This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Ezra Pound Cake.

I preheated the oven, prepared my muffin cups, and threw all of the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

Then, I chopped up the peppers. And then I pureed the peppers, because I knew there was no way I was going to convince Mike to eat a muffin with chunks in it.

I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and then added my pureed peppers on top.

And then I had a quick, yummy, savory batter ready to go for my muffins.

These were quick and easy to make. The flavor has a distinct Mexican flare. We enjoyed them with chili on Sunday night and I enjoyed the leftovers with a bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup* that I made last night. Delish.

*I modified the recipe for this soup. To see my recipe, check out my recipe file in the left hand sidebar labeled “Jamie’s Favorite Recipes”. Lots of recipes there!

**In case anyone is curious, I have decided to stick with Tuesdays with Dorie. I really enjoy making the recipes and I have fun with it – even if my thighs don’t enjoy it. I’m still debating starting a separate cooking blog…

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This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Anne Strawberry. You can view the entire recipe on Anne’s site or buy purchasing the book, Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Dorie includes an extensive area for playing around with this cheesecake, so I decided to do some playing around of my own and combined Dorie’s recipe and this intriguing Red Velvet Cheesecake recipe from RecipeGirl.com to make a beautiful Red Velvet Cheesecake for our Christmas Eve celebration.

The first step was to crush Oreo cookies in the food processor and combine with melted butter to make the chocolate crumb crust! Yum!

Then I pulled out my trusty mixer and made the cheesecake batter. And included 2 full bottles of red food coloring to give it that gorgeous red hue. (Still looks a little pink doesn’t it? I was out of food coloring and I wasn’t going to go buy more…)
I poured the batter on top of my chocolate crumb crust and prepared to put my springform pan into a water bath to bake.
After the cheesecake was baked I let it setup overnight in the fridge. When I finally released the sides of the pan it looked amazing.
I added a cream cheese frosting — which you might think would be too much for a cheesecake, but was really amazing! And then cut a few branches off of one of our holly bushes outside to give the cheesecake a festive holiday look.

This cheesecake was very good and something that I would definitely consider making again for a special occasion. I think it would be a pretty cheesecake for Valentine’s Day with heart shaped candies sprinkled on top.

And if you can’t tell from the picture, Bo was also a big fan!

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This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie Recipe was Buttery Jam Cookies, chosen by Randomosity and the Girl. You can find the full recipe on her blog or by purchasing the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.
The recipe was very simple to put together with my trusty KitchenAid. I just threw all of the ingredients together and used raspberry jam instead of apricot.

Then I scooped out teaspoons of dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets. I still want a couple of Silpats for Christmas. Hint. Hint.
And the cookies went into the oven. It was a very simple recipe that I was able to throw together during Bo’s morning nap on Saturday.

I decided that we’ve had enough cookies in our house over the last few weeks and since we were headed to have family pictures taken on Saturday morning I hand delivered the warm cookies to my photographer friends. They will have to comment and let everyone know what they thought of them.

One of the constant battles at our house is keeping the four cats out of the food. Mike was my guest photographer this week and caught this shot of Reagan trying to nab a cookie. But don’t worry, Mike and Mary Lou, I didn’t bring the one Reagan licked to you.

I ate it. 🙂

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This week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie recipe was Grandma’s All Occasion Sugar Cookies. You can find the full recipe on Kuchenlatein’s site or by purchasing the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

This recipe frustrated me. The recipe itself is very simple but I couldn’t manage to transfer the cuts outs. They practically melted in my hand. I tried chilling the dough. I tried freezing the dough. It just didn’t work. Finally, I rolled it all into a little log and made the slice and bake cookies. And while not as beautiful, they tasted just as good.

These cookies have Bo’s seal of approval!

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This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie was a special recipe, just for Thanksgiving. You can find the full recipe at La Casserole Carree or on pg. 321 of Dorie Greenspan’s famous cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Unfortunately, I was so busy with other Thanksgiving prep that I did not take pictures of the pie as I was making it. It was easy to make with basic Thanksgiving pie ingredients.

Sorry for the crappy pictures. Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets this week!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my mom’s house with my cousins. The food was good and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

My pie received mixed reviews. My cousin, Kelly, thought it was “strangely good”. And my mom ate it and thought it was fine. My piece was good, but I think I would have preferred to have plain pumpkin, like everyone else, who was afraid of my “special” pie.

This one probably won’t become a Thanksgiving staple at our house. But it was good and a different twist on classic Thanksgiving flavors.

Isabella of Les gourmandises d’Isa selected Arborio Rice Pudding as this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. The full recipe can be found on Isabella’s site (in French) or by purchasing Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Before I talk about the recipe a big shout out to Rachel of Raspberry Chip! Rachel’s son, LG is the same age as Bo and I’ve been following her blog since shortly after their birth. She is an phenomenal Mom and was kind enough to run to her local Whole Foods, buy me some Arborio rice and mail it to me! Thanks again, Rachel! I love the blogosphere!

While this recipe did take some time to prepare, it was probably one of the simplest recipes Dorie has ever written (and I somehow managed to screw it up??!!). The first step was to parboil the rice.

After the rice cooked I brought the milk and sugar to boil. Then I added in the rice and let it simmer. While the mixture was simmering I chopped my chocolate. I decided to make both vanilla and chocolate so that I could try both versions of the pudding.

I used two large bowls and added vanilla to one, and chocolate to the other.

Then I spooned the pudding into fancy serving dishes.

Unfortunately, even after sitting in the refrigerator overnight, the pudding did not thicken. It tasted good — but it was like eating milk with sugar and rice, not pudding like. Did anyone else have this issue? My mom and I both love rice pudding but she said this wasn’t one of her favorites. I think I may try it again and add a bit of cornstarch. Thoughts?

Next week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is a pie for Thanksgiving. Since I will be making this for our Thanksgiving meal I will not post my recipe until next Friday! So I guess it will be a Friday with Dorie next week.