the ways that I save on my groceries is to incorporate meatless meals into the menu several days a week. We generally eat meatless more days than not, and when you have foods like these baked vegetarian flautas on the table you really don’t miss the meat.

The lentil-walnut taco filling is a recipe that I borrowed from Angela at Oh She Glows, but I bulk these up by adding sautéed onions and peppers (yellow peppers in this case) and a little bit of cheese. Sprayed with a little oil and baked until crisp, these baked vegetarian flautas definitely satisfy my (Americanized) Mexican cravings, and while I’m not going to pretend that lentils and walnuts fool my palate into thinking that I’m eating ground beef, it doesn’t need to, because these vegetarian baked flautas are just as good as they would be if they did have meat in them!

Yield: 4 servings

Baked Vegetarian Flautas

15 minPrep Time:

45 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

For the lentil-walnut taco filling (from Oh She Glows

1/2 cup uncooked French lentils (also known as lentils de puy)
1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt or 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon water

For the flautas

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1/2 red, yellow, or orange bell pepper, thinly sliced
8 fajita-sized flour tortillas (I like Old El Paso because they are very thin and pliable)
lentil-walnut taco filling
4 ounces (one cup) Monterey Jack cheese, grated
olive oil spray or 1 tablespoon olive oil
sour cream, for serving

Instructions

In a fine mesh sieve, rinse the lentils. Place them in a medium sauce pan with about 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 20-25 minutes until tender. Drain. Add to a food processor with the rest of the ingredients for the filling. Process until it reaches a texture similar to taco meat.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a medium skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Cook the peppers and onions until tender and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes (reduce heat if necessary to prevent burning...you want a little bit of a "char" but you don't want them to burn to a crisp!).
Divide the taco filling (about 1/4 cup per tortilla), vegetables, and cheese (2 tablespoons per tortilla) among the tortillas. Roll up the tortillas and brush or spray the seam sides with oil then place the tortillas seam side down on a baking sheet. Brush or spray the opposite side with oil as well.
Bake, turning once, until crisp, 7-10 minutes per side. Serve immediately with sour cream for dipping.

https://chattavore.com/baked-flautas-vegetarian/

Click here to print the recipe for baked vegetarian flautas!

These baked flautas are filled with a tasty vegan filling plus perfect sautéed vegetables and cheese (if you aren't going for a fully vegan meal). | recipe from Chattavore.com

BBQ Pork Chili with Leftover Pork

October 9, 2015

BBQ pork chili marries two easy game day foods (chili and barbecue, duh) into one delicious bowl. It’s a great way to use up leftover pulled pork (if there IS such a thing)!

So, apparently I am not only on a cheeseburger kick this Fall…I’m also on a chili kick. Seriously, if you look at my list of blog post ideas, there’s a section where every other idea is some sort of chili (in fact, I have another new chili recipe on my menu for this week).

Originally, the idea for this post was BBQ chicken chili. For some reason, when I think of chili I tend to forget about pork. How silly of me! Luckily, I saved myself from doing something rash. See, the way I plan my menu is to flip through my blog post ideas to see if there’s anything that sounds particularly good. I’ll pick one or two items off of that list then flip through cookbooks or Pinterest for the rest of my menu.

So this particular week, I happened to have two bags of shredded pork shoulder in the freezer, left over from a slow cooker meal I’d made. When we eat barbecue, it’s usually pork shoulder (aka Boston butt). It dawned on me…if I usually eat pork barbecue, why on earth would I make my BBQ chili with chicken?

So here you go. BBQ pork chili. It’s about as simple as it gets. Shredded pork, homemade barbecue sauce (I won’t be mad if you use bottled, but this is so easy…I just simmered it while I cooked the onions for the chili in the other pot), tomatoes, and beans. That’s it! Top it however you want, or don’t top it at all. Either way, it’s got chili flavor and barbecue flavor…how could you possibly go wrong with the BBQ pork chili?

