From the Kitchen of Happy Life

New favorite sugar cookie recipe!

2011-12-13T09:08:00.001-08:00

My mom & sisters & I got together to decorate sugar cookies last week; we used a recipe that my mom had gotten from her friend and it's just fantastic! Makes a nice, tender dough and doesn't need chilling before rolling out. One batch will make at least 2 dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

1 c sugar
1/2 c sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c butter (softened)
3 1/4 c flour (plus more on hand for rolling out dough)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together first five ingredients. Sift flour with salt, soda, & cream of tartar in a separate bowl; then add gradually to the wet ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Flour a flat surface and flour your rolling pin; have extra flour on hand. Using 1/4 to 1/2 the dough at a time, knead a few times with flour until it is less sticky and easier to work with. Then roll it, with plenty of flour, out to about 1/4" thickness and cut with cookie cutters.

Bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes. I found that my cookies were done at about 8 minutes; your oven may be different. Cookies will be soft and tender; delicious! But even better with frosting :)

A great Piping idea!

2011-12-13T08:34:00.001-08:00

How many of you hate to clean out your frosting bags when you're done with a project? Or even worse is having to refill them with frosting mid-project and have a goopy mess on your hands? Well I learned a new trick last week from my mom that makes life SO much easier when you're piping!

First lay out a square of plastic wrap, and put a blob of icing in the middle of it (this was pretty runny icing that I was using for sugar cookies). Next, fold one side of the plastic over the icing and roll it up like a tootsie roll. Snip off the extra plastic on one end with scissors, and twist the other end. Prepare your frosting bag as you normally would (coupler, tip, etc) and then just put your plastic-wrapped icing right in! Put the cut side in and the twisted side out, and then just twist and squeeze your frosting bag as usual. If your icing runs out before the job is done; no problem! Just remove the whole plastic tootsie roll thing from your frosting bag and make a new one. Your frosting bag stays totally clean except for the the very tip, and it's so much easier to deal with.

Thanks for the great tip, Mom!

How-to: Lattice Top Pie Crust

2011-11-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

I love making lattice-top crusts on pies; it's not very hard and it definitely makes a good impression! The last time I did this (Thanksgiving) I took step-by-step pictures; hopefully this will help if you've even wanted to do this but been unsure how.

Start by rolling out your pie crust; it doesn't have to be pretty. I prefer to cut mine with my fluted pastry wheel (seen right off to the side in this shot below). You can just as easily use a paring knife. If you're a perfectionist, use a ruler to make nice straight lines... this wasn't a particularly pretty batch for me. The reason I didn't just cut straight lines all the way across my crust is because I rolled this out quite a bit bigger than the diameter of my pie, so I knew I wouldn't need such long strips. I start with shorter pieces and lay one on top and one on the side, like this (this was a creamy pear pie... most of the time your covered pies won't be so liquidy!) Time to start weaving! Add another slightly-longer strip across the top, below the first one, and another one next to the side one. Each time you add a new piece, look to see where it's supposed to go under or over each perpendicular strip... taking turns every other one. So, this new piece I'm laying here needs to go OVER the bottom horizontal piece, but UNDER the one above it. So, no big deal; I just lifted that horizontal piece up with my other hand, and held it up while putting the vertical piece in place. Then, lay it gently back down. Here, I've lifted up a vertical piece in order to lay the bottom horizontal one underneath it.And right after that, the horizontal piece is in place and ready for the vertical piece to be replaced across it.
Voila! Just keep going like that until the whole pie is covered! Horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical. Now, for this pie I chose to lay the pieces pretty close together. For a nice red berry pie I like to have some of the pretty color showing through, so I would leave more space between the lattice strips. With this creamy pear pie being so liquidy, I didn't want all that liquid to have much chance to escape. Once the pie is covered, trim around the outside of the pie plate with a paring knife, leaving about 3/4" hanging over. Going around the circumference of the pie, roll & tuck in the crust inward so that the edges are sealed shut and so that it looks nice and even. You can even make a pretty edge if you want, but I think with a fancy lattice top it doesn't need pretty edges.

For this pie I brushed it with melted butter and sprinkled it with cinnamon & sugar before baking it. And look how nice it turns out.
Here's an apple-blackberry pie I made a few months ago, using the same type of crust. You can see the lattice better on this one since I spaced out the strips better. This pie was brushed with butter and sprinkled with plain sugar before baking.
So there you go; happy pie-making!

Creamy Pear Pie

2011-11-20T20:42:00.000-08:00

This recipe was recently featured on Our Best Bites and I couldn't wait to try it. I made it for a "pie party" we attended over the weekend and it was a big hit. It's peary delicious! The sweetness is just right; it tastes great plain without any whipped cream or ice cream... although, I wouldn't turn this pie down if it was heated up with some vanilla ice cream on top!

Ingredients:

1 double pie crust

About 1 1/2 lb firm (not too ripe, not too green) pears, peeled and sliced

(I used about 5 Bartletts)

1 T all-purpose flour

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

3 oz cream cheese

2 T milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

2 T butter, melted

sugar & cinnamon for sprinkling

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450. Roll the bottom of the pie crust into the pie plate.

Toss the sliced pears in the flour. Arrange them evenly over the pie crust in the pie plate. Set aside.

In a blender, combine the sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, milk, cinnamon, and ginger. Blend until smooth. Pour evenly over the pear mixture. Use the remaining crust to form the top of the pie (I liek doing a lattice top). Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with sugar & cinnamon.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the creamy mixture had thickened. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

I love doing lattice-top crusts on pies and soon I'll have a tutorial on here! So fun and really not as difficult as you might think. Guess what else is not that difficult? Homemade pie crusts! I've tried a few recipes for crusts over the years and they always taste better than store-bought. For this pie I used Our Best Bites' favorite crust recipe and it was lovely:

1 1/4 c flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 + 1 T shortening (I used butter flavored)

3-4 T ice water

Combine flour & salt; cut in shortening with a pastry blender. Add ice water gradually and, with your fingers, gently turn over the dough until all the water is incorporated and it forms a ball. Be sure not to over-mix or over-work the dough. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until using. This makes a single pie crust, so you'll need to double this recipe for a double-crust pie.

A few thoughts.

2011-11-15T21:28:00.001-08:00

Hi! Yes, it's been quite a while since I posted anything. I *have* been cooking... I don't take enough pictures though and then I don't feel like I have anything to post, when there's not a photo to go with it.

But here are a couple of things I've been thankful for lately, in my kitchen:

New garbage can. I picked one up at Costco not long ago, it is similar to this one but a little different. It was $50; it's stainless steel with a black lid, and battery-operated.... the lid goes up when you gently kick the pedal at the bottom, and then after about 5 seconds the lid goes back down smoothly on its own. We love it!! It looks nice, it works great, having it be hands-free-but-with-a-lid is fantastic, and the dog can't ever get into the trash (which is a big deal -- I can trust her a lot more around here now).

On Saturday I single-handedly turned 280 apples into 34 quarts of applesauce. I do this once a year, and every year I think to myself, "This is a HUGE pain and not cheap either; why do I do this? I'm NOT doing it next year!" but then the next fall I end up buying apples and doing it again anyway! I make my applesauce with nothing added: no sugar, cinnamon, etc, and I make it smooth/fine like store-bought applesauce. We love it and the kids just inhale it. And secretly, I kind of like canning :)

I have always used a labor-intensive system for milling the cooked apples, such as one of these. BUT -- I got a Cuisinart last Christmas and I decided to give it a try for my applesauce this year. HALLELUJAH!! Wow -- my Cuisinart blends up a big pot of cooked apples in a manner of mere seconds, while my hand-crank food mill used to take... oh I don't know how long, but just ages! Plus, with a food mill I was left with a thick fibrous pulp that I would just end up throwing away. With my food processor, every bit of the cooked (peeled/cored) apples goes into the applesauce. What a dream come true! I found that even though I was still on my feet making applesauce for probably 10 hours on Saturday, my thoughts of "I'm never doing this again!" were much less strong since I had my handy Cuisinart to work with. And, the parts can all go in the dishwasher = super easy clean up!

One final note. My four children are ages 7-11. Lately, they have all been pretty good about eating their dinner - regardless of what it is. Their palates have definitely become less picky. I attribute this partially to the fact that I have never given my kids a choice of what to have for dinner. If it's something strange that they don't think they'll like (or that they truly dislike), I have always still made them eat at least SOME of it. We have suffered through plenty of long, drawn-out nights at the dinner table where one or more stubborn child has to stay in their chair until they have eaten the measly two or three bites I've told them to eat. We've had our share of our kids throwing tantrums, gagging (real and completely fake), pleading, attempts at negotiation, etc. But by and large we have stuck to our guns and our children have as a result been exposed to a variety of foods. I do not understand why some parents have the standing policy that a PB&J sandwich is always an option if the child doesn't like the dinner that is served. In some instances I can understand (like if you're with guests and don't want to create a scene), but not on a regular every-day type of night. If you have young children, hang in there! Keep feeding them a good variety of foods for dinner, and I promise you that some day soon they will stop fighting you about it and there will come a time when they actually start to appreciate your cooking! Now, I'm not saying that my children never complain about dinner. But they have gotten so much better about it, and most nights I actually hear a few unprompted thank-you's, even from my 11-yr-old son!

{off my soapbox now...}

Web Searches

2011-09-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

From time to time I check on my StatCounter to see who's reading my blogs. On my family blog, I have web searching disabled. But for this blog, I love looking at the searches that led people here. Overwhelmingly, the CAKES take the cake (ha ha). Who knows whether any of these random strangers around the world actually use any of my ideas, but here are several of the recent web searches that have led people HERE:

galaxy pegasis
tangled cake tutorial
beyblade shiny
how glue cookie crumbs fondant sand
tangled fondant cakes
868 icing tip swirl
clouds route 66
beyblade cake
galaxy pegasis 3D wallpaper (??)
galaxy pegasis drawing
rapunzel tower cake
making a cake instructions in pictures
bayblade cakes
spiral cakes
tangled cake
slushie swirls
beyblade galaxy pegasis stickers
beyblade cake pictures
tangled cake pan
bey blake cakes
beyblade cake pattern
beyblade cake ideas
nicest looking slushie (?)
how to make fondant beyblade
rainbow cake with skittles
how to draw beyblade
fondant tangled cake
fluffy sugar cookie recipes
9th birthday cakes for girls
website to how to draw galaxy pegasis
pictures of DQ cakes cars theme

That's just in the past week, and there were several more duplicate searches for Beyblade cakes and Tangled cakes. Who knew that when I made that Beyblade cake (when I'd never heard of Beyblade) that it was SO cutting edge.

Also, just for fun, here are the states & countries who've visited this blog in the past week:

Arizona
Utah
Switzerland
French Polynesia
Indiana
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
Australia
Germany
Florida
New Zealand
California
Canada
Italy
UK
Brazil
Maryland
Missouri
Texas
Colombia
Michigan
New York
Georgia (the state)
Tennessee
Oman
Kentucky
Connecticut
Mexico

All these strangers visiting is the reason why I don't have any personal information on this blog, not even a link to my blogger profile which would lead people to my personal blog. Anyway, it's interesting to me though how many people all over the world want to make fun cakes!

Pencil Cake

2011-08-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

The first day of school is tomorrow, and we celebrated today with a big fun swim party for all the cousins at my parents' house. My mom asked me to make a pencil cake for the occasion; how fun! She found a couple of ideas online. I followed these instructions, and when you're starting with frozen Sara Lee pound cake it really couldn't have been easier! The pencil cake in the photos looks SO much nicer than mine; oh well.

A couple of notes: next time I would use a Hershey's Kiss for the tip, rather than melted/molded chocolate that turns out to be the same basic shape. Also, I used fondant for the greenish band joining eraser & pencil, since I had fondant on hand. After I'd put it on, I brushed the fondant with some iridescent powder to give it a little shimmer.

This was a fun little project and I would do it again!

Beyblade Cake

2011-08-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

For a church fundraiser in June I auctioned off the service of making one custom birthday cake. The winner of the cake happened to be my across-the-street neighbor, and they "collected" on their winnings this weekend with their 9-yr-old son's birthday. At first (a month ago) I was told he wanted a football cake. But then a few days later he'd changed his mind, and wanted his party to be all about Beyblades. Well, I had NEVER heard of that! So I figured I'd better learn pretty quick!

Not being my own child's birthday cake, I wasn't as excited about this project as I usually am, but once I got into it, it was still a lot of fun to make. I made two 10" rounds (chocolate cake) and split them with chocolate frosting between each layer. FYI, one full cake mix fits perfectly into a 10" round. After the crumb coat I carved the "fins" to make it look a little more like the shape of a Beyblade (which is basically a fancy top). The thin parts weren't very sturdy but after another coat of frosting, and holding them steady with toothpicks in the fridge overnight, they ended up being okay with the weight of the fondant.

I used a couple of products for the first time with this cake: food color spray (like edible spraypaint; widely available) and edible markers. Both worked great! I covered the top first in white marshmallow fondant and then sprayed it blue. I also covered the sides (in angular strips) in white fondant and sprayed the sides blue, too. I used blue and red fondant for the accents -- my friend Danika had just made a Lego cake for her son and she brought her leftover, brightly-colored fondant for me to use and it was perfect for this!
For the red letters & design, I cut the shapes out of the red fondant and then let them dry out (laying on a Silpat mat so they wouldn't stick) for a few hours so that I could transfer them to the cake when they were more stiff not so pliable, so that they wouldn't lose their shape when transferred.

I drew this "Galaxy Pegasis" (Zach's favorite Beyblade) with the edible markers, which I bought at Michael's. I had cut this thick hexagon (using a paper template) from the white fondant, sprayed it lightly with the blue spray, and let it "dry" for a several hours before attempting to draw on it with the markers. The surface had firmed up some by then but I still had to be very careful not to apply too much pressure as it was still a bit squishy.

Here is what an actual Galaxy Pegasis Beyblade looks like; I printed this out as a guide and I also had borrowed the birthday boy's toy for reference. (Don't be too critical; I know it doesn't look much like it but I do think the Pegasis turned out pretty well.)

It was a fun challenge, and I'm excited to now have colored spray and food markers added to my repertoire of cake-making tools.

P.S. A couple of fondant tips: when you're ready to roll it out, sprinkle plenty of powdered sugar onto your counter and rolling pin. If it's still too sticky, knead more powdered sugar into it. This is for marshmallow fondant; it's been so long since I've used "regular" fondant that I don't recall whether it gets too sticky or not. Also, keep a cup of water with a small paintbrush handy (like a child's watercolor paintbrush). Brush water onto the back of pieces of fondant that you're going to stick on to the cake. Two layers of fondant with water between them will stick together permanently! Also, use the water to brush off any residual powdered sugar on the exposed surface. Or just brush some water on there to make it more shiny!

P.P.S. I still don't know much about Beyblades but FYI, they spell it "Pegasis," and not "Pegasus," as is the traditional winged-horse spelling.

Easy Orange Rolls

2011-08-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted a touch of sweetness with dinner the other night, and I had Rhodes rolls on hand so I looked online to find an orange rolls recipe using frozen Rhodes rolls. They were delicious! The recipe calls for 12 but I made 15, and I just increased the other ingredients by a little bit.

Jenna's Orange Rolls

12 Rhodes Dinner Rolls, thawed but still cold

1 medium orange rind, grated

1/2 c sugar

1/4 c butter, melted

Citrus Glaze:

1 c powdered sugar

1 T butter, melted

3 T orange juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix grated orange rind with sugar. Roll each roll into a 9" rope. Tie in a loose knot. Roll each knot in melted butter and then in rind/sugar mixture. Place on a large sprayed baking sheet. Cover with sprayed plastic wrap and let double in size. Remove wrap. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Remove from pan and place on cooling rack. Brush with citrus glaze while still warm.

Here's a little rolls tip for us warm-weather folks: last week I needed to make 48 rolls for another family and I didn't have time to make them from scratch so I went with Rhodes. But then I realized I was still short on time for them to thaw & rise. Molly, my 9-yr-old, had a great idea, "Mom, why don't you put them outside where it's really warm?" Perfect! I put them on greased (sprayed w/ Pam) sheet pans, and covered them tight with plastic wrap that I'd also sprayed. I set them out in the sun, on a nice flat spot where the dog couldn't reach them, and in just over an hour of being in 100+ degree heat they had thawed and risen and were ready to bake!

recipe credit

Special Occasion Cupcakes

2011-05-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

I bought a TON of cake mixes when they were on sale at the grocery store last month, so now whenever I'm tasked with bringing a dessert to a group function, I wonder what I can make that requires a cake mix in its preparation. For my piano recital this week I decided to make cupcakes, but a fancier-than-usual version. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com; and I topped them with a sour cream chocolate frosting that I adapted from another allrecipes.com recipe. The result was delicious.

Self-filled Cupcakes

1 chocolate or devil's food cake mix, plus ingredients to prepare it (eggs, oil, water)
8 oz cream cheese (1 brick), softened
1/2 c white sugar
1 egg
1 c semisweet chocolate chips

Prepare 24-30 cupcake tins with papers (I did 30); preheat oven as directed on cake mix instructions. Mix up cake mix ingredients according to box directions and set aside. In a smaller bowl, cream the cream cheese with the sugar. Then add egg and blend well. Stir in chocolate chips.

