Experiments in Cooking...

This past week I got to spend time doing one of my favorite things- cooking. I have become the resident dessert maker for our bi-weekly Lifegroup (home fellowship)dinners and undertook a massive effort for Friday's pleasure, which I'll get to momentarily. I also got a little experimental with some ground beef. All in all it was an exciting time and I thought I would share my experiments with you...

Sweet Beef
I was cooking some ground beef one evening and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. So, I opened my spice cupboard hoping for inspiration. I saw a recently purchased tub of paprika from Whole Foods sitting there in its burnt red gloriousness. (I love paprika!) So, I opened it up and luxuriously sprinkled some over the meat. Then on a complete whim, dusted some ground cinnamon and crumbled some brown sugar into the pan. The result was amazing. It was sweet, a little saucy- but perhaps a bit too much. So, the next night, I happened to be at the grocery store and picked up some more ground beef. I did the same to this, but with a bit less of everything, then mixed it with the leftovers from the previous evening. I served it on some toasted sour dough bread- it was delicious! The milder form of the beef gave it just the right temperament and the sour dough added just the right amount of kick.

Strawberry Dessert Cups
This was my dessert for our Lifegroup meeting. I had scoured blogs, books, websites, etc., for over a week trying to find a recipe that fit what I wanted to do all to no avail. So, I decided to make my own. After going through several ideas, talking them through with multiple people, I finally decided on what is to follow. I must warn, this became a massive undertaking- almost 6 hours of work. This was partly because (as to my recollection) I have never worked with phyllo dough before.
I started by making 4-sheet thick phyllo cups, making sure to spread melted butter and lightly sprinkle sugar inbetween each sheet. Several attempts utilizing different cups, sizes, shapes, etc. I settled on my muffin tin. This later became a time saver as I was able to bake a dozen at a time. Then I melted semi-sweet baking chocolate squares and poured it into the bottom of each cup- just thin enough to coat the bottom. And for decoration I drizzled some on the edges of the cups. These I refrigerated overnight. Then the next evening I sliced strawberries galore and layered them in the cups. Beat up some fresh sweetened whipped cream and piped it onto the strawberries.
The result: Though many hours of work- the dessert cups were described as a "taste of Heaven" and would "surely be served at the Lord's table".

I have a few leftover phyllo "cups" - ones from my first attempts before utilizing my muffin pan. I mixed up some cream cheese, almond extract and powdered sugar then layered some sliced strawberries- scrumptious!