Lu's Kitchen

Oreo Brownies (adapted from Pinch of Yum)

Making Oreo Brownies is really easy. Remember my Brownies recipe? Well, before you start with that, you should crush about 15-20 Oreo cookies. They don't need to be perfectly crushed. Well, after you've melted the chocolate and butter, added the flour, eggs, sugar and coffee, you'll add half of the crushed cookies and mix well. Then you're going to scrape the mixture into a previously greased and floured pan. After this, you'll top it with the remaining Oreos. Then you'll follow the baking instructions from the original recipe.

Espresso Cupcakes at Leite's Culinaria

If I was told I could only have one dish for the rest of my life, I'd choose pasta with tomato sauce. There's nothing I love more than dipping bread in tomato sauce. So I thought it was kind of funny that I had no idea how to prepare even a basic sauce. Luckily, my mom taught me today so here goes what I learned:

Tomato Sauce 101 with Lu's mom

The good thing about tomato sauce is that you can make it very simple and it'll still taste amazing. For example, now we didn't have much time so all we did was slice up a bit of onion, add some sunflower oil, garlic powder and basil (and salt, of course!) and cook that at a very low temperature so the onion wouldn't burn. Then add tomato puree and bring to a simmer. Great!

Now, if you have more stuff in your kitchen, you can still make it in a few minutes. Instead of using garlic powder, you can use fresh garlic. You can also use red bell peppers, carrots, thyme, oregano, parsley... my favorite herb is basil, but you can use your very own favorite.

If you'd like the sauce to be a bit more sweet, adding a bit of sugar or carrot works wonders!

You can also use butter instead of oil, or different kinds of oil, such as olive oil.

Don't be afraid to experiment. It's not easy to mess up some tomato sauce. Just make sure to cook at a very low temperature and pay attention so it doesn't burn!

Nutella Brownies

I was going to do this Nutella brownies recipe from Kirbie's Cravings, which I'm sure is fabulous, but my power was out and I hadn't printed out the recipe so I had to improvise. So this could be called an adaptation, maybe. The results were pretty good! The consistency is different from my chocolate brownies, these Nutella ones are much more chewy. I prefer the chocolate's consistency, but I know there are a lot of people that prefer chewy brownies. So if that's you, you should try this!

Ingredients

1/2 cup (110 g) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar

250 grams of Nutella

1 cup (100 g) all-purpose flour

2 eggs

½ cup (110 g) butter

2 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional, if you want a rich flavor)

Preheat oven to a low temperature.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter. Be sure to constantly stir with a wooden spoon so it doesn't overheat. Once it’s done, remove from heat and leave at room temperature for around 5 minutes.

Move butter to a large bowl and mix in the Nutella. Add eggs, flour, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Add the cocoa (optional). Mix with a spoon until it’s blended. Scrape the mixture into a greased and floured pan.

Nesquik Cake

My English teacher recommended this recipe. It's really easy to make! So if you have little time to make a cake, this is the perfect recipe. Even the explanation is very clear.

Ingredients

2 cups cake flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 cup sunflower oil

180 g/6.5 ounces Nesquik

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to medium low heat. Mix all the ingredients EXCEPT the boiling water. It's very important that you mix only until the ingredients are fully blended, no more than that. Add the cup of boiling water and, again, only mix until blended. Quickly, put in a previously buttered and floured cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.