Fill each cupcake tin 1/2 full of chocolate batter, then top with about 1 T of the cream cheese mixture. You should still have some of the chocolate cake mix left; spoon a little bit on top of the cream cheese mixture on each cupcake. Don't stir it around or marble it; just allow the cream cheese mixture to stay in its own little glob.

Bake according to box directions.

They'll look something like this:
I didn't have quite enough chocolate batter to top each cupcake with an additional spoonful but I wish I had. The ones without it (like at the bottom left of the photo above) sunk down in the middle ~ which just had to be compensated for with extra frosting.

Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

1 c semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 stick (4 T) butter
1 T cocoa (unsweetened powder)
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c sour cream
2 T cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
about 4 c powdered sugar

In a medium-large microwave-proof bowl, melt the chocolate chips, butter, cocoa, and salt together. Heat in 15-20 second intervals, stirring in between. It only took about a minute total for my microwave to melt it completely. Allow this mixture to cool for about 15 minutes; then beat in the sour cream, cream, and vanilla. Beat in the powdered sugar about a cup at a time. Add more or less than 4 cups depending on desired thickness.

This frosting has a nice tang to it due to the sour cream, and it's just the right amount of chocolatey-ness. It was plenty for frosting my 30 cupcakes. This frosting would also be great on a sheet cake or brownies.
Each cupcake had a moist, yummy surprise with the cream cheese and chocolate chips inside! I will definitely make these again sometime.

Next time, I'll be better prepared with some pretty cupcake baking papers. Like these. Are those the cutest or what!

Red Slushie

2011-05-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, it was a warm day and I wanted to make a refreshing drink/treat for my family. The result was pretty good; absolutely NO nutrition but cheaper than a 7-11 Slurpee and I had the ingredients on hand.

Strawberry-lemonade Slushie
1/4 c lemon juice
1 1/2 c water
1 1/4 c sugar
about 1/2 packet strawberry Koolaid (unsweetened powder)
ice

Put the lemon juice, water, and sugar into the blender. Blend for a few minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved. Then add Koolaid mix, and blend. Keep in mind, red Koolaid can stain so keep the blender lid ON! Fill the blender up to the top with ice; in my case I have a 1.5 quart blender and the proportions were just right. Blend until it's a nice slushie texture; delicious!

Obviously some blenders can handle ice and full loads better than others; with mine I had to add a handful of ice at a time so it wouldn't get bogged down. It took several minutes to get it all blended thoroughly but it turned out nicely in the end. I made a second batch later that day; I'm going to remember this little trick throughout the hot summer.

photo found here

A few of my favorite kitchen tools

2011-05-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

There are a few special items in my kitchen that I'm so glad I have, because they make things look extra nice without extra effort. My newest "toy" in the kitchen is a Wilton 1M frosting tip. It's one of those big ones that needs a big-sized coupler; I got mine at Michael's. I've had so much fun using it; cupcakes are instantly and easily gorgeous with a quick swirl of frosting from a 1M tip.

Shown below: chocolate cupcakes with this frosting.

When I bought one of these Fluted Pastry Wheels at Williams-Sonoma several years ago, I had no idea I would use it so often. It was well worth the $5 and it makes so many pastry projects look nicer than a straight cut.
Most recently I used it on an apple-blackberry pie that I made for Easter. This picture was from before the pie was baked, so you can see the nice fresh fluted edges of the basket weave. Whenever I make a pie, even if it doesn't have a basket-weave top I use my pastry wheel to cut up the leftover pie dough scraps, to bake with cinnamon & sugar for a fun treat for the kids (and for me). I also use this tool for homemade noodles, and rugelach.

This item is something I'm sure you all have. But when I bought mine (from Pampered Chef several years ago), I honestly thought it would end up at the back of my drawer because I do not make homemade pizza very often. As it's turned out, my pizza cutter is usually at the front of my drawer ~ I use it for all kinds of things, such as these rolls.

Oh! I almost forgot, my pastry blender. I use it for pie crust dough but that isn't very often; I do make biscuits all the time and use it for those too. But do you know what a pastry blender is also SO good for? Dicing your hardboiled eggs to make egg salad sandwiches. It's so fast and easy! When you get a pastry blender, I highly recommend this version (shown) rather than the more flimsy version where it looks like wires attached to the handle instead of a solid piece of metal.

What are some of your favorite kitchen tools?

Stuffed French Toast

2011-04-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today towards the end of church, I must confess my thoughts were turned towards lunchtime. I thought about this recipe idea of breakfast-for-lunch and couldn't wait to get home to try it! The recipe for the French toast batter is modified from one I found on allrecipes.com. The addition of flour in the recipe makes a nice texture and works for all kinds of bread.

1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 T white sugar (if you're planning to use syrup, decrease sugar to 1 T)
1 1/2 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
20-24 slices of white sandwich bread (this is enough for a big family)
filling ideas: jam, bananas, peanut butter
canola oil

In a shallow baking dish, such a as an 8x8 casserole, mix flour with salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Gradually add milk while whisking quickly, so the flour dissolves and there are no lumps. Whisk in vanilla and eggs. The mixture will probably need to be whisked again just before using.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil on a large griddle, on medium-high heat.

Prepare stuffed french toast: each stuffed "sandwich" contains two pieces of bread and whatever filling you want. Just lay one piece of bread on the counter, spoon/spread/etc. a small amount of filling in the center of the bread, leaving at least an inch of plain bread all the way around. Cover with the second piece of bread, and then smush the edges of the bread together, hard, to make a good seal. This is why plain old white sandwich bread is the best for this, because it will smush together easily. Don't put too much filling in, and also remember that it will spread out. Keeping in mind what my kids like, I used the following combinations: strawberry jam (about 2 T), peanut butter & jelly (spread about a tablespoon of peanut butter and top with a spoonful of jam), banana (about 6-7 thin slices of banana), peanut butter and banana, and strawberry jam with banana. My kids' favorites ended up being peanut butter & banana, and plain jam.

Once you have prepared several of the stuffed sandwiches, dip each one into the egg/milk mixture, flipping to coat both sides but not allowing to soak more than a couple of seconds. Immediately place on your hot, oiled griddle; repeat with remaining sandwiches. We topped ours with powdered sugar; since my batter was sweet and the fillings were sweeter, we definitely did not need any syrup with these. They were delicious and I will make them again!

Tangled Cake

2011-04-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

For my daughter Molly's 9th birthday, she requested a Tangled cake. What a fun assignment! After looking at few ideas online, I decided to make a tower.

I baked four 5" rounds, and two 6" rounds. And, I figured out that one standard cake mix fits well in two 5"'s and one 6" -- so I did that twice. I used devils food cake mix following these instructions. I baked them in advance and froze them, and when assembling I cut the dome off each cake, and split it, and put white frosting (store-bought) between each layer.

I put one full 6" cake on the bottom, then three of the 5" cakes stacked on top of it. I used 12" dowels for support (later I would learn that they needed to be trimmed to about 10"). It looks like I stacked them a little crooked; well it turned out okay. For the top of the tower, I put a 5" on top of a 6" (split with frosting first) and carved it into the turret shape. I did this on a separate plate, and once it was carved I added it to the top of the tower. **In hindsight, I wish I had added the turret AFTER the rest of the tower was decorated... it would've been easier to work on them independently.** One it was all stacked and straight-ish looking, I took a sharp knife to it and carved the tower to be slightly more narrow, with a bit of a flare at the bottom. Then I gave it a generous crumb-coat. I used two cans of vanilla frosting; one for between all the layers, and an entire second can for the crumb coat. I knew I'd be covering it with plenty of fondant (click for step-by-step marshmallow fondant tutorial!) so I knew those unsightly crumbs would be hidden. Then, the cake sat in the fridge for a while, while I did some fondant work. Marshmallow rolled fondant is fabulous for covering cakes; it's not so good for molding. This batch seemed to be particularly "runny" (I think I added too much water) so when making the shingles, flowers, leaves, and of course Rapunzel herself, I formed the pieces and let them sit out to dry for a couple of hours before using them.

For the shingles, I used two different shades of a purple/brown/gray combination to give them a more "realistic" look. To make them I just rolled out several pieces of the fondant, and cut them into rectangles with a pizza cutter (then let them dry out). It took quite a while to place them individually on the turret but it was a good activity to do while watching TV :) To make them stick, I used regular frosting for the bottom layer of shingles, and for each layer above that I just brushed a little water on the back of each shingle. Water makes fondant stick to fondant -- very strong.The challenge with sculpting Rapunzel was the mushy-fondant issue. I had to do her in stages, allowing her to sit out and harden in between. She had a toothpick through the middle of her for stability. I cut the window opening after I'd covered the tower in fondant; I just used a shape knife and then I scraped out the cake with a fork. In order for the window's "background" to look better (not just crumbly cake & frosting), I covered the inside of the window space with dark chocolate frosting.

All of my kids commented on Rapunzel's bosom. She looked better the night before (I made this cake the night before we ate it & celebrated Molly's birthday)... her neck was longer and she was generally less squished in there. The window arch was higher too. But after spending the night in the fridge with the weight of a huge turret coming down on her head, she collapsed a little... causing her to become a bit more "bosomy." Oh, and for her eyes and mouth I just used a small-ended fondant tool, dipped in a little food coloring gel. I practice on a spare piece of fondant since I knew I'd only have one shot at it! The eyes & mouth were about the last thing I did. The only non-fondant used (visibly) in the decorating of this cake was the yellow centers of the flowers, and the green buttercream along the bottom. The vines, leaves, and red flowers were all fondant. I had two firsts with this cake: I used my fondant-shaping tools, which I'd had for years and not really ever used... they were GREAT for adding texture to Rapunzel's hair, sculpting her face and body, forming the flowers and leaves, etc. The other first was the use of Pearl Dust. It is available in several colors but I just bought white, to be generic. Using a small paint brush I dusted Rapunzel and her hair, the flowers nearest to her, and some of the shingles to give the roof a little shimmer. It was a nice touch. Plus, according to the movie Tangled, Rapunzel's hair is magical so I figured it had better shimmer!

Comparing the during-construction pictures with the finished-product pictures, what do you see? The cake shrunk! This always happens to me; I don't know if it's just the weight of the fondant, or if my cakes are to spongy to hold up, or what. Hm. I think next time I'll make a non-fondant cake and we'll see if, after 24 hours, it can hold up without collapsing. If any of you more-experience bakers out there have any suggestions, please let me know. I still like the way this cake turned out, but the original idea in my head was a taller tower, more like the height this one was before gravity took over!

Just a little question for you

2011-04-03T22:16:00.001-07:00

Hello readers! I know I don't have a huge readership here, but I do get comments from time to time from friends who make my recipes and have success with them... in emails, in person, or on facebook. That ALWAYS makes my day and makes me want to post more recipes! I was just curious, what kind(s) of recipes do you like the most? Do you most often look up dinner ideas, dessert ideas, or is there no rhyme or reason? Also, do you have a FAVORITE From the Kitchen of Happy Life recipe? Please, do tell.

I cook almost every single day which means I should really be posting more recipes on here; I will try! Part of the problem is that I often don't measure ingredients, and when something experimental turns out yummy I think "Darn, I wish I'd been paying more attention to how I did that."

Here's a little tip. Last Sunday I intended to make chicken burritos until I realized that I had NO SALSA in the house. What?!? In an effort to keep the Sabbath day holy, I wasn't going to go to the store to fix this problem, but I was bound and determined that we were going to have chicken burritos! So I scoured the pantry & fridge for alternate ingredients. What I ended up with was just as good, or probably even better, than the usual way I make them. I sauteed half an onion (chopped up) in a little oil, along with a small can of diced green chilies. I added shredded canned chicken to that, along with a healthy dash of cumin, and about half a can of enchilada sauce. I think I also put in a little tiny bit of cayenne pepper because it seemed like it needed more heat. The finishing touch (which was such a tasty finishing touch) was some fresh, chopped up cilantro, which I had recently planted outside. If I'd had a can of black beans, I would've added them to the mix. Anyway I let them chicken & etc simmer a little while to thicken the sauce and I served it in tortillas with cheese & sour cream.

Deeelicious! Don't be afraid to experiment; chances are you always have something in your pantry & fridge that you can turn into an interesting meal for your family.

Back to my original question though: please tell me what kind of recipes you like the best, what you would like to see more of on my little site, and if you have a favorite of mine. Thanks! :)

Chicken Enchilada Soup

2011-03-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law Emily, after we enjoyed some at Christmastime. It's delicious, and quite healthy too. Thanks again, Em!

Ingredients:

2 quarts water
2 T chicken boullion
3 chicken breasts
1 can chopped green chilies
1 large onion, quartered
1 red pepper, quartered
5 medium potatoes, peeled & quartered
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 butternut squash or 1 acorn squash (not easy to peel raw, so cut it in half, scrape out the seeds, then microwave for about 8 minutes until slightly soft. Then scrape the squash out of the skin and put in the pot with everything else)
----------
1 c sour cream
1/4 - 1/2 can red enchilada sauce
1 T taco seasoning
1 can white or Great Northen beans

Put first 11 ingredients in a large pot (water through squash) and boil until chicken is done and veggies are soft. Take out chicken and set aside. Puree the broth & veggies in one of the following ways: with an immersion blender (which would be the easiest), or strain out the soft veggies and blend them in your blender in two batches (adding about 2 cups of broth to each batch so it blends better), or in your food processor, then return it all to the original pot.

Shred chicken, then add it and the remaining 4 ingredients to the pot. Stir it, heat it up, & serve! Fun topped with extra sour cream, cheddar cheese, Fritos, fried tortilla strips, or nothing at all. Deeeelicious!

A few notes:

I had a hard time getting the taco seasoning to mix in well without being clumpy, so next time I'll add it to the blender while pureeing the vegetables.

I didn't include the squash or beans since I didn't have them on hand, but it was still quite yummy. Next time I'll be better prepared! Come to think of it, this would be a perfect recipe to add some canned (soft) beans to during the pureeing stage too, to hide a little extra protein in there. I would stick with light-colored beans though, to maintain the pretty color of this soup.

I used one pint of canned chicken, which I had on hand since I recently pressure-canned 40 pounds of chicken. A full pint jar was just about the right amount for this soup.

The recipe called for 1 tsp salt; you might want to start with 1 tsp and then add more at the end if it needs it. Mine needed a good extra teaspoon.

Measure the water: I approximated and in hindsight I probably had closer to 3 quarts in there; it was a bit watery for my liking so next time I will measure out 2 quarts!

Soup is not an exact science. I make a lot of soup around here and it's never the same each time; soup is a great thing to experiment with spices... just add a little of this and a little of that! Have fun with it :)

P.S. Do you pronounce it "kyoo-min" or "coo-min" ?? I have always said it the first way but I've heard plenty of people say it both ways. Having just done a little research online, both ways are acceptable and some people even say it like "comin'."

Spaghetti & Meatballs

2011-02-23T20:38:00.000-08:00

For as often as my family eats spaghetti (one of my kids' favorite dinners!) it's surprising that we had NEVER had spaghetti with homemade meatballs, until tonight. I usually put ground beef in my spaghetti sauce (whether making it from scratch, or adding to store-bought sauce) so we were essentially already eating the same thing, but since my more-picky kids have lately expressed a greater interest in meat, I decided to give these a try. They turned out great; we all loved them. I found the meatball recipe on allrecipes.com but tweaked it a bit.

Meatball ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef (I used 93/7)

3/4 c bread crumbs (I used store-bought)

1 T dried parsley

1 T grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/8 tsp garlic powder

1 egg, beaten

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients. I mixed it with a fork but then finished mixing it thoroughly with clean hands, just like I do when I make meatloaf. Shape into about 12 balls; if not using immediately then cover and store in the refrigerator.

Place meatballs in a glass or metal 8x8 pan; bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour an approximately 24-oz bottle/jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce into a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Once the sauce begins to boil, add the meatballs that have just partially cooked in the oven. Allow sauce to come to a boil again, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover, and let the meatballs simmer in the sauce for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan.

While they're simmering, cook spaghetti noodles according to package instructions, in a separate pot. When noodles are tender, drain, and serve with meatballs & sauce on top -- and extra parmesan cheese. Yum!

I doubled the meatball recipe; it was too much for my family but a single recipe wouldn't have been enough (because we all LOVED the meatballs)!

I noticed that after all that simmer-time my sauce had thickened considerably, even though it had been covered. To thin it out I added about 1 cup of water to my sauce ~ this is fine to do because the liquid that has boiled away is just water, so you should add water (rather than tomato sauce, or something) to thin it back out to the right consistency.

If you choose, you could omit the oven step and put the raw meatballs right into the sauce to cook. I liked the idea of browning them in the oven first. Either way, they should be cooked thoroughly after a 30-minute simmer.