Yield: 4-6 servings

BBQ Pork Chili

5 minPrep Time:

25 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

For the barbecue sauce

2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup brown sugar (you can use all brown sugar or all maple syrup if you prefer)
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
3-4 cloves garlic, minced

For the chili

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
2 cups shredded pork shoulder
1 14.5 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 14.5 ounce can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
1 14.5 ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
BBQ sauce - recipe above
cheese, sour cream, cilantro, chopped green onions & corn chips - for serving (optional)

Instructions

In a medium saucepan, stir together the BBQ sauce ingredients. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.
While the sauce is simmering, heat the oil over medium heat in a 4-6 quart pot. Add the onions and cook until they begin to turn translucent, 4-6 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, pork shoulder, beans, and BBQ sauce to the pot. Bring to a simmer. Cook the chili over medium-low heat for 15 minutes to meld the flavors. Serve immediately with cheese, sour cream, chopped cilantro, chopped green onions, and/or corn chips if desired.

https://chattavore.com/bbq-pork-chili/

Click here to print the recipe for BBQ pork chili!

With the flavors of BBQ and chili in one bowl, this BBQ pork chili is a great game-day meal or a quick weeknight meal! | chattavore.com

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup

October 7, 2015

Bacon cheeseburger soup? It’s everything you’d expect from a bacon cheeseburger-including the bun-in soup form. And it’s delicious.

I have a notebook that I guess I’d just call my blogging notebook. In it, I make my daily to-do lists, write lists of restaurants that I need to try, and keep a running list of recipe ideas. This summer, apparently I went through an “everything cheeseburger” phase. Seriously. It must have been because I had my burger list on my mind, because I wrote down cheeseburger soup, cheeseburger salad, cheeseburger egg rolls, cheeseburger bowl, cheeseburger tacos…..

Not all together. I promise. But over the span of a couple of weeks, I wrote all of those things in my notebook. But you guys know how much I love burgers. They are pretty much my favorite. Anyway…I just wanted to put ground beef, melted cheese, ketchup, mustard, onions, and pickles in all the things. And I will, yes I will. I decided, though, that I needed to start with the soup.

As I was researching cheeseburger soup, I found a lot of delicious sounding recipes, but none of them were cheesy enough. I wanted my cheeseburger soup to basically drip with cheese…no one could claim that this soup doesn’t have enough cheese. Some of them contained bacon, and most of them contained onions, but none contained ketchup, mustard, or pickles. How can you call something “cheeseburger soup” and leave out most of the best flavor components of a cheeseburger? And most of them neglected the burger bun croutons. Um, guys, this bacon cheeseburger soup needs burger bun croutons…and if the bun has sesame seeds, all the better. This bacon cheeseburger soup really is a cheeseburger in a bowl, and it is amazing (if I do say so myself).

Yield: 4 servings

Cheeseburger Soup

10 minPrep Time:

25 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

2 large hamburger buns, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 strips bacon, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 pound ground beef
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
2 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
2 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed and diced
4 ounces cheddar cheese, grated (1 cup)
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup yellow mustard
diced pickles, for serving

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the bread cubes with the olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, stirring once or twice (this will take about 10-15 minutes, but be careful not to overbake them!).
Preheat a large (6-8 quarts) pot over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until browned and crispy. Use a slotted spoon to move the bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Add the onions to the pot with the bacon drippings and cook until the onions are softened and just beginning to brown.
Add the ground beef and cook until no longer pink. Sprinkle the flour over the beef and stir to combine. Cook for one minute, then gradually add the milk and beef broth while stirring constantly.
Add the potatoes to the pot and bring the mixture to a low boil. Cook until the potatoes are cooked through, then add the cheddar cheese a handful at a time, stirring to incorporate.
In a small bowl, whisk the ketchup and mustard together. Pour into the soup and stir to combine. Serve the soup immediately with diced pickles, bacon, and croutons for topping.

https://chattavore.com/bacon-cheeseburger-soup/

Click here to print the recipe for bacon cheeseburger soup!

Bacon cheeseburger soup? It's everything you'd expect from a bacon cheeseburger-including the bun-in soup form. And it's delicious. | recipe from chattavore.com

Formosa Chinese Restaurant

October 5, 2015

Formosa Chinese restaurant is a dining-out institution in Hixson, Tennessee. They serve delicious Chinese food with great, friendly service.

How have I not written about Formosa Chinese restaurant? That’s a rhetorical question, I suppose, but Formosa is one of Hixson’s longest-standing restaurant and (since Mandarin Garden closed) the place that we generally go to get Chinese food close to home. However, every time that we’ve gone I, for one reason or another, haven’t been in a blog post mood (it was never because I didn’t like the food, but, for example, I remember that we went there one time the night before I had surgery).