Update: I just enjoyed the leftover meatballs & sauce for lunch ~ they would have been PERFECT on a hoagie roll! Thanks for the suggestion Amy; next time I'm making meatball subs!

Sloppy Joe Pot Pie

2011-02-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

I read this recipe on Real Mom Kitchen, on just the day I needed it: I had no ideas for dinner, I had ground beef in the fridge that needed to be used, and I had the rest of the ingredients on hand. My kids were at first nervous because it was something NEW, but they all ended up loving it! It's very easy and made for a great dinner with a salad on the side. I agree with Laura's assessment (Laura from Real Mom Kitchen) that it would be better with more meat, so I think next time I will double the meat & sauce part and keep the biscuity-top part the same. Shown below are the original quantities. Also, I don't have an oven-safe skillet so I baked mine in a glass 8x8 and it was lovely... just pour the cooked meat mixture into an 8x8, then top w/ cheese and continue the rest of the instructions. Laura's picture is much better than mine so that's what I've used here. Enjoy!

Sloppy Joe Pot Pie

1 lb ground beef
1/2 onion, diced
1 (15 oz) can sloppy joe sauce (like Manwich)
1 1/4 c shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 c baking mix (like Bisquick)
1/2 c milk (skim is fine)
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a 10-12" oven proof skillet, brown the beef & onion together until beef is no longer pink and onion is tender; drain. Add sloppy joe sauce to the meat and stir to combine. Remove from the heat and sprinkle with 1 cup of the cheese.

In a small bowl, mix together the baking mix, milk, and egg until combined. Pour over the beef mixture. Place the skillet in the oven and bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until golden.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 c cheese. Makes 4-5 servings.

A little tip: You can make your own Bisquick in a pinch. I didn't have any Bisquick on hand when I made this recipe, so I mixed 1 cup of all-purpose flour with 1/2 T baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. Then, cut in about 1/3 c shortening until mixture resembles fine crumbs. There's your "baking mix," so then just go ahead & stir in the milk & egg as directed.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

2011-02-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

For a project last week I wanted a sugar cookie that would be fluffy and more cake-like, compared with my tried-and-true sugar cookie recipe (which I just looked up to link to, and what do you know I've never posted it here! I'll have to do that sometime). I tried this recipe, found at allrecipes.com, because it called for so much more sour cream than the other sour cream sugar cookie recipes listed. They are quite tasty and I will make them again. The dough is not too sweet, so they do need to be frosted.

5 c all-purpose flour

1 T baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 c shortening

2 c white sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 c sour cream (full-fat is best)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla and sour cream. Gradually mix in the sifted flour mixture until just blended. Cover or wrap dough and chill overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 1/2" apart onto cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes until edges just begin to brown. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 5 dozen.

A few notes:

This dough extremely sticky. When I rolled out my first batch I needed a lot of flour and then the cookies still stuck to the counter. So, I figured out a little trick that worked with the rest of the batches: dump about 1/4 c of flour on the counter and a big hunk of dough (maybe enough to cut 20 or so cookies from). Flour your hands, and knead the dough on the counter with the flour... once it has taken on enough flour so that you can work with it, then roll it out and proceed. Much easier!

This dough is very tender and fluffy and delicious... I had a hard time not eating pieces off the extra dough in the fridge...

This afternoon I baked my remaining dough into hearts, and Lucy (age 7) helped me decorate them. I didn't feel like whipping up a batch of buttercream for only about 20-25 cookies, so I scoured the pantry for what was on hand. We had a little bit of red and white Wilton bottled frosting leftover from birthdays' past, but not enough to do all the cookies. I thought to myself, "What is frosting made of? Mostly sugar, and butter." So... I had some marshmallow creme that I didn't need for anything else... and I mixed about half a stick of softened butter with a 7 oz jar of marshmallow cream. I swirled some of the red Wilton frosting into it to make the fancy swirly effect you see in the picture. Lucy was liberal with the red sprinkles on some of them. The flavor of the marshmallow/butter frosting is pretty good, but it's sticky and runny and was pretty hard to work with. It was a fun experiment though, and if taste is all that matters then I would call it a success.

Cheesy Bread

2011-01-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

I didn't take a picture of this; darn! Next time!

As I teach piano 3 afternoons a week, I am often looking for short-cuts to good dinners. One of my fall-back side dishes is to buy a $1 loaf of French bread from the grocery store across the street. Typically I slice it diagonally into about 1" thick pieces, spread butter on one side, and keeping in "loaf-shape" I wrap it in foil and put it in the oven to warm while finishing the rest of dinner.

Last week though I decided to do something a little different, and it was quite tasty.

Ingredients:

1 loaf of store-bought French bread
1 to 1 1/2 sticks of butter
garlic powder, parsley
1 c grated mozzarella cheese (I actually used Jack since that's what we had; it was good but I think mozzarella would be a little bit better)

Pre-heat your broiler. Slice French bread horizontally, as if you're going to make a giant sandwich, making the halves as even as you can. Place on a cookie sheet with cut-sides up; spread each half with at least half a stick of softened butter. If it's a very large loaf you may need more butter; coat it well! Sprinkle with a little bit of garlic powder and parsley (I just like the parsley on there for color). Put under the broiler for a few minutes, watching it closely, until the butter is melted and the edges of the bread just start to brown.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle cheese on each half; return to the broiler until cheese melts and starts to bubble. To serve, cut into 1" strips/slices.

I did the first step about 20 minutes ahead of time, and then prepared the rest of our dinner. Right before calling everyone to the table I did the cheese part. Another tip: even though I was broiling, I put the sheet pan on a lower rack in my oven: it took longer for the cheese to melt but I wanted the bread to have a chance to heat through. Easy, quick, and delish! Aaron ate 6 pieces of it and enjoyed the re-heated leftovers the next day.

Rocky Road Brownies

2011-01-29T13:41:00.000-08:00

I was taking dinner over to a family in my neighborhood who is moving; I wanted to bring a dessert that was easy but more interesting than plain old brownies. These turned out so yummy!

Ingredients:

Any 9x13 brownie mix
2 c mini marshmallows
1 c chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
1 can store-bought chocolate frosting

Prepare brownie mix and bake as directed. When brownies are finished, take out of the oven and sprinkle marshmallows and nuts over the top, then return to the oven for about 5 more minutes. Afterwards, while still warm, spread entire can of chocolate frosting over the top of the marshmallows and nuts with a large spatula. To make the frosting easier to spread, put it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds first.

This will take quite a while to cool and set up; put it in the fridge for half an hour to help it along if you're in a hurry. Once the brownies & frosting are completely cooled, they will hold together and you can cut them. Delish!

Crew's Cake - Spiral Cake Tutorial

2011-01-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: I received a nice email this morning from a reader in Malaysia (Hi, Deepa!) asking for more advice/help on how to carve the spiral. Unfortunately when I made this cake I didn't take any pictures of the carving process, darn! So, I took my little circles diagram below and made some notations on it about how we went about carving the spiral and I emailed that image back to Deepa. Meanwhile I thought I'd include it on this original post too in case anybody else might benefit from it. Happy cake-making!

My extended family got together for my nephew's 2nd birthday this weekend. My sister asked if I would like to make the cake instead of buying present, and of course I said yes! The theme was Cars (the movie) so I looked online for some ideas. When I found pictures of a Cars-themed spiral cake (like this, but much bigger and fancier) I knew I had to give it a try! As always, this cake took quite a while but I did as much ahead of time as I could: baked the cakes and froze them, and made & colored fondant and buttercream to help the decorating go faster the day of the party. The decorating was a lot of fun! Above you can see that my fondant mountains got saggy after it had sat for a while; most likely because each cake layer underneath was split into 3 layers with pudding in between. Everything was edible except for the three cars, and the sign on top. The blue sky is buttercream, along with the cacti, clouds, & piping detail. The road, road strips, Route 66 sign, rocks, mountains, and traffic light are fondant. Everyone loved the rocks; they were the easiest thing to make! I had made gray and tan fondant; to make each rock I just took a little bit each of gray & tan, and smushed/rolled them together and into a rock shape, and gave each rock a little texture from a frosting tip, a knife, or whatever was handy.

To figure out ahead of time how to successfully make the spiral while cutting off (wasting) as little cake as possible, Aaron & I stacked up the 3 cake pans I used: a 10", 8", and 6" round. We figured out that by stacking the cakes as shown below, the shape lent itself to a natural spiral. So, looking at my lovely diagram below, you can compare to the pictures above and see that the start of the road, where the Route 66 sign is, is just barely to the left of the bottom of the circles.
I used one cake mix for the 10" and split a second cake mix between the 8" & 6". I froze them overnight. The next morning I let them thaw a little and then assembled them: leveled the tops, split each cake into 3 layers, "dammed" the edges of each with a piping of thick frosting & filled layers with pudding, opted to do each cake upsidedown for the nice straight edges, stacked them all as shown in the diagram above, and returned the whole thing to the freezer for a couple hours to firm up before carving.

If you click to enlarge the diagram below it may help with carving your spiral cake. You can see how we stacked the 3 cakes, and the arrows show the way the road curved around all the way up to the top! Next time I'll take pictures of the carving process!

Aaron, who is much more artistic than I and a capable sculptor (he does all the cake carving for me when there is a need!), carved the spiral road. I covered the whole cake in chocolate frosting (it was a Boston Cream; our family's favorite) and returned it to the freezer again to firm up so the chocolate would be ready to take on the exterior buttercream & fondant.

The hardest part was making the road; I did it in 3 sections. I rolled out the black fondant and cut the inside curve with a pizza wheel, then laid it on the road and trimmed off the outside of the curve. That was the best way I could figure how to do it.

It was a really fun cake to do; it's always time-consuming but I really do enjoy it!

Paper Bag Apple Pie

2010-11-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

This is a tasty recipe I got from an old church cookbook; I have changed a few minor things about it. Cooking the pie in a brown paper bag allows for nice, even browning with no burnt edges. It bakes perfectly every time.

1 unbaked piecrust

5-7 Granny Smith apples, or other tart baking variety, peeled and sliced

Filling:

2 T lemon juice

1/4 c sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 T flour

Topping:

3/4 c sugar

3/4 c flour

3/4 c butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened

Combine apple slices (thin) with filling ingredients in a large bowl. Transfer to pie shell. Then, you can use the same bowl to combine the 3 topping ingredients; mix with a fork until it's the consistency of cookie dough. Pat the topping evenly over the apples; going all the way to the edges.

Open a heavy brown paper bag (grocery bag) and lay it on its side onto a large baking sheet. Slide pie into the bag, fold the end and secure with paper clips. Bake at 425 for 1 hour.

Easy roast & gravy

2010-11-22T13:15:00.001-08:00

I got this recipe from Real Mom Kitchen, except her instructions called for putting the roast in the oven and I opted for the Crock Pot instead. My oh my, this was easy and delicious.

1 medium-sized roast; any kind... I had one I'd bought a few months ago on sale for $4 that had been hiding at the bottom of my chest freezer and it was perfect!
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 packet brown gravy mix
salt & pepper

Sprinkle salt & pepper on both sides of the meat, put in crock pot. Turn on to low. In a small bowl, combine both soups (not diluted!) and gravy mix. Pour mixture over meat (it will be pretty thick). Cook for several hours until meat is tender. I made this Sunday and I had forgotten to start it before church, so I started mine at noon and it was done by five (although I had the crock pot on "high" during part of that time since I was worried about it being done).

This was so good! Once the moisture & fat from the meat combines with the sauce it ends up making a great gravy consistency. I skimmed some fat off the top of it because it was a fairly fatty roast to begin with. Making the mashed potatoes was definitely the hardest part of this meal.

Pumpkin Bread

2010-11-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

I used a recipe I hadn't tried before; it was so moist and delicious! I made a few little changes to the recipe I found on allrecipes.com, and here's what I came up with.

1 c butter, room temperature (2 sticks)

3 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

3 c flour

1 tsp salt

1 T baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ground cloves

1 can pumpkin (15 or 16 oz)

semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two regular loaf pans by spraying with non-stick spray. Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla and eggs; beat for a few minutes until creamy and well-combined. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. Add dry mixture to mixer. Mix on low speed just until combined, then add pumpkin (and chocolate chips if you want them) and continue mixing on low just until combined. Divide batter into two loaf pans (Pam Baking works perfectly for this!) and bake for one hour at 350.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

Orange Strawberry Scones

2010-09-13T13:26:00.001-07:00

Easy and delicious! And, fancy-looking too. These would also be cute cut into different shapes, like hearts for Valentine's Day.

2 c flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 T orange zest
1/2 tsp salt
6 T butter, cut into 1/2" pieces
3/4 c heavy cream or half and half
1/3 c strawberry jam

Glaze:
1/4 orange juice
2 c powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, orange zest, and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (You can also do this with a food processor.) Stir in cream until just barely combined.

Flour a smooth work surface and roll out the dough to 1/2" thick. Cut out scones with a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter and put on a Silpat baking mat or parchment paper. Using the back of a small measuring spoon, make a shallow indentation in the center of each scone; then fill with jam.

Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine orange juice and powdered sugar for the glaze. Drizzle over each scone and let set for about 30 minutes before serving.

Healthy, inexpensive, satisfying dinner

2010-09-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

I am fortunate that nobody in my house minds skipping meat at dinnertime; I try to do at least 2 nights a week without meat and the substitute main course is usually pasta or potatoes. The meal pictured is one we have had twice this week and everyone around here just loves it. All three recipes are ones I've posted here before:

Ranch roasted potatoes (this time I only used half the packet of ranch, and added lots of salt, pepper, garlic powder, & Italian seasoning)

Italian peas

Glazed carrots

Chocolate Chip Cookies (the best?)

2010-08-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

I follow several cooking blogs and I like to read cookbooks for fun, and occasionally I'll come across a recipe that claims to be THE BEST chocolate chip cookies. Well, although I always like my own version the best, I am always willing to try the others. And while every chocolate chip cookie recipe I have tried is certainly GOOD, I still always come back to my own recipe as my favorite. Differences in oven, baking sheets, method, quality of ingredients, etc. affect the outcome of anything you bake; I'll give you my recipe here and a few tips for how I like to make them. I won't claim that they're "the best" since that is obviously subjective, but they're MY favorite :)

1 c shortening
1/2 butter (one stick), slightly softened
1 1/2 c white sugar
1 1/2 c brown sugar
4 eggs
1 T vanilla
5 1/2 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
chocolate chips... about 2 cups or 12 oz

This is a double-batch; it makes about 5 dozen cookies for the size I make them. I use a stand mixer, which isn't absolutely necessary but does make it easier!

Cream together shortening and butter. Add both sugars, and mix for a while until well-combined and light and fluffy. Add the eggs, keep mixing for while until light and fluffy. Beating the heck out of these first few ingredients makes for a better chocolate chip cookie! Then add the vanilla.

Lots of recipes will tell you to mix the salt & baking soda with the flour separately. I don't think this is necessary. If there's any chance that your dry ingredients have lumps in them, sift them first. But almost always I just put my first cup of flour into the mixer, put the salt & baking soda on top of that, and mix it well. Then add the rest of the flour. Mix until just combined (no need to mix it to death) and then add the chocolate chips.

I like to refrigerate the dough for a while before baking; I think they turn out better that way but if you need to bake some right away that's okay too. I prefer nice aluminum half-sheet pans with a Silpat mat when baking cookies. They bake nice and evenly, not too done on the bottom; plus you have the non-stick benefit of the Silpat. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

If you store all the dough in the fridge, it fits pretty well into a 2 qt/half gallon container. If you don't eat too much of the cookie dough on its own, of course! Oh, a quick note about fats. I like to use a combination of shortening and butter: butter for its flavor, and shortening because cookies usually turn out more fluffy with all or part shortening. If you use all butter the flavor is fabulous but they'll often spread out too much when cooking. I'll shift the ratio with these if I'm almost out of shortening or something, but stick with 1 1/2 cups total fat and they should turn out okay.

Enjoy!

Aunt Jessie's Buttermilk Cake

2010-08-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

An old time family favorite!

2 1/2 c sugar

1 c shortening

3 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 c buttermilk

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp lemon extract

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a bundt or angel food pan by greasing it with shortening, then dusting with powdered sugar.

Dissolve baking soda into buttermilk. Cream sugar & shortening. Add eggs and lemon extract; mix well. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and finally buttermilk/soda; mix until just well blended. Scrape batter into prepared pan; bake at 350 for 1 hr 15 minutes. It's done when the center of the cake springs back when you press on it.

If you halve this recipe it's just right for a regular loaf pan. Or, bake a full recipe in two loaf pans and give one of them to a friend!

I like to ice the top of mine with a simple lemon icing... just combine a couple tablespoons of lemon juice with enough powdered sugar to make a good drizzling consistency. In my family we adore eating this buttermilk cake with this frozen dessert!

No-machine ice cream

2010-08-06T19:14:00.001-07:00

This afternoon my kids and I made homemade ice cream, but without an ice cream maker! I saw this recently on Kevin & Amanda's Recipes and I had to give it a try. Ready for the ingredients?

1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 cups of heavy cream

That's it! Your base for some very creamy, tasty, no-machine ice cream. All you do is mix in whatever flavorings, fruits, add-ins, etc. that you want to, into the sweetened condensed milk. Beat the cream until stiff peaks form, and fold it into the other mixture. Then put it into a container and into the freezer for several hours until it's firm. It couldn't be any easier, could it!

If you click on that link above, Kevin & Amanda post several recipe ideas using this easy base. But today with my kids, I gave them some ideas for recipes and we just experimented... knowing that we couldn't really go wrong! We doubled the recipe and then split it into four portions for my four kids. Here are our flavors:

peanut butter, with peanut butter chips and white chocolate chips

chocolate with white chocolate chips

chocolate with mini marshmellows

strawberry

For each flavor, we added a little vanilla. For the peanut butter, we added about 1/2 c of creamy peanut butter. For the chocolate, with one of them we used cocoa powder and a little sugar to offset the bitterness; for the other chocolate we used hot chocolate mix powder. That made for a good flavor but it was a little grainy; it didn't completely dissolve. For the strawberry, we hulled a pint of strawberries and put them in the blender, then mixed them with about 2T sugar. Remember, each of these batches were a 1/2 batch.

Since the batches were small, most of them were frozen in about 5 hours. The strawberry batch yielded more because of the bulk of a full pint of berries, and took longer to set up.

I would encourage you to try this basic recipe and be creative with the flavors! Next time I'm going to make a mixed-fruit one; I'm thinking peaches and bananas. I couldn't convince any of my kids to choose that as their flavor today. This base makes for a very nice texture and if you don't mind waiting several hours for it to freeze, go for it!

Summer Sliders

2010-08-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

Our dinner tonight:

I was inspired by the Pioneer Woman's post this morning for Mushroom Swiss Sliders with Spciy Fry Sauce. I don't love Swiss cheese, so I used provolone instead. Other minor changes I made to her recipe: I used burgundy cooking wine with the mushrooms instead of white (since that's what I had on hand), and, I didn't measure anything (as usual for me) but I did use all the same ingredients. Adding heavy cream to the ground beef was quite tasty; I hadn't tried that before. One hint: I wasn't watching the sliders when they were finishing up with the cheese, and my cheese melted too much... much of it melted right off. So, don't put the cheese on until the last couple of minutes, and keep an eye on them. But they turned out very delicious; I would make this again for sure!

To make the homemade fries I just cut up potatoes, laid them out on a cookie sheet tossed with a little vegetable oil, salt & pepper, & seasoned salt. Bake them in a very hot oven, 450 degrees is good. Resist the urge to check them very often because you'll let a lot of heat out every time, but they do need to be stirred around & turned over a few times during baking. I let them bake about 45 minutes.

To freshen up the meal we had fresh watermelon and drank cherry limeade. It was so delicious and summery!

Chocolate Cake with White Frosting

2010-07-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

I made this cake for my Mom's birthday, and it was to serve a crowd of 15 (including small children). I wanted to be sure there was enough cake for everyone, without using two cake mixes. So I decided that I wanted my two 8" rounds to each be as tall as they could be. It worked! The cake rose more than usual and it turned out nice and tall, and it was enough for everyone at the party.

Chocolate Cake

1 box devil's food cake mix
1 box (small) chocolate instant pudding mix
1 1/4 c water
1/2 c oil
4 eggs, separated
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two 8" cake rounds with Pam Baking (you can use regular Pam too, or old fashioned grease n' flour... but Pam Baking is so fantastic; cakes never stick!). Mix cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil, and egg yolks with a hand mixer in a large bowl. Mix for about 2 minutes until it is well-combined. The mixture will be thick.

Beat egg whites & cream of tartar in a separate, smaller bowl until stiff peaks form. This won't take very long. (FYI, egg whites whip up better when they're at room temperature rather than cold. The cream of tartar acts as a stabilizer, helping the whipped whites to not collapse.)

Fold beaten egg whites into the cake batter. Once it's combined, pour into two 8" cake pans and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes, or until the center springs back when lightly touched.

Allow to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, the invert onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Something interesting I noticed about the way the cake baked with this recipe is that the cakes rose more evenly during baking. Rather than having an obvious dome in the middle, the cake rose up the sides almost just as much. In fact, the dome was so small that I didn't even have to cut ANY of it off when assembling the cakes! I was delighted that it turned out so well.

White Frosting

I decided to give this frosting recipe a try. I'll just provide you with the link so you can read the directions for yourself; it's Pioneer Woman's "best frosting I've ever had." Yes, it was very good. In the pictures the texture looks just like buttercream, but it's quite different in real life. It's very light, and sort of melts in your mouth like whipped cream. However, it is much more sturdy than whipped cream; I put about 1/2" layer of this frosting between each of my four layers of chocolate cake, and it held up beautifully and didn't squish out or get smushed by the weight of the cake. It spread easily and tasted very good with the chocolate cake. I wouldn't use it for any time buttercream is called for, but I will definitely make it again to go on a chocolate cake or cupcakes.

The ingredients are strange... There's flour in it, but don't let that freak you out. It works! My only addition to the instructions given: be sure to sift your flour first. I had a few tiny lumps in mine and wish I'd taken the time to sift it first.

Cakes: Straight and Crumb-coated

2010-07-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

Can you tell that I like to make cakes? That I like to talk about cakes? And that I like to make and talk about cakes probably more than I like to eat cakes? I honestly do cook much more "real" food than desserts; if you know my husband and/or children you'll see that they're all thin... which means I don't serve them cake and dessert at every meal.

But if any occasion comes up that could possibly warrant a cake, by golly I'll bake one!

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday; we all met for dinner at a restaurant tonight and I brought the cake:

I don't have a picture of the inside since it was cut at the restaurant by our server and I didn't have my camera on me. But it was four layers of chocolate cake with white frosting between each layer.

I'm not very good at roses and it had been several years since I'd done any, but it was fun to do some to put on this cake. Also I need some serious help with leaves. But it turned out okay.

So today I would like to tell you how to make a gorgeous, straight-sided cake, and how to make the frosting look nice.

Let's say you've baked two 8" rounds. Right before assembly time (which in my case means after the cakes have been baked, cooled, frozen overnight, thawed out, and unwrapped), slice part of the "dome" off the top. I always make sure my top layer is the prettiest "bottom" of one of the rounds, so that it makes a nice flat surface and square edges.

I always slice both of my rounds in half, so that I end up with four layers. Just use a long, thin, very sharp and preferably serrated knife to do this. Slice it as straight and evenly as you can, otherwise you'll end up having to match the cuts up perfectly so your cake isn't lopsided. For the bottom two layers, you can either put the round right-side-up or upside-down. For this cake, I put it right-side-up so that the nice flat bottom of the cake was on the bottom. I've done it both ways though. Then, my top cake was upside-down (matching up my slices) so, my two rounds were top-to-top; dome sides together.

When you spread your filling or frosting between each layer, make it nice and even... OR, make thicker on one side to account for any crookedness. Your BEST FRIEND when spreading frosting is an offset spatula. I don't know what I'd do without mine; a couple of times my kids have put it away in the wrong drawer and I've had a small heart attack when I've thought it was missing.

When you're frosting any cake, but especially when you're frosting a chocolate cake with white icing, you're going to be stressed out about the crumbs getting in the way & showing. It's a total nightmare when making choc w/ white.

The solution is so simple; I was so happy when I learned about this: do a crumb coat. This cake's crumb coat is shown below:

See? I just frosted it without abandon; not a care in the world for how many dark crumbs were contaminating my pretty frosting. A crumb coat is just a thin layer of frosting that seals in the crumbs. Just be sure to set aside enough "uncontaminated" frosting for the final layer! The crumb coat is also a good time to make the sides nice and straight, and to fill in all the ridges between layers of cake. This particular frosting had a lot of butter in it, which meant it set up nice and firm after leaving it in the fridge for a little while. After about 45 minutes in the fridge, the crumb coat was set firmly enough to apply the rest of the frosting to the cake.

Application of a crumb coat requires more frosting and more time/planning, but it will really help the prettiness of your cakes.

Next post: the recipe for this particular cake!

Mexican Rice

2010-07-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

I have tried a few different recipes for Mexican rice but never had great success; I found a one on allrecipes.com and made a few changes to it and it turned out just great! My husband even liked it, and he doesn't usually like Mexican rice. This is a big batch; you could easily halve it.

1/4 c vegetable oil (or lard)

2 1/2 c uncooked long-grain rice
3/4 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 c chopped onion
16 oz tomato sauce
4 c chicken broth
1/2 c water

Heat oil or lard in a large wok; add rice. Cook, stirring constantly, until golden. While rice is cooking, sprinkle with garlic, salt, and cumin. Stir in onions and cook until tender. Stir in tomato sauce, chicken broth, and water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer for about 25 minutes until done. Fluff with a fork. Enjoy!

Original recipe found here

Potato Salad

2010-07-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

I have only made potato salad a few times, but so far it's always turned out pretty well. I made some over 4th of July weekend, and I thought I'd let you know what I put in it.

about 4 lbs russett potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 c mayonnaise
1/2 c milk (approx)
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
4 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped (I use a pastry blender to cut mine up)
salt & pepper
celery salt
parsley
dill
ground mustard

You could also use red potatoes; they're fantastic and don't even need to be peeled! But this time I used russett... which, yes, need do be peeled.

Cook potatoes in salted, boiling water until tender, but don't cook them as long as you would if you were going to mash them. Drain in a colander and run cold water over them to cool. Cut them into bite-sized pieces; about 1" cubes. Put potatoes in a large bowl and add about 1 c mayo; I used a combination of fat-free and full fat mayo (just what I had on hand). Add red onions, celery, and eggs, and start putting in some of the spices... I can't tell you how much of each. Sprinkle some in; you'll need quite a bit of salt for that many potatoes. The onion & celery give you good flavor but you'll need the parsley, dill, mustard, celery salt, & pepper too.

The consistency will be too thick as it is, plus as it sits in the fridge the potatoes will continue to absorb liquid. So, you'll need to add about 1/2 c of milk to thin it out. Just mix it well, and continue to taste and add more spices as necessary.

I know this isn't much of a "recipe" but at least will give you a starting point for the next time you want to make potato salad!

I tweet.

2010-07-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Frequently I'm cooking/baking and I discover some little trick to make something tastier or easier to prepare, and I think "I should do a post about this on my recipe blog." Well my recipe blog is really supposed to be for recipes, and Twitter was MADE for short tips, so it was only a matter of time before I started Tweeting...

Come see at http://twitter.com/saracooksalot and if you have a Twitter account you can "follow" me. If you're not on Twitter, you can just go to that link any time you want and read whatever it is I've been tweeting about. Or, just click on my blog to read twitter updates on the sidebar.

As for the name... my gmail account is saraplayspiano, so in keeping with the tradition of talking about myself in 3rd person present tense, my twitter account is saracooksalot (my first few choices were already taken).

And I do like the little blue birdies.

Strawberry Shortcake Flag Cake

2010-07-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

Since I didn't really follow a "recipe" when making this cake, I just posted the picture w/o recipe instructions. I made it on Sunday (the 4th of July) and brought it to a dinner with some friends. It got rave reviews and I thought about posting a recipe for it, but then tonight when one of the friends told me that she was so full from eating so much of my cake that she couldn't eat anything until 1pm the next day, I thought, okay, I'm posting this! :)

As usual, I didn't do much measuring of anything... but I do remember what I did. So here goes:

1 box white cake mix, plus eggs & oil to prepare
8 oz brick cream cheese, softened
4 T (1/2 stick) butter, softened
up to 1/2 c milk
powdered sugar (you will need less than one 2 lb. bag)
about 50 blueberries
1 lb strawberries
2 T white sugar
1/3 c shortening
Cool whip (or whipped cream)

Prepare one regular white cake mix into a 9x13 pan. Once it has been out of the oven for about 10 minutes, carefully dump it out of the pan upsidedown onto a cooling rack. May I recommend Pam for Baking! It's even better than regular Pam; has a little flour in it and is especially for greasing cake pans.

Prepare your berries: Wash, hull, and thinly slice all strawberries. Take about half of them and put into a small mixing bowl. Mix 2 T sugar into them and set aside. We'll use those for the inside of the cake. For the remaining strawberry slices, spread them out on paper towels to absorb their moisture. These are the ones we'll put on top for the stripes. Rinse blueberries and set on paper towels too.

With a hand mixer, mix 8 oz softened cream cheese with 1/2 stick of softened butter. Add 1 tsp vanilla and a splash of milk (2-3 T). Once that's well-blended, add some powdered sugar until it's a good consistency for spreading. I would say 2-4 cups; just keep adding 1/2 cup at a time until you like the consistency.

Now we're going to split the cake. You'll need a very sharp, very long knife for this. I like to put the top side down on a 9x13 cake, so I put the whole (cooled) cake upside down on my serving board, the carefully cut off the top layer and move it (with both hands underneath for support and spreading out your fingers so it doesn't break!) to another surface.

Evenly spread about HALF of your cream cheese frosting on the inside of your cake (split layer). On top of the frosting, spoon your macerated strawberries (that means they've been soaking in their own juices & sugar and getting nice and juicy for you) evenly. Don't let the berries & juice go too close to the edges. Go ahead and spoon all the strawberry juice on there; it will only make the cake more yummy! Carefully place the other half of your split cake on top of the berries.

Now, you'll need some more frosting to cover the whole cake. Starting with your leftover cream cheese frosting, add about 1/3 c shortening and mix well. Add 1-2 T milk. Add some more powdered sugar (maybe 1-2 cups) until it's the consistency of a nice buttercream.

At this point I decided I wanted the frosting to be lighter... in color and in consistency. So I folded in about 1/3 to 1/2 a tub of Cool Whip to the buttercream/cream cheese frosting. After doing that, frost the entire outside of the cake.

Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours before serving, AND... shortly before serving, make your stars and stripes with your berries. I had drained my sliced strawberries on paper towels but they still bled by the time of the party; I'd put them on about two hours beforehand.

So there you have it! It was very yummy.

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-04T14:51:00.001-07:00

Waves Cake

2010-07-02T16:54:00.000-07:00

For Noah's 10th birthday party, 2010. When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he said "yellow cake with blue frosting." Since he was having a swim party I decided to carry over the water theme.

I just split the two 8" rounds so that it was four layers total, with a thin layer of blue frosting between each. I just used store-bought vanilla frosting (two cans) and colored it with mostly blue and little bit of green food coloring. I made half a batch of marshmallow rolled fondant, and colored it roughly the same color as the frosting (a little darker). I rolled it out into a thin, long skinny rectangle and cut the bottom straight with a ruler (and a paring knife). I was going to make one long continuous waves wrapper for the outside of the cake but then I realized it was going to be a nightmare trying to deal with such a long thin piece of fondant, so I changed my plan and cut individual waves of different sizes and stuck them on the outside of the cake, overlapping.

To make the "hill" which is the wave on top of the cake, I used the two cut off domes from the tops of the two rounds (which I always cut off to make a nice flat top to my cakes) and I just sort of folded them in half and piled them up on half of the top of the cake. Then I microwaved some of the leftover canned frosting so that it was soft enough to sort of pour onto the crummy mess of a hill, to smear around and adhere it all together. Once that frosting had set, I rolled another piece of fondant to cover it. I actually kneaded together a piece of white and a piece of blue fondant to make it marbled, but you can't tell in this picture.

I sprinkled some water onto the flat part of the top of the cake so that the "sand" would stick to it -- Sugar in the Raw (my favorite fake sand for cakes). Before putting the sand down I peeled back the edge of the wave so it would look like the wave was washing up onto the sand. Going for realism, as always :) Just kidding.

I hoped to find an action figure of some sort that would fit into the theme; a dude in a swimsuit or something. I was very excited to find this surfing Phineas and Ferb toy at Target; my kids like that show so it was perfect.

In order to have frosting to pipe, I mixed some powdered sugar with the remaining store-bought frosting so that it was thick enough. It was light blue and I put a couple drops of blue food coloring in the frosting bag to make it come out swirly-colored. I actually made the frosting a little too thick and it was really hard to pipe; my hand got tired fast and I'm not very happy with the piping but I just had to get it finished for Noah's party -- there's no way I would've had time to remix the frosting to make it less thick. I like the way the waves on the sides look with the piping outline; it's just sloppier than I would normally do. Oh well!

Noah loved it; he said it was almost as good as his city cake from when he was 5 (seen on this post). Well, I don't know about that but I do know this one was MUCH faster to make!! That city cake was way more work. This one was fun though, and it was nice to tie in the swimming/water theme of the party.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

2010-06-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

1 store-bought chocolate pie crust (or follow recipe for homemade crust, below)

8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened

1 c creamy peanut butter

3/4 c powdered sugar

1 c heavy cream, whipped

white & dark chocolate for garnish

With a hand mixer, blend cream cheese, peanut butter, and powdered sugar until well-combined. Whip cream in a separate bowl; fold whipped cream with peanut butter mixture. Gently spoon into pie crust; chill for at least two hours before serving. It sets up but not entirely firm; next time I'll put it in the freezer for about half an hour before serving. This is very good and melts in your mouth!