It was raining cats and dogs Saturday and I was definitely not feeling going out of the Hixson area, particularly not to any spot where we would have to do a lot of walking (i.e. downtown). We considered the tiny handful of Hixson places that we still have yet to visit and Philip pointed out that we really should go to Formosa, considering how long it’s been around. It’s really a Hixson institution. Please excuse the awful photos in this post….it’s very dark in the restaurant.

We were seated immediately and given lunch menus, since it was only around 1 p.m. The lunch menu is considerably smaller than the dinner menu, with a few specials (mostly chow meins and egg foo young plus few other standards like sweet and sour chicken) listed on one side that included either an egg roll or soup and then another list of entrees on the other side. My favorite thing about Formosa (I’m just being honest here) is that they bring you a bowl of fried wonton strips (which I call Chinese potato chips). Those things are just addictive. They also bring sweet and sour sauce to dip them into, but I really am indifferent to that.

We ordered our meals off the specials menu. We both wanted soup and and egg roll so we ordered egg rolls separately. I like that their egg rolls don’t have any weird pink meat (the meat is pink because of curing salt, but that doesn’t make it any less bizarre in my opinion). They are filled with ground pork, baby shrimp, and cabbage. They were brought out immediately, which might make you worry that they wouldn’t be fresh, but they were fresh, crispy, and hot. The server brought us some hot mustard too, but aside from a tiny fingertip dab that I tasted it was too hot for me. I ordered egg drop soup, which was hot, well seasoned, and had lots of egg and green onion in it. Philip had wonton soup. He said that the wontons seemed housemade and that the soup was also tasty and well-seasoned.

I decided to get the chicken with mushrooms, which is described in their dinner menu as “sliced chicken breast sautéed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, and snow peas in a light sauce”. There were also carrots and pieces of cabbage in the sauté, and it was served with fried rice. Their fried rice is more basic than most, basically just seasoned and fried and not mixed with carrots, peas, and eggs, but still quite good. The portion of sauté was fairly large, large enough for me to bring home probably more than half of it to have for lunch the next day. Everything was well cooked, the vegetables just crisp tender (besides the mushrooms, which were very tender) and the chicken very thinly sliced and very tender considering that it’s chicken breast, which tends to be dry. The sauce was indeed light and not overly salted. The thing I like about Formosa is that I don’t feel bloated and icky like I do after eating at some Chinese restaurants (I think it’s MSG that makes me feel that way, though I know a lot of people dispute the whole MSG negative effects theory).

Philip had the beef chow mein, which is very thin slices of beef sautéed with Napa cabbage, onion, zucchini, and carrots and is also served with fried rice. The meat was incredibly tender and the sauce light and nicely seasoned. The vegetables were nicely cooked, crisp-tender just like mine were, and Philip also had enough to bring home for lunch. My friends, it is never sad to have leftovers to throw in the microwave when you arrive home starving after church.

Like I said, the dinner menu is much larger than the lunch menu, with soups, appetizers (including chicken fingers and fries, which always makes me laugh), family dinners (for families of 2, 4, 5, or 6), vegetable dishes, Chef’s Specialties (including sesame chicken and General Tsao’s-their spelling-which is different from what is served at most Chinese restaurants, as it is thinly sliced instead of just spicier sesame chicken). They have sections of seafood, chicken, beef, pork, duck, plus chow meins, lo meins, chop suey, fried rice, and egg foo young.

The decor in Formosa Chinese restaurant, I’m not going to lie, is a little dated. Honestly, I don’t think it’s changed one iota since I was a kid in the eighties and would go in with my parents to get take-out (not that I ever ate it, I wouldn’t have touched that stuff with a twenty-foot pole as a child). I don’t really care too much about decor, though. I mean, if a place has great decor, I’ll notice, but I’m more concerned about the food and service. Our service was quick and friendly (if very business-like) and the food is consistent and always good. I know it’s “American Chinese”, but where do you find anything but around here? Formosa Chinese restaurant is a great place…it’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Formosa Chinese restaurant is located at 5425 Highway 153, Hixson, Tennessee, 37343. They are open daily from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. You can call them at 423-875-6953. You can view their menu on their website, formosa-restaurant.com. You can also like Formosa on Facebook.

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