In the photo above, I melted about 1/4 c white chocolate chips and 1/4 c milk chocolate chips in two separate bowls in the microwave. To drizzle, I put the melted chocolate into two small ziploc bags, sealed them and punctured a small hole with a sharp knife. Then just squeeze the melted chocolate out; it's much easier to do it this way than to dirty up "real" drizzling equipment; just throw the ziploc away when you're done! Having this little bit of extra chocolate on top was a great combination with the peanut butter filling.

When I made this, I had a store-bought pie crust that I had intended to use... I picked up the bowl of filling ready to spoon it in, and it slipped and fell down right on my pie crust! The crust broke into a hundred pieces and was useless, so I had to come up with a recipe for a quick new crust. This one worked really well, and I think it tasted better than the store one would have. Most chocolate crusts are made from crushed oreos, or crushed chocolate graham crackers. I didn't have either of those things on hand but I always have regular graham crackers, so I used those and it worked very well. My favorite kinds of recipes are the ones with ingredients that I always have on hand anyway!

Chocolate pie crust

1 sleeve graham crackers (usually about 9)

2 T cocoa powder

1/3 white sugar

5 T melted butter

Preheat oven to 375. Putting half the graham crackers in at a time, crush in a ziploc bag by rolling over and over with a rolling pin until they're reduced to crumbs. Put graham cracker crumbs in a medium bowl; add cocoa and sugar. Combine with a fork, then pour in melted butter and mix well. Press crumbly mixture evenly into a regular pie plate (will be enough for deep dish too); bake for 10 minutes. Cool before putting peanut butter filling in it.

Panko Tilapia

2010-06-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

We had this for our Father's Day main course tonight... along with garlic mashed potatoes, vegetables (frozen stir-fry blend), and peanut butter pie for dessert. Delish!

6 tilapia fillets, rinsed & patted dry
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup unseasoned panko

1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning (1/4 tsp + 3/4 tsp)
lemon wedges

Heat oven to 375. Spray a baking pan lightly with cooking oil. In a shallow dish, combine melted butter, garlic powder, lemon juice, and 1/4 tsp Old Bay. In a separate shallow dish, combine panko and 3/4 tsp Old Bay seasoning. Dip each filet in butter mixture, then roll well in the panko mixture. Place filets in a single layer onto prepared pan. Press any remaining panko mixture onto tops of filets. Bake 12-14 minutes, until flaky. Serve with lemon wedges.

Recipe courtesy of Recipe Zaar (I just increased the amount of Old Bay from the way I found it online)

Rainbow Cake

2010-06-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

{Reposted... originally appears on my regular blog in April 2010}

For Molly's "rainbow party," the outside of the cake looked like this:

Before it was assembled the cakes looked like this (top two have been cooked and the bottom two are ready to go in the oven). I used these instructions, roughly making concentric circles... I just blobbed some batter in the middle, then each color on top of the last, jiggling the pan a little to help it settle. (If you click on that link, the lady gives some strange low-fat diet recipe; I just used regular white cake mix and followed the normal intructions.)
I just divided the batter into six small bowls and colored each with gel food coloring to make the six colors of the rainbow. This process made the cake less fluffy than usual, and after I'd baked two 8" rounds I knew I wanted it higher. So I used a second box of cake mix and baked two more 8" rounds. I split each round & put a thin layer of frosting between, so there ended up being 8 layers total. I used store-bought white frosting and the whole thing took 3 full cans of frosting. Also, the rainbow on top was made of m'n'ms, which I decided would taste better with cake than Skittles would.

I was just delighted when we cut into it; the colors inside were SO vibrant!
All the party guests ooh'ed and ahh'ed over it; here's a closeup of a single piece. I really like how it turned out.

Cake Tour, Part 5

2010-06-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

This was a really fun one, for my son's 8th birthday. I think I got the idea from a Wilton catalog. I baked the cake in a 9x13 pan, and I bought a box of white rolled fondant. I rolled out the fondant and cut out a 9"x13" piece to lay over the top of the frosted cake. To make the wood-looking floor, I painted it with food coloring.. just mixed up some brown food coloring in a small bowl with water to thin it out. The more water, the lighter the color. I used darker for the lines and mixed in some yellow for the "wood grain." Just used a regular small paintbrush.

I did the same thing with the rolled fondant jersey; it started out white and I painted on the purple, the piped the orange which gave it some nice depth (Phoenix Suns colors). "Draping" the jersey over the cake like this made it seem more realistic. I didn't have a ball-shaped pan so I actually baked two layers of 6" and one layer of 5" rounds, then stacked them and gave my artistic husband the task of carving them into a half-sphere. I think he did a mighty awsome job! I really like how this whole cake turned out.

My twin girls' 5th birthday cakes were not spectacular, but I'm posting them so you can see that by just owning several sizes of round cake pans, you can make some fun cakes. I always, always make two separate cakes for these girls so that nobody ever feels slighted in blowing out the candles. This was a princess party, and we just stuck a few plastic princess figures on top of the tiered cakes.

For Noah's 9th birthday I used a cupcake tower; the purpose of showing you this is the frosting. I used canned white frosting and colored it "flourescent" greenish-yellow. To make the blue stripey effect, I took an empty frosting bag and squirted a stripe of blue food coloring gel from the tip to the bag's opening. Then, I spooned the greenish frosting into the bag and piped some out onto a plate to get rid of any too-blue parts, then piped the cupcakes with a star tip, starting on the outside of the cupcake and working in. The frosting picks up the bright blue dye as it goes through the bag, making it nice and stripey. This would be fun to do with two colors too.

Just some 6" rounds for Zoe & Lucy in 2010. But I will share a few little techniques...

I knew I wanted to have tall, narrow cakes, but I only own two 6" rounds. I decided I wanted to put a full cake mix in each 6" round, which would make it overflow unless I did this:

Just cut a rectangle of parchment paper; spray the inside of the pan with Pam and the parchment will stick to it and stand up like this. Then, just pour the cake batter into each pan... the batter came just under the top of the pan, and when it baked it rose well above it but stayed a nice, cylindrical cake for me. I split each tall cake into four layers after cutting off the rounded tops.

After I'd made these, I posted the recipe on this blog for marshmellow rolled fondant. It tastes better than classic fondant and was very similar to work with. To make the Hello Kitty cut-outs I just rolled it out like cookie dough (dust the counter with powdered sugar) and carefully cut around a printed-out-on-cardstock Hello Kitty head with a paring knife. I colored small amounts of fondant with yellow, red, and black to make her nose, bow, and eyes.

We had cupcakes for the party guests; each cupcake was topped with one of these fondant Hello Kitty heads.

This post brings us up to date on all the cakes I've ever made for my kids that I thought were worth posting; for birthdays here on out, cakes will get their own post (if they're post-worthy, that is).

Cake Tour, Part 4

2010-06-17T02:52:00.000-07:00

{Reposted... originally appeared on my regular blog in 2008}

I am actually not overwhelmingly proud of any of the following cakes; I think I hit my peak in 2005-2006 and have gone downhill from there. It's hard to come up with ideas for so many birthdays all year! So I don't think that the Cake Tour is going out on a high note but oh well, here's the 4th batch!

Zoe & Lucy's 3rd birthday, 2007. They each had their own 6" ladybug (or 8", I don't remember for sure) and the guests each had their own cupcake. I made a lot of red & black & ladybuggy decorations; fun theme. These cakes & cupcakes are super easy to do; just cut off the naturally rounded top & cut it in half for the wings.

Noah's 7th birthday, 2007. I regret that I didn't use something darker in color for the rocks/dirt (I think this was some kind of chocolate breakfast cereal) but other than that I loved this cake. The cake mold is the Wilton princess skirt mold; same as I used on that pink princess for my friend's daughter in 2005. For the spouting lava I melted sugar, dyed it red, (just like making hard candy) and drizzled it on a Silpat (one of my favorite inventions EVER!) and then just stuck the cooled pieces into the top of the volcano. The lava flowing down the sides is gel icing. It looked even better with yellow, orange, and red lit candles on top! But none of those pictures turned out as well.

Zoe & Lucy's 4th birthday, 2008. I made 3 cakes since we were getting together with all of my family, and since the girls' individual round cakes were small; probably 6" rounds. They requested the flowers and butterflies, and the light pink & dark pink.

More flowers: for Molly's 6th birthday, in 2008, the party was flower-themed: flower plates & cups, a flower pinata, these flower cupcakes, and the girls at the party all made flower hair clips. The flowers are just white chocolate, dyed with food coloring, put in candy molds. Easy peasy. The stems are sucker sticks that I painted with thinned-out food coloring. The leaves are white chocolate colored green that I smeared onto a Silpat and then cut into leaf shapes.

If you're really keeping track you'll realize that I skipped a few birthdays along the way - one year Noah had a race car cake that was unremarkable; a chocolate-frosted cake that had a toy racecar on top and a little checkered flag. The cake itself was a checkerboard cake but it turned out pretty funky looking. One year Noah had a store-bought Star Wars cake with Yoda on top, and one year Molly had a store-bought My Little Pony cake.

Cake Tour, Part 3

2010-06-16T03:50:00.000-07:00

{Reposted; originally appeared on my regular blog in 2008}

In answer to someone's question, no I have never taken any cake decorating classes; I just like doing it. I watch a lot of Food Network (hello - Ace of Cakes!) and have learned some stuff from my mom, who took cake decorating classes and always made awesome cakes for our birthdays. One day I want to take the full Wilton cake decorating course... in the magical future day when I have oodles of extra time on my hands. (Other goals I have for that magical time are singing in the Arizona Mormon Choir [which is called something different now], being on my HOA board, and catching up on my scrapbooking...)

Anyhow, I give you the 3rd installment:

Zoe & Lucy's 2nd birthday featured Dora and Boots. I assume I must have printed out pictures of them to make outlines or something but the main thing I remember is mixing up about a MILLION different colors of frosting, of which I only needed about a tablespoon each.

One of my favorites for sure; Molly's 4th birthday Hello Kitty party. I went a little crazy at the Sanrio store getting decorations. But the cake was all me - this was a big cake, two layers baked in cookie sheets. We printed out the outline of Hello Kitty on two sheets of paper and cut it out. This is the only time I've done all the star-tip fill-in like that and it took forever. Fortunately my in-laws were in town for the weekend and Ruth helped me with all that piping. I think it turned out just perfect. Jellybeans for the eyes and nose were just the right size and shape.

A baby shower cake for Jamie's baby (who is now almost 2)! I loved this one. It was HUGE - very heavy - and very hard to cover with fondant since it was so tall. But I loved the beach theme, which was the theme of the shower -- I made the white chocolate shells (swirled with dark chocolate) in candy molds. Hubs made the white chocolate castle. The sand is sugar in the raw. The letters I painted with a paintbrush using a regular plastic stencil and the "ink" was brown food coloring gel thinned out with water. But my favorite are the little baby footprints... the fondant indents easily and I think I did those with the end of a small paintbrush. The whole thing was edible, although this batch of fondant didn't taste very good. But the insides always taste good.

A truly random occasion -- not my child's birthday. It had been a year since we'd moved, and 6 months since I'd seen or talked to this particular friend from our old ward, and she called me out of the blue one day to ask if I would make her daughter's birthday cake. It was a big deal (8th birthday I think) with grandparents in town and a big princess-themed party or something. This friend offered me some food staples in exchange for my services. More specifically, a few cans of cannery rolled oats. What?? She did ultimately pay me in sugar, which was more appropriate a trade for a cake than oats I think, but it was really just a labor of love on my part. I had almost said no until the friend told me that she'd just had a baby. See, we weren't even in touch enough for me to know that she was expecting. But, apparently my reputation as a cake maker is legendary (just kidding). I wasn't actually 100% happy with this one; I would've spent more time on it if had been for my own child...

Next will be part 4, featuring cakes from 2007 and 2008.

Cake Tour, Part 2

2010-06-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

{Reposted... appeared originally on my regular blog in 2008}

Zoe and Lucy's first birthday, 2005. I insist on making separate cakes for them every time, starting with their first! These are smaller than they probably appear; the bottom rounds are 6" and the top rounds are 5".

This one was really fun; Molly's 3rd birthday and my first attempt at rolled fondant. I think it's so pretty. The only problem was that inside was white cake with layers of strawberry cream -- too delicate to support the weight of the fondant and it gradually sank down a little and the sides got wrinkly as the day went on. Although I'm probably the only one who noticed.

Noah's 5th birthday - what a great cake! I got this idea from the Wilton cake catalog and it was super fun to make. The base was a 10" round. The blue tower inside the buildings was built up from a few 5" rounds, I think. The buildings were done ahead of time with royal icing on waxed paper and I had to do a ton more than that since many of them broke. Supported with long sucker sticks, as you can see to the upper right. The only thing non-edible are the micromachines, some of which were my brothers when he was little, and then my mom got a few more from Ebay for me (which were sterilized before they touched the cake, of course). A very memorable cake.

Not a child's birthday but I made this one for my friend Dana when she turned 30 (obviously). I just thought it looked so pretty. The icing is nice shiny chocolate ganache and the inside is the richest chocolate mousse cake you've ever had. We went to eat at Outback Steakhouse with them and brought this cake with us; the waitress was so confused.

Bonus - I just found this other cake I made in 2005 for my cousin's daughter's birthday. I don't remember how I ended up with that job but you don't have to twist my arm too hard to get me to make a cake! Fondant again, but a much bigger cake and it was so hard to get the sides smooth so I ended up with cracks all over the sides. I covered them up with tons of fondant flowers and it looked like I'd planned it that way!

Stay tuned for Part 3 - four cakes from 2006!

Cake Tour, Part 1

2010-06-14T15:44:00.001-07:00

{Reposted... this was on my regular blog, two years ago. At the time I didn't have a recipe blog. I hope you can get some ideas & inspiration for your own kids' birthday cakes!}

Since Noah's birthday is coming up, I have been thinking about all things birthday lately, including cakes. As many of you know, I often put the most effort into the cake - more than the party, the decor, the hairdo of the birthday child, etc. It varies from birthday to birthday and I have even done a couple of store-bought cakes the past few years (the horror!) but I do usually make them myself and I am usually proud of them.

I just went through pictures of all of the birthday cakes I've done and I've found all the ones that I liked enough to display here, so here they are - broken into five posts.

So with that rambling preamble, here is part 1.

My first big fancy cake; Noah's 2nd birthday in 2002. It was so much fun but I think I was up until about 3am the night before finishing it. He was really into trains at the time.

Molly's 1st birthday, 2003. I thought that dying coconut green to look like fake grass was SO fancy. The flowers were pre-done in royal icing but you can't really tell.

Noah's 3rd birthday, 2003 - he was so funny and requested this one very specifically. When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he said he wanted chocolate with blue circles all over it, with a big yellow circle. I think it turned out pretty cute!

My first character cake for Molly's 2nd birthday - Dora turned out a little sunburned-looking but oh well! I printed out a picture of her and kind of made a stencil. I couldn't draw that well free-hand. Most memorable part of that day was when Molly didn't understand about blowing out the candles and tried to grab them instead (while lit). Ouch! See, too much attention was given to the cake and not enough to instruct the birthday girl!

Thanks for indulging me in this walk down memory lane so far... stay tuned next time for four cakes made in 2005!

Loaded Fried Rice

2010-06-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

This is one of those recipes I have wanted to post for a long time but have hesitated because I don't really measure anything when I cook it. Well, I made it again tonight and tried to pay better attention to what I was doing... delicious! I like to put a lot of "stuff" into fried rice so that's why I'm calling it "loaded."

Ingredients:

3 carrots, sliced
4 eggs
1 large chicken breast, cut in small thin slices
2-3 stalks green onions, sliced
1 T sesame seeds
1/2 c frozen peas
sesame oil*
vegetable oil
soy sauce
salt & pepper
Asian seasoning (I have Emeril's Asian Essence)
2-3 c cooked white rice: Leftover rice is great; or just cook your rice ahead of time (a day or several hours ahead), allow to cool a little and put in the fridge. You want it to be cold/cool before you start on this.

*I like a combination of sesame oil and vegetable oil; I like the flavor of the sesame oil but it's overpowering to me if that's the only oil used. I use about half and half; so in the instructions when it says, "oil," you can use either.

Instructions:

Heat 2 T oil in a large wok over medium-high heat. Toss carrots in oil and stir-fry (keep it moving all the time) until tender. When the carrots are almost done, add the green onions and stir fry together for a few more minutes. Remove from heat and put carrots aside in a small bowl.

Add a little more oil to the wok; heat. Scramble four eggs (you can use fewer; I like it eggy) in a small bowl with a fork. Season with salt & pepper. Pour eggs into the wok; "stir-fry" until all the way cooked... it's just scrambled eggs; best in small pieces. Remove to a small bowl; set aside.

Put a little oil in the wok (yes, again) and the sesame seeds. Cook until lightly toasted. Add chicken pieces and about 2T soy sauce. I also sprinkle some Asian seasoning on the chicken as it's cooking. Stir fry chicken until cooked through, then remove to a small bowl and set aside.

Now that our extras are all cooked, it's time to stir-fry the rice. It will be very sticky so you will need a little more oil in the wok, but not too much because the chicken & veggies & eggs have oil on them too, which will be added in later.

So heat a couple more tablespoons of oil (I usually use sesame for this part) in the wok, and add the cooked rice. Stir-fry it around, breaking up all the clumps. Add about 2-3 T soy sauce and keep stirring until the rice is all warm. Add the chicken, eggs, and carrots all in, as well as the frozen peas. They will cook as you continue cooking the whole thing. Add a few dashes of Asian seasoning here and there, as well as additional tablespoons of soy sauce, until it's a nice color and flavor. I always just keep tasting it as I go. Keep in mind that the Asian seasoning will taste stronger after a longer time, so don't overdo it if you don't want it too spicy. Just keep stirring and tossing everything together, and tasting, and seasoning... until it's just how you want it!

How's that for ambiguous instructions? :) Give it a try though; I think you'll have success.

Tonight we enjoyed this fried rice with some frozen Panko-crusted shrimp that I bought at Costco the other day. I made this sweet n' sour sauce to go with it, which was delicious! Even my kids ate it all up.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

2010-06-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

Great with fried shrimp, egg rolls, anything!

1/3 c rice wine vinegar
1 T cornstarch
2 tsp oil (vegetable or sesame)
2/3 c unsweetened pineapple juice (there is enough juice in a 20 oz can of pineapple chunks, FYI)
2 T ketchup
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt

In a small saucepan, whisk together vinegar and cornstarch until combined. Add all the rest of the ingredients; bring to a boil while stirring continuously. Remove from heat and serve.

In the picture above, I had used about half this amount of cornstarch; it was a little too runny for my liking so I will use 1 T next time as indicated.

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

2010-05-20T10:11:00.001-07:00

The other day I was reading Pioneer Woman and she posted a recipe for grilled chicken and pineapple quesadillas. I thought that sounded positively delicious, but I wasn't sure how my family would feel about the pineapple. So, I took the idea of using BBQ sauce but changed the other ingredients... it turned out delicious and I made them two nights in a row this week!

Ingredients:

4 large flour tortillas
2 medium-sized chicken breasts
BBQ sauce (I just used Kroger brand original; you might want to use something more spicy)
1-2 avocados, sliced
about 12 oz shredded monterrey jack cheese (pepper jack would also be good if you like it)
1 large yellow onion
butter (have about a stick on hand)
S&P, garlic powder, cumin

Let's start with the onions since they take the longest. Slice the top end off the onion, then peel off the skin. Cut it in half top-to-bottom (cutting through the root end). Putting cut-side-down on your cutting board, slice the whole onion into thin slices (half-circles). Work up to the root and discard the root end. The reason I'm giving these onion-slicing details is that if you work with it cut-side-down and also cut the root end off last, it minimizes the teary eyes. In fact when cutting up an onion this way I don't shed a single tear!

Heat up a medium or large skillet over medium heat; melt about 2T butter and add all the onion slices, breaking them up with a spatula. Cover them and come back to stir them occasionally, cooking until they are all translucent and turning golden brown.

Pre-brown your "top" tortillas. Heat a griddle or large skillet on medium heat with about 1T butter. Spread the butter around evenly and put a tortilla (or two if it'll fit); cook until it starts to crisp up; golden brown.

Chicken: whenever I'm going to cook chicken on the grill I always pound out the breasts first. This makes them more tender and also evens out the thickness so they'll cook more evenly, and more quickly. After pounding the chicken (between two pieces of plastic wrap, with meat mallet), season both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin. You can get creative and use any other spices you'd like. Cook the chicken on the BBQ and brush 2-3 T BBQ sauce on each side as it cooks. When it's cooked through, let it cool off a few minutes and then slice into thin strips.

Assuming the onions are cooked by now, it's time to assemble!

Put some more butter on the skillet (1-2T), and your two fresh (uncooked) tortillas will be the bottom of your quesadillas. Start by sprinkling a big handful of jack cheese on each. Then, several pieces of chicken. Then, sliced avocados. Then, the onions. At this point I brushed on a few more tablespoons of BBQ sauce and sprinkled on a little more cheese to help the "lid" stick. Then, add the pre-browned tortillas; browned side up.

I didn't intend to flip them over as they cooked, but I did so that they would be hot all the way through. I just cooked the first side until the bottom tortilla had browned, then carefully (and quickly) flipped it over with a big spatula and let the other side cook for just a minute.

Let them cool a few minutes before slicing them up with a pizza cutter. I prefer to eat these dipped in sour cream; a mixture of sour cream and salsa would be good too. So yummy! These will be on the regular dinner rotation from now on. Enjoy!

Caramel Baked French Toast

2010-03-03T08:14:00.000-08:00

I didn't take a picture. I made it, we ate it, we loved it. I got the idea from allrecipes.com but as I am prone to do, I changed the ingredients and quantities so that it's just the way I wanted it. And it was SO good.

1 c brown sugar
1/4 c light corn syrup
1/4 c butter
1 loaf french bread
4 eggs
1/2 c cream
1 1/2 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Grease a 9x 13 pan. In a small saucepan, combine brown sugar, corn syrup, and butter. Melt and stir together and cook over medium heat until bubbly. Once it's bubbling, take it right off the heat and pour it into your greased 9x13 (I just sprayed mine with Pam, which worked fine).

Slice french bread into thick enough slices that it will cover the bottom of the pan in one thick layer; maybe 1 1/2"-2" slices. Arrange slices in 9x13, on top of the caramel sauce.

In a medium bowl, whisk eggs until well beaten. Add cream, milk, vanilla, and salt; mix well. Pour mixture evenly over bread. Mix white sugar & cinnamon together in a small bowl; sprinkle evenly over the top of the whole thing.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or, if you're having this for dinner, just do it a few hours in advance; a few hours is all you need for the bread to soak up all the liquid.

Cover 9x13 with foil and bake at 350 for 35 minutes; then remove foil and continue baking for 15 more minutes to get a bit of a crisp to it.

There's no need for syrup with this; when I served it I flipped each piece upside-down onto our plates so that the nice shiny sticky caramel was on top.

Frozen Yogurt in Mesa!

2010-02-11T21:59:00.001-08:00

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Cream Puffs / Éclairs

2010-01-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to a friends' house to watch a football game. When I asked what I could bring, my friend said, "Well... my husband's birthday is on Monday and I was going to make him a cake, but he doesn't like cake. So I was wondering if you could come up with a good dessert?" Boy, no pressure or anything! Actually it was a fun challenge. I didn't want to show up with just cookies or brownies, and I wanted to bring something that would be conducive to football-watching (finger food), and yet be interesting/fancy enough for a birthday semi-celebration.

And so I made these babies. They were so yummy.... if they were in front of me right now I'd gobble up four or five in no time :)

Cream puffs

2 c water
1 c butter (2 sticks)
1/4 tsp salt
2 c flour
8 eggs

In a large saucepan combine water, butter, and salt. Bring to boiling. Add flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Cook and stir until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Cool for 10 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with a wooden spoon after each addition. (Get ready for lots of stirring... this part is a real pain but it will be worth it!)

Drop dough by heaping tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 400 for 30-35 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Cut tops from puffs; remove soft dough from inside. (I don't cut the tops all the way off; I leave them attached on one side so they'll stay together better later.)

Cream filling

1 box instant vanilla pudding mix
1 1/2 c milk
1 c cream
1 T sugar

Combine package of pudding with milk; whisk for 3 minutes and put in fridge to set. Meanwhile, put cream and sugar into a medium, chilled mixing bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until it's completely whipped. Remove pudding from fridge; add whipped cream to pudding and gently fold together.

Put a heaping spoonful (however much you want) of cream filling into each baked cream puff. Top with chocolate glaze if desired.

Chocolate glaze

4 oz semisweet chocolate (or about 2/3 c semisweet chocolate chips)
3 T butter
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
3 T hot water (or more)

Melt chocolate and butter in a medium saucepan over LOW heat, stirring frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and water. Add additional hot water if needed to reach drizzling consistency. Spoon over filled cream puffs.

Store cream puffs in the refrigerator.

To make these into true eclairs, they need to be that long skinny shape. Put cream puff dough into a frosting bag fitted with a large plain round tip (about 1/2" opening) and pipe fat strips of dough onto a greased baking sheet. This recipe will yield about 24 eclairs; I got about 3 dozen smaller-sized, round cream puffs out of them, each being about 3 inches in diameter.

Note: this cream filling recipe is my favorite for banana cream pie! Prepare a regular pie crust (baked), slice 2-3 bananas into the bottom of it, and fill with one batch of this filling.

Cream puff and chocolate glaze recipes courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Mock Black n' Whites

2010-01-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

Do you know about the ease and convenience of cake mix cookies? I guess since I'm such a "from scratch" girl it took me a while to figure this out. But the possibilities are endless, and today I came up with these little cuties. It's pretty standard that you can take any regular box of cake mix, add two eggs and 1/2 c oil, and you have instant "cookie dough." From there you can mix anything with it, like nuts chocolate chips. Or, don't mix anything in, but use two colors like this! They were a big hit with my kids, my church choir, and our dinner guests.

1 box white cake mix
1 box devil's food cake mix
4 eggs
1 c vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 375. You'll need two medium-sized mixing bowls. Empty the white cake mix into one bowl; add two eggs, 1/2 c oil, and mix well with a spoon. In the other bowl, empty the devil's food (chocolate) cake mix, then add 2 eggs and 1/2 c oil and mix well with a spoon.

There are two schools of thought for the scooping of the dough. You could use two separate teaspoons so that none of the dough mixes together, or if you're not preparing these for a fussy crowd you can just use the same spoon (which is what I did). In fact, I just scooped a little chocolate dough, and then a little white dough right with it, then with my other hand took the double-dough-ball off the spoon and onto my cookie sheet lined with Silpat (since that's the only thing I bake cookies on). I didn't do any fancy forming; just plopped the dough down so that an equal amount of each color was showing, and the cookies turned out nice and circular and lovely. A couple of them were more marbled-looking, which would be very easy to do; just smush a little bit of the two colors of dough together.

Anyway, bake them at 375 for about 9 minutes. I got about 5 dozen black n' white cookies out of the 2 cake mixes.

I just thought of a fun idea; you could make rainbow colored cookies by making a batch of white cake mix cookie dough and coloring small portions of it different colors. The cookies could be solid colors or any combinations. How fun would that be! I'll have to do that for my kids sometime for a fun surprise.

Dutch Baby

2010-01-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

(I usually drown mine in syrup)

I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe sooner; it's one of my favorites! I make this all the time, and it's the easiest recipe ever to adapt for any number of people.

All you have to remember is the ratio of ingredients: eggs, milk, flour, a little salt, butter.

Here's the ratio:

1 egg -- 1/4 c milk -- 1/4 c flour -- 1 dash salt -- 1 T butter.

2 eggs -- 1/2 c milk -- 1/2 c flour -- 2 dashes salt -- 2 T butter.

3 eggs -- 3/4 c milk -- 3/4 c flour -- 3 dashes salt -- 3 T butter.

Get it? Easy peasy! SO... for a large group, you could do:

8 eggs -- 2 c milk -- 2 c flour -- 8 dashes salt -- 1 stick butter (which is 8 T)

And now for the instructions. Turn on oven to 425. Put butter in whatever baking/casserole dish size is appropriate for the crowd you're serving. A 6-8 egg recipe could go in a 9x13; a 2 egg recipe in a 1 or 1 1/2 quart Pyrex. Anyway, if the butter is cold, cut it into small pieces so it will melt faster. Put baking dish into oven while it's heating.

Meanwhile, put eggs and salt in a blender and turn on high. After 10 seconds or so, add milk and then flour (gradually) and continue to blend for a few minutes.

Once the butter has melted, take the dish out of the oven and swirl it around to make sure your melted butter covers the bottom and sides as much as possible. Pour batter from the blender right into the hot dish on top of the butter. Don't stir it. Return it to the 425 oven for about 25 minutes. It will be golden and puffed up and cracked and delicious!

I usually just top mine with syrup; homemade jam is good on it too. But probably the best Dutch Baby topping I've ever had is this apple topping. Oh me oh my, that is yummy.

By the way, I have no idea why this is called "Dutch Baby." I just know I love it!

Apple Topping

2010-01-23T10:21:00.001-08:00

5 medium Gala apples, peeled and sliced
6 T butter
1/2 packed brown sugar
cinnamon

In a saute pan, heat butter until melted. Add apples and saute until apples become tender, about 4-5 minutes. Add brown sugar and toss to coat. Sprinkle in desired amount of cinnamon and stir. Cook until sugar dissolves to make a caramel-like syrup. Serve over waffles, pancakes, ice cream, or whatever else you like! The last time I made this for my family, there was a little leftover which I stirred into a bowl of oatmeal the next day... delicious!

Recipe and photo courtesy of realmomkitchen.com

Rolled Marshmallow Fondant

2010-01-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

I have done cakes with regular fondant in the past. I have bought rolled fondant at the craft store, which is convenient but a little pricey; and I have made homemade rolled fondant, which is a little more cost effective but quite labor-intensive. Either way the fondant makes the cake look great, but in most people's opinion (including mine), it doesn't taste very good. So a year or two ago I searched online for an alternative and found Wilton's recipe for rolled marshmallow fondant. It was easier to make than traditional fondant, less expensive because there are no "specialty" ingredients (like glucose and glycerin) and it tastes GREAT! The consistency is slightly different but to the amature cake decorator the difference is negligible.

Wilton's Rolled Marshmallow Fondant

1 package (16 oz) white mini marshmallows (good quality)

2-5 T water

2 lbs (about 8 cups) sifted confectioner's sugar

1/2 c solid vegetable shortening

flavoring, such as clear vanilla (optional)

Put marshmallows in a microwave-safe container, and add water.

Microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring after each. After about 2 1/2 minutes total, marshmallows will be smooth and melted. Add flavoring at this point, if desired (such as clear vanilla flavoring).

For ease of use, put measured shortening in a small bowl to be able to dip your hand into as you're mixing it in (later on).

Add powdered sugar to melted marshmallows, folding/stirring it in, the best you can. You won't be able to add all of it at this point; try to mix in 2/3 to 3/4 of it. Using your pre-measured shortening, grease your hands and the counter, and dump the whole mass onto the counter. Knead the remaining powdered sugar into it, as well as all of the shortening. (Looks like mess? Yep, it is!) Continue kneading, as you would knead bread dough, adding powdered sugar and re-greasing counter and hands until dough is smooth and not as sticky. If it tears easily, it's too dry. Add a little more water... a teaspoon at a time. Knead until it becomes a smooth ball, and is elastic without tearing easily; about 8-10 minutes.

It's best to allow Marshmallow Fondant to sit, double-wrapped, overnight. Prepare the fondant for storing by coating with a thin layer of shortening, wrap in plastic wrap and the place in Ziploc bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible. Will keep in refrigerator for several weeks.

My Tips:

My package of marshmallows was 10.5 oz so I use a little less than the whole bag and halve the other ingredients, or I use a bag & a half with the regular amounts of the other ingredients.

Living here in AZ, I start with 1/4 c water (4 T) and usually don't need too much more, unless my marshmallows are stale.

When ready to use, knead it until its smooth and roll out to 1/8" thick. Sprinkle powdered sugar on the counter & rolling pin before rolling out. The way I color fondant is to put on plastic/latex gloves (like medical gloves) and knead food coloring into small amounts of the fondant.

That's how I got the red, yellow, and black for those little Hello Kitty faces shown. Those, by the way, went on top of each cupcake for my twin girls' 6-yr-old party guests. Such fun.

I have used this for several cakes since then, and been very happy with the results. My favorite thing about it is that it tastes good, as well as looking good.

Our Christmas Menu

2009-12-27T22:31:00.000-08:00

We hosted out-of-town relatives this year for Christmas, and I really wanted to cook a turkey since it had been a while since I last cooked one. I was in the kitchen all day but everything turned out delicious! I will share with you all the recipes I used this year on Christmas Day...

Emeril's Turkey I have made this a few times and love the flavor. I don't make the giblet gravy; just use the turkey part of the recipe. And, I always cook a bigger bird (17-18 lb) so I nearly double the other ingredients since this recipe calls for a smaller bird.

Gravy My Grandma makes the best gravy. However, I have not watched her do it so I know I don't do it like her... therefore my gravy doesn't turn out nearly as good :) But, in making the turkey recipe above, I am able to easily make a pretty decent gravy. After taking the turkey out of the roasting pan, pour all drippings into a large bowl or Pyrex glass 2 qt measure. Let it sit for a few minutes to allow the fat to rise to the top. With a large spoon, skim off several spoonfuls of the fat/grease and put it in a medium saucepan. Put it over medium heat. Add a few tablespoons of flour and whisk it well. Let it cook for a minute, and keep whisking. While still whisking, pour two or three cups of the drippings into the pan. Allow it to come to a boil, and you can see how thick your gravy will be. If it's too thick, add more of the liquid.

Mashed Potatoes Pioneer Woman says not to use a hand mixer on mashed potatoes, but I always do. I do most of the work with a potato masher by hand, but I always finish them with a hand mixer to ensure ultimate creaminess.

Stuffing My mother-in-law's delicious recipe; yum!

Sweet Potatoes Super easy, and who doesn't love marshmellows on top?

Rolls I was assigned to bring rolls for Thanksgiving at my Grandma's this year and I made these, and to fancy them up I put a small pat of butter in the big end of each triangle before rolling them up. I also brushed them with melted butter before baking. However, I found that they actually turned out too buttery for me (and I didn't think there was such a thing as too buttery!) For Christmas dinner I made a double batch, and I melted one stick of butter to spread on them before rolling up. So for each rolled-out circle (each circle yielding crescent 12 rolls) I spread 2 T butter. I thought they turned out just right this way.

Peas I actually did not make this recipe because I ran out of time (the turkey was done! I hadn't made the gravy! The sweet potatoes had browned!) but I had every intention to. We did eat peas, just regular frozen cooked peas that I added a pat of butter to after draining.

... and we had cranberry sauce (whole berry) from a can. I had to simplify somewhere! Dessert was a Costco cheesecake. Today I'm loving the leftovers... my favorite part about a big turkey dinner! And then in another few days I'll take the turkey carcass out of the freezer and make some turkey soup.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Easy Sweet Potatoes

2009-12-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

3 large sweet potatoes
1/2tsp salt
4 T melted butter (1/2 stick)
1/4 c packed brown sugar
1-2 c mini marshmellows (however many you want!)

Boil sweet potatoes until tender. This can be done ahead of time; if you're making these with a big turkey dinner then boil the sweet potatoes right after you put the turkey in the oven. Once they're cooked and cooled, peel the skin off (it comes off easily). With a potato masher, mash the sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add salt, butter, and brown sugar. Mix with a hand mixer to make them nice and creamy. Spread evenly into an 8x8 casserole dish and top with mini marshmellows. Bake at 350 until heated through and marshmellows are browned. I keep this at the bottom of the oven to prevent the marshmellows from browning too soon.

Thanksgiving Stuffing

2009-12-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

3/4 c chopped onion
1 1/2 c chopped celery
1 c butter (2 sticks)
9 c soft bread cubes
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dried ground sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp pepper
chicken broth if needed

In a large skillet, sautee onion and celery in butter until tender. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, put bread cubes and toss with all of the spices. Pour the onion, celery, and butter into the bread cubes and mix evenly.

Now, at this point you could stuff a turkey if you want to. I prefer to keep my stuffing out of the turkey and bake it on its own. So, if it seems a little dry (if any of the bread cubes are dry), pour some chicken broth in; I'd say 1/4 - 1/3 cup at the most, and mix it in. Then, put the stuffing into a casserole dish and bake until the top is crispy. It doesn't really matter what temperature the oven is.... chances are you're making this with a big turkey dinner so you probably already have sweet potatoes or rolls in the oven. So, just put the stuffing in the oven with whatever else is in there!

I always need chicken broth to moisten it because I always use more than 9 cups of bread cubes, and I up the spice amounts, but I leave the butter the same amount so I use chicken broth for the extra moisture.

This recipe comes from my mother-in-law. She adds mushrooms; I prefer it without them but it's delicious either way! If you want to add mushrooms, just sautee them with the onions & celery.

Just a friendly candy-making tip...

2009-12-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

Test your candy thermometer before using it!

Yesterday I made a double-batch of fudge. Nothing fancy, just the recipe on the back of the Marshmellow Creme jar. It calls for cooking the first three ingredients to 234 degrees, which I did, according to what my usually-trusty candy thermometer read. The fudge turned out okay, but a little dry.

Today I made another double-batch of fudge. Same recipe, same ingredients, same method, same pot, etc., but I decided to test my thermometer first this time. I put it in a pot of boiling water, and what do you know... the water was at a rolling boil at 208 degrees! Water, as you know, boils at 212 degrees, so my thermometer is 4 degrees off.

If you haven't done a lot of candy making you might not know it, but four degrees can make a big difference! So with today's fudge, I took it off the heat at 230 degrees to account for the difference. And what a difference it made! Today's fudge is more creamy and just an overall much better consistency. Not dry like yesterday's, and although the flavor should theoretically be the same, it really seems to taste better. (Humidity also plays a big factor in candy-making, but I don't think there was much difference in humidity between yesterday and today here in Arizona.)

So, even if your candy thermometer has been faithfully accurate for you in the past, it's a good idea to test it before using it... especially when you're making a large batch of goodies to give away to your friends :)

Wassail

2009-12-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

This wassail is so soothing and warms you right to your bones when it's cold.

In a large pot, boil together for 20 minutes:

1 qt water
1 tsp cloves
5 cinnamon sticks
1 c sugar

Then add:

1 12-oz can orange juice concentrate
1 12-oz can lemonade concentrate
2 cans water
2 qts apple juice

Keep over medium heat until it's as hot as you like it! Makes a little more than a gallon.

Note: if you have a spice bag for the cinnamon sticks and cloves, use it. If not, strain out the spices before serving.

Recipe courtesy of my mother-in-law Ruth

Super Rich Chocolate Mousse Cake

2009-12-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

This is so chocolately, so delicious, so rich... if you love chocolate you will love this cake! It does take some work to make, unless you're like me and love to bake, then I wouldn't really call it "work!" But it's a procedure so I have only made it for very special occasions (like my good friend Dana's 30th birthday, as you can tell by the picture). There is no flour in this recipe... only chocolate, eggs, sugar, butter, and cream! Those are the only ingredients!

Ingredients

For the cake:

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter (and melt 2 T of the butter)
8 oz semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces (or 1 1/3 c semisweet chocolate chips)
8 large egg yolks
3/4 c white sugar
4 large egg whites

For the filling:

8 oz semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces
2 1/2 heavy cream
2 T white sugar

For the dark chocolate Ganache:

1 1/2 c heavy cream
2 T unsalted butter
18 oz semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces (so about 3 cups chocolate chips)

Directions

Cake:

Lightly coat the insides of 3 9" cake pans with melted butter. Line each pan with parchment paper, then lightly coat the parchment paper with more melted butter. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Heat 1" of water in the bottom half of a double boiler over medium heat. Place remaining butter and 8 oz semisweet chocoalte in the top half of the double boiler. Tightly cover the top with plastic warp. Allow to heat for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir until smooth, and hold at room temperature.

Place the egg yolks and 3/4 c sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle. Beat on high until slightly thickened and lemon-colored, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat on high for an additional 2 minutes.

While the egg yolks are beating, whisk 4 egg white in a large stainless steel bowl until stiff, but not dry, and 3-4 minutes (I did this with a hand mixer, not a whisk).

Using a rubber spatula, fold the melted chocolate mixture into the beaten egg yolk mixture. Add a quarter of the beaten egg whites and stir to incorporate, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans, spreading evenly, and bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool in the pans for 15 minutes. During baking, the surface of the cakes will form a crust; this crust will normally collapse when the cakes are removed from the oven. Invert the cakes onto cake circles, remove the parchment paper, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. (They will be quite thin.)

Filling:

To prepare the dark chocolate cream, heat 1" water in the bottom half of a double boiler. Tightly cover the top with film wrap and allow to heat for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir until smooth. Transfer the melted chocolate to a stainless steel bowl and set aside until needed. Place heavy cream and sugar in the well-chilled bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a well-chilled balloon whip. Whisk on high until stiff peaks forms, about 1 1/2 minutes. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Use a hand whisk to combine 1/4 of the whipped cream into the melted chocolate until smooth and completely incorporated. Add the combined whipped cream and chocolate to the remaining whipped cream and use a rubber spatula to fold together.

Ganache:

Heat the heavy cream and the butter in a 3-qt saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil. Place the semisweet chocolate in a 3-qt stainless steel bowl. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Then stir until smooth. Chill 1 cup of ganache for at least 1 hour. Remaining ganache should be at room temperature.

To assemble the cake:

Arrange one of the cake layers in a 9" springform pan, evenly spread half the filling over the cake and top with the second layer. Add remaining filling and top with the remaining cake layer. Chill 2 hours. Transfer chilled cup of ganache to a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Remove cake from springform pan and coat sides and top with room temperature ganache. Using chilled ganache, decoratively pipe stars on top of cake. If desired, coat sides of cake with grated chocolate, cookie crumbs or chopped nuts.

My notes:

I usually just use regular salted butter in recipes like this when it calls for unsalted, and it turns out fine.

All those instructions about preparing the cake pans may seem like overkill but if I were you, I would do it. Parchment paper and all. Being flourless, this cake is really sticky (similar to brownie consistency) and I don't think it would come out of the cake pan in one piece without the parchment paper. Also, I don't have 9" cake rounds so I used 8" and that was fine.

If you don't have a double boiler, which I don't, just use a medium saucepan with a glass bowl sitting on top of it. The most important thing is not allowing any of the water to get into the bowl (it won't agree with the chocolate).

I don't know how important it is to use a stainless steel bowl when they tell you to, but I did it that way. Also, you will use about a million bowls in this recipe if you don't reuse them as you go... just make sure when whipping the egg whites that that bowl is very clean, or else they won't whip well.

Chilling your bowl and whisk (whip) before whipping cream is a common technique; it's supposed to make the cream whip better. I always put my bowl and whisk in the freezer for a few minutes beforehand. Also, the cream needs to be nice and cold too (not having sat out on the counter for a while).

I tried using a springform pan for this and for me that was one step too many. The point of using one is to make sure your cake is nice and straight-sided as it chills. But if you are very careful to spread your filling evenly and make it nice and straight when you're assembling it, and it sits level in the fridge, it should do just fine.

When eating this cake, I had to put a big dollop of whipped cream on top to cut the extreme chocolate flavor. So, have some extra cream on hand to whip up when serving.

To make the "30" on my friend's cake, I printed out a big 3 - 0 on cardstock and cut it out with an Exacto knife. I left the middle of the zero attached in two thin spots. Then I held the piece of cardstock over the cake, close to it but not touching since the ganache was still wet and sticky, and I dusted it with powdered sugar.

Oh me oh my, this is good cake.

Recipe courtesy of foodnetwork.com

Homemade Noodles

2009-11-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, when I'm making chicken noodle soup, I like to fancy it up and make homemade noodles. They are not hard to do, and only require a little planning ahead. As I was cutting mine out this morning for dinner tonight, I thought they looked so pretty all hanging over the side of a mixing bowl that I just had to take a picture. There's something Christmas-y looking about them, isn't there?

2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, optional
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 c water
2 tsp olive oil

Combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl, beat eggs well with a fork, then add water and oil. Make a well in the center of the flour mixure, and pour liquid mixture into the center. Combine ingredients well. Flour a surface with about 3-4 T additional flour, and knead the dough for 8-10 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic.

Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes. Then divide dough into four equal portions. On a very lightly floured surface, roll out each portion into an approximately 12" circle (very thin). Cut into strips, or little raviolis, or bowties, or whatever shape desired. Allow noodles to dry overnight, or all day until they are completely dry. (If you're really short on time, you could put them in a very low oven, 200 degrees, for a little while to help them dry out faster. But letting them dry on their own is ideal.)

Boil them in water as you would store-bought pasta; their cooking time really depends on how thick they are. Keep in mind when you're cutting them that they will expand in size when you cook them (I always end up making my noodles too wide).

For my chicken noodle soup, I cut them into thin strips with my cute rotary pasta cutter, and let them dry over the side of a bowl. Later on I will cut them into about 1 1/2" lengths to go into the soup. Yum!

Pumpkin Crumb Cake

2009-11-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

1 18.25 oz package yellow cake mix

1 egg, beaten

1/2 c butter, melted

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 c white sugar

1/4 c packed brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 T butter, softened

1/2 c chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease one 9x13 pan.

Reserve 1 cup cake mix. In a large bowl, combine the remaining dry cake mix with 1 egg and 1/2 c melted butter. Mix well, and then pat into prepared pan.

In a large bowl (I used the same bowl), mix together the pumpkin, 3 eggs, 1/2 c white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pour over crust.

In a medium bowl, combine reserved 1 cup cake mix, 1/2 c sugar, and 3 T softened butter. Crumble over pumpkin filling. Sprinkle nuts evenly over the top, if desired.

Bake in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes.

I got this recipe from my friend Stephanie's blog and I served it a to a crowd this morning. It was a hit! I didn't include nuts because I had decided pecans would be best, but then I didn't have any when I went to bake it. I will use pecans next time.

This is so tasty but it's best the first day; after it has been covered up for a while the top loses its nice crunch (but it's still perfectly delicious).

Recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com, photo courtesy of Stephanie

Italian Peas

2009-11-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for ways to spice up some of the "normal" veggies we eat as side dishes around here. I found this recipe tonight for dinner and I was very pleased; the peas looked, smelled, and tasted much better than "plain" peas, and even my picky kids ate them up!

2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped (I used about 1/2 an onion)
2 cloves garlic, minced
16 oz bag of frozen green peas
1-2 T chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic; cook about 5 minutes. Add frozen peas, and stir in stock. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the peas are tender, about 10 minutes.

Recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

Crunchy Caramel Corn

2009-10-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

1 stick butter (1/2 c)
2 c brown sugar
1/2 c corn syrup
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
3 bags microwave popcorn, popped (I use Orville Reddenbacher's 94% fat free)

Preheat oven to 250. (That's 250, not 350!) Put popped popcorn into a large turkey roaster or two large casserole dishes. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once completely melted, add brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Stirring constantly, cook over medium until mixture comes to a boil. Once boiling, stop stirring and allow it to continue to boil for four minutes.

Meanwhile, put the roaster or pans with the popcorn into the oven. Once the caramel mixture has boiled for four minutes, remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Remove roaster from the oven and drizzle caramel over the popcorn, stirring to coat.

Return roasing pan to the oven for 15 minutes. Take it out and stir it. Then back in the oven for 15 minutes. Take it out and stir it. Then back in the oven for a final 15 minutes (45 minutes total). After it has cooled for a few minutes, break it up into pieces and enjoy... or wait until it cools completely.

This is a yummy homemade version of Cracker Jack; we loved it!

(I got this recipe from allrecipes.com but made a few changes to it)

Apricot Chicken (or peach)

2009-09-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Doesn't that sauce look pretty?

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, and my husband loves when I make it! I don't make it very often because the ingredients are not ones I usually have on hand. However, I have found ways to substitute ingredients so that we can have it more often (like tonight) as a last-minute dinner idea.

6-8 chicken pieces (I use about 4 boneless/skinless breasts)
8 oz Russian dressing
1 cup apricot jam
1 pkg (1 3/8 oz) dry onion soup mix
2 tsp curry powder (optional)

Mix dressing, jam, soup mix, & curry. Pour over chicken in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 for an hour. Serve over rice. Easy peasy!

NOW... tonight I did something a little different and was so pleased with the result. As I am about to can a bunch of peaches (four boxes of which arrived at my house today), I've been trying to eat up more of last year's canned peaches. When it was time to consider tonight's dinner I thought, "What can I make for dinner that will use up some canned peaches?" and I thought of apricot chicken.

As a substitute for the apricot jam, I took a little less than half a quart of canned peaches, along with juice for that amount, and put them in a small saucepan. I mushed up the peaches with the back of a fork, added a little more sugar since jam has tons of sugar in it (about two tablespoons) and put it over medium-high heat. I let it boil for a little while, stirring occasionally; about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I didn't have any onion soup mix on hand (which is weird; I normally do) so I found a recipe for it online, and I already had all of the necessary spices for it. Tonight I did happen to have Russian dressing in my fridge, but I have made from-scratch Russian dressing out of other ingredients before, when I've needed to. (There are about a million Russian dressing recipes online, and so many of them are VERY different. When I've made it before I used some ketchup, some mayo, a little Worchestershire, and some spices. This one online is close enough.)

So, tonight's canned peaches concoction served as my jam (they had cooked down to roughly a cup of "jam"), and I mixed it with the dressing, and about 5 teaspoons of the onion soup spice mix. (I never use curry with this.) It turned out so tasty; just as good as the original recipe!

Also, I don't usually put it in the oven for an hour. Tonight I used a covered electric skillet; I cut up the chicken into large chunks and mixed the sauce with it and cooked it all together and cooked it on medium heat, stirring occasionally. It was done before the rice was, probably in 15 minutes. Using 5 teaspoons of the onion spice mix was pretty mild; next time I'll do 6 teaspoons (which is the same as 2 tablespoons, FYI). Delish!

Berry Jam

2009-09-05T17:42:00.001-07:00

I just finished making this fall's batch of other-than-strawberry jam. I use the same recipe for freezer jam that I do for strawberry, and it turns out great. This year I made raspberry jam, blackberry jam, and as special bonus treat raspberry-blackberry syrup! We haven't eaten the syrup yet but I can't wait to use it the next time we have our new favorite pancakes. I used this recipe and I'll let you know how it tastes once we eat it...

Making any berry freezer jam is easy, but the procedure is a tiny bit different for different types of berries. For strawberry, I wash & hull them, cut them in half, and put them in the blender - pulsing until they're the consistency I want. Usually I completely puree some of them and leave some of them chunky, then mix together for the way I like jam. Raspberries and blackberries are easier because they just need to be rinsed and then mashed in a big bowl with a potato masher, so you can skip the blender step (of course you can still put them in a blender or food processor if you want it; it's probably a little faster but it isn't necessary ~ one less thing to wash). Since raspberries and blackberries are so seedy, this year I strained out part of the seeds. After mashing, I poured about half of them into a wire mesh strainer and forced it through with a spatula. This takes some time and is kind of a pain, so sometime before the next go around I'll buy something like this, which I can also use for homemade applesauce (which I made last year and we LOVE it). Anyway, after straining out some of the seeds (you're left with a nice lump of pulp afterwards to throw away) just mix the strained part back into the mashed berries and continue with the recipe. I took more seeds out of the blackberry since they're bigger. I would say I strained 1/2 of the mashed blackberries and 1/3 of the mashed raspberries and both kinds of jam turned out just right.

Cheesy Spaghetti Bake

2009-09-02T22:41:00.001-07:00

I'm so sorry; no picture! My family loves spaghetti (who doesn't?) and this turned out to be a fun twist on an old favorite. We were in a hurry to eat tonight (and my camera was nowhere in sight) but I will definitely make this again, and take a picture next time.

8 oz spaghetti noodles
1 24-oz jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, or homemade (see below)
1/2 lb Italian sausage or ground beef, browned
2 c shredded mozzarella
1/3 c grated parmesan

Cook noodles in salted, boiling water until tender. Drain thoroughly. Combine cooked meat with sauce. Turn on oven to 375 degrees.

In a 2-quart casserole dish, evenly spread half the noodles. Spread half the sauce over the top of them, followed by half the cheese (both kinds). Then repeat: noodles, sauce, cheeses. In a round, deep casserole dish, you can do this in three layers instead of two. Make sure that your top layer of noodles is covered well with sauce, or else any "exposed" noodles will cook too crsipy.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until the cheese on top starts to brown, and is bubbly. Serve with salad and garlic bread!

Now, tonight I made two batches of this (one to give away) and I only had one jar of spaghetti sauce on hand. So for the second batch, I whipped up my own spaghetti sauce and it was equally delicious.

2 T olive oil
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes (do not drain)
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano

In a medium skillet on medium heat, sautee onion with olive oil. When the onion is tender & nearly translucent, add the garlic. Be careful not to overcook the garlic or it will taste bitter. After the garlic has cooked with the onion for a minute or two, add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Add dried spices and bring it to a simmer. Add 1/2 pound cooked sausage or ground beef if you want (I always do; I like a nice chunky red sauce) and continue to simmer while your pasta is cooking. By the time your pasta is done, your sauce will be too!

Crazy Everything Bars

2009-08-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

I am my church's choir director, and I firmly believe in bringing goodies to our weekly choir practices. Occasionally I have volunteers bring something but I usually do it myself, so I'm always looking for new ideas for cookies or bars that will feed a crowd. I found this recipe on this blog, and she got it from Martha Stewart. The official recipe name is "Rocky Ledge Bars," but when I made them (and then ate a couple) I decided to give them my own name, silly as it is. They are super yummy and were a big hit last week with my choir!

(image courtesy of Martha Stewart)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/2 cups packed dark-brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup butterscotch chips
18 soft caramel-candy cubes, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Line with parchment paper, allowing a 2-inch overhang on the longer sides. Brush parchment with butter (not overhang).

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix butter and brown sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla; mix until well combined. Mix in flour mixture until combined. Fold in half of each of the marshmallows, chocolates, butterscotch chips, and caramels.

3. Spread batter in prepared pan. Scatter remaining marshmallows, chocolates, butterscotch chips, and caramels on top. Bake until top is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Lift out of pan, and transfer to a baking sheet. Refrigerate until set, at least 30 minutes.

4. Remove parchment, and cut into about 16 triangles. Bars can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Tips:

I used regular old chocolate chips and white chocolate chips instead of chunks, which was just fine. Also, I didn't have any caramels on hand so right before I put it in the oven, I drizzled some caramel topping (for ice cream) on top; it bubbled up and made them look even more tasty. I used light brown sugar since that's what I had, which was fine, and I don't know how important using "coarse salt" is but I used Kosher. And, I used regular salted butter and it turned out great.

I didn't use parchment paper. In fact I actually doubled this recipe and cooked it in a half-sheet pan (13x18x1) which fit, just barely, and I just sprayed it really well with Pam beforehand and it did fine.

You could put really any combination of goodies into these bars. I thought coconut would be nice and will add it next time. The dough is a nice, generic bar dough that lots of stuff would go well with. You could use peanut butter chips, different kinds of chocolate, nuts, etc. Mmm, coconut with macadamia nuts and caramel would be tasty wouldn't it? This would be a great recipe to experiment with. Enjoy!

Creamy delicious alfredo and chicken

2009-08-22T12:03:00.001-07:00

I made this last night for a church party and several people asked me for the recipe! It was the first time I'd made it and it really was delicious. I got it from my cousins' food blog, who in turn got it from Kevin & Amanda's Recipes. I have been making homemade alfredo sauce for years but it has never turned out this good; I will be using this recipe from now on!

chicken:
1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts

chicken coating:
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tbsp steak seasoning

when cooking the chicken:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil

pasta:
1 lb linguine noodles
1 tbsp salt

alfredo sauce:
1 scant cup chicken broth
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
2-3 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
8 basil leaves, chiffonaded
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Layer chicken between wax paper and pound breasts to even thickness. In a small bowl, mix the egg, milk, lemon juice and garlic powder. Pour mixture into ziploc bag with chicken. Seal and refrigerate 2 to 4 hours. After marinating, whisk together flour, bread crumbs, salt, baking powder, and steak seasoning in a medium bowl. Remove chicken from milk mixture, shake off excess, and coat in flour mixture. Add 1 tbsp of salt to a large pot of water and bring to boil. Boil noodles according to package. Then, in a medium saucepan, heat chicken broth over medium high heat, bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, and stir in heavy cream, cornstarch, and garlic. Bring to a soft boil and stir for one minute. Reduce heat to low, add parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Let simmer for about 10 mins to melt cheese, let thicken, and incorporate flavors. Meanwhile, heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When butter just starts to turn brown, arrange chicken in skillet. Cook 4-5 mins each side until juices run clear and chicken is cooked through. While chicken is cooking, chop fresh herbs and stir into Alfredo sauce right before serving. Serve sauce over pasta and chicken.

Tips:

Real grated parmesan cheese melts better (and tastes better).

To "chiffonade" the basil: stack the leaves on top of each other, and roll them up into a tight roll. Then, slice the roll thinly with a sharp knife, so that you end up with very thin strips of basil leaves.

Last night I doubled this recipe (which made a TON but it was just right for the occasion) I used a 15 oz. can of chicken broth, which was just right, since 16 oz is 2 cups and the recipe calls for a scant cup.

Picture and recipe courtesy of Kevin & Amanda's Recipes

Oatmeal Applesauce Pancakes

2009-08-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

In an effort to incorporate more whole grains and less meat into my family's diet, we have had healthy versions of pancakes a few times lately for dinner. These were so tasty, filling, and we all loved them! I got the recipe from allrecipes.com but made a few changes to it.

1 c whole wheat flour
1/3 c oats (the recipe called for quick oats; I used regular rolled oats which was fine)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c light or fat-free sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c milk

Mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix applesauce, sour cream, egg, vanilla, and milk. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix just until blended. Cook on a hot griddle.

Tips:

The batter is fairly thick; the amounts above worked for me but depending on the thickness of your sour cream, and applesauce, you may need an additional splash of milk.

I used homemade applesauce that I made last fall, which is much sweeter than store-bought unsweetened applesauce. So, the batter may not be sweet enough if you use store-bought unsweetened; I would add a couple teaspoons of sugar if that's the case, or just used sweetened applesauce.

I doubled this recipe for my family (two adults, four young children) which was the perfect amount. They are more filling than regular pancakes; most pancake recipes I triple.

We ate them with syrup but next time I'll serve them with jam so as to be a little more healthy. They were SO good!

Frozen Fruit Sherbet Dessert

2009-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite treats in the summertime! It's so easy and so delicious. For special occasions my family eats it with Aunt Jessie's Buttermilk Cake, which I will post soon...

1 carton (1.5 qt) pineapple sherbet (I've only seen it at Fry's/Kroger's)
1 16-oz container of frozen sliced strawberries (sweetened is fine)
3 bananas, sliced or chopped

Leave sherbet out to thaw, just soft enough to mix the other ingredients in. Also, let the strawberries thaw out (or they may need a little help in the microwave). In a large bowl, mix strawberries (along with the juices) and banana slices into the sherbet. You can return the mixture to the freezer in the original sherbet container or use a slightly larger container... if you use the original container you'll have a little extra that won't fit; perfect for a hot afternoon treat to reward yourself!

This freezes quite solid and is hard to scoop right out of the freezer, so get it out a little while before serving.

Buttermilk Pancakes

2009-07-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't bought Bisquick (or any other pancake mix) in years; it isn't hard to make pancakes from scratch! This recipe came from my mother-in-law, Ruth.

1 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 T sugar
1 egg
1 c buttermilk
2 T melted butter

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Add egg, buttermilk, and melted butter. Mix with a wire whisk until combined; don't over-mix. Cook on a hot griddle; flip over when tiny bubbles begin to pop on the top.

Tips:

You can get away with not using real buttermilk if you don't have it... just put about half a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice into a 1-cup measure, then fill up with milk, and there you have it... "fake" buttermilk. These pancakes taste fine either way but of course the real thing is always a little bit better!

I like to let the batter sit for a few minutes before I start cooking the pancakes. I can't explain why; I just feel like it needs to rest for a minute first and they turn out better. So, what I usually do is mix up the batter first and then let it sit while the griddle is heating up.

Variations:

Occaionally I use 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour when I make these, in an effort to be more healthy. The consistency can be a little different, depending on the freshness of your flour; I usually have to add a little more buttermilk to mine when I use the whole wheat flour. Tonight for dinner I made some with blueberries... not all of my family were eager to try the blueberry variety so after mixing up a triple batch with 1/2 white & 1/2 wheat flour, I put about a third of the batter into a smaller bowl and added about a cup of fresh blueberries. Wow were they tasty!

Mexican dinner ideas

2009-07-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

Today you're getting bunch of dinner ideas for the price of one! (Hopefully this helps to make up for the lack of posting lately.)

One night last week I made too much guacamole with dinner. I don't know what I was thinking, using four avocados when only about half of my family likes guacamole, but in an effort to be economical I decided to come up with additional dinner ideas that would use up the guacamole. So here's what we ate:

First night: frozen taquitos (purchased from the freezer section of the grocery store, baked in the oven) and cheese crisp (grated cheese sprinkled on a flour tortilla, put in the oven under the broiler until the cheese is melted, then folded in half). We had some iceberg lettuce on the side, some heated up refried beans, and sour cream, salsa, and guacamole. My personal preference is to tear off a piece of cheese crisp, wrap it around a taquito, and then dip it in the beans and all the lovely dippings (which look very nice on the plate, being the Mexican flag colors of red, white, and green).

Second night: Chicken burritos. I made them just as I posted before, with the addition of a drained can of black beans to the chicken & corn mixture. Actually, this time instead of regular chicken breasts I used two cans of canned chicken, and nobody could tell the difference! Shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes also went inside each burrito... along with sour cream, salsa, and guacamole.

Third night: Chicken quesadillas. These were a big hit! I cooked two chicken breasts in a skillet with about 1/2 a white onion cut into strips. I cooked everything in a little oil, and onto the chicken I sprinkled salt & pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and a little cayenne pepper. Once the chicken was browned on both sides I covered the skillet, turned down the heat, and let it cook slowly until the onions were translucent. I removed the chicken and cut it into thin strips... it didn't have enough flavor for me, so I put all the pieces back into the skillet along with a couple spoonfuls of salsa, and mixed it all together with the onions. Then, I sprayed a large skillet with Pam cooking spray, put a large (burrito-sized) tortilla in, sprinkled half of it with cheese, covered the cheese with a layer of the chicken/onion mixture, sprinkled with a little more cheese, and folded the tortilla over. I cooked it on medium heat until the tortilla started to turn golden brown on the bottom, then I flipped it over & cooked the other side. This amount of chicken was perfect for six burrito-sized tortillas. I kept the cooked quesadillas warm in the oven while cooking the rest of them, and I sliced each half-circle into four wedges to serve. Everyone loved them! We had a small salad on the side and we dipped our quesadillas into (you guessed it) sour cream, salsa, and guacamole.

Unbelievably, I even still have a little bit of guacamole left but I am glad I succeeded in using most of it up, and all with meals my family loved! By the way, we did eat non-Mexican dinners in between, and had the above meals every other night :)

Other good ideas to use up your guacamole:

Make your own chips! Take corn tortillas and cut them into 6 triangles each with a pizza cutter. Spread out on a cookie sheet in one layer, spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt. Bake in the oven at 325 for 5-6 minutes, then take out & flip them all over... spraying & salting the other side. Return to oven and bake until the edges look golden brown and they are crispy!

Tostadas! You can find tostada shells next to the taco shells in most grocery stores. Brown 1/2 lb ground beef with 1/4 chopped onion. Drain. Add a can of refried beans and a couple of spoonfuls of salsa and heat through. Spread beans mixture on a tostada shell; top with cheese, shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, and of course sour cream, salsa, and guacamole.

Tacos! Everyone knows how to make tacos, but here's a different way from what you might be used to. When I was growing up my mom would make soft taco shells by frying corn tortillas in oil in a skillet until they start to turn color. Drain between layers of paper towels and they are a very tasty alternative to crunchy taco shells.

Taco salad! For taco salad, I brown a pound of ground beef with some chopped onion, then drain and add taco seasoning, kidney beans, black beans, sliced olives, and a little salsa. For the salad, I mix iceberg and romaine lettuce, along with tomatos, shredded cheese, and diced avocados. When serving myself a big plate of it, I first put the salad part, then the meat part, then yellow corn tortilla chips... and then sour cream & salsa. Then mix it all together. My sister mixes sour cream and salsa together as a salad dressing, and dresses the greens ahead of time so that everybody's is nice and moist. In my household, not everyone likes the same amounts of everything so we dish ours up separately. Delicious either way!

We have all of the above meals fairly regularly, probably since we live in Arizona and we love Mexican food here. I hope this gives you some fun new ideas.

Fudge Brownies

2009-06-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

These are by far the best from-scratch brownies I've ever made, and I've tried several recipes. This one comes from The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and they are so delicious. One glance at the ingredient quantities will tell you how rich they are!

1 c butter (2 sticks)
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 c sugar
4 eggs
2 c chopped walnuts (optional)
1 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 13x9 baking pan. In a heavy 3-quart saucepan (I do it in a 2-quart) over low heat, melt butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove saucepan from heat. With a wire whisk or a spoon, beat in sugar and eggs until well blended. Stir in nuts, flour, vanilla, and salt. Evenly spread batter in pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (I usually leave them in for about 37 minutes).

I often put a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips in, or you could add anything else: white chocolate chips, other kinds of nuts, butterscotch chips, etc. They are so fudgy and rich, they need to be cut into small squares and therefore it's a great recipe for a big group since you can get so many small squares out of a 9x13. Enjoy!

Fancy From-Scratch Strawberry Shortcake

2009-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

The recipe for the cake is from my Martha Stewart cookbook, but I couldn't find it online to link to. I halved her amounts and baked it in an 8" round and split it into 3 layers; she calls for two 9" rounds splits into 2 layers each. The amounts listed below are what I used for one 8" cake round.

The Cake

1/2 c flour

1/3 c cornstarch

3 large eggs, room temperature

2 large egg yolks, room temperature

1/2 c white sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 c canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 and spray the bottom of an 8" cake round with non-stick spray. Sift flour and cornstarch together into a small bowl.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat on high speed until the mixture is thick and holds a ribbon-like trail on the surface when you raise the whisk, about 5 minutes. Turn mixer to low and slowly add flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Add oil and continue to mix until just combined (for me it didn't really combine; see next step). Turn off mixer, remove the bowl and detatch the whisk. Using the whisk, fold mixture several times (this will get the oil mixed in well).

Pour batter into prepared 8" cake pan; bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the center springs back when you touch it. Immediately turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile...

The Berries

I used about a pint and a half of strawberries. Remove tops and cut into bite-sized pieces. Put into a medium saucepan with 1/2 c sugar and about 1 tsp cornstarch. Cook over medium heat until bubbly, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. You'll want to do this well ahead of time so they can cool off completely. I was in a hurry for the strawberries to cool off, so I filled a large mixing bowl about halfway with ice water, then put the strawberries in a smaller metal mixing bowl on top of the ice water. I stirred them occasionally and they cooled off this way much faster.

The Whipped Cream

For heaven's sake, don't use Cool Whip. It's not much trouble to whip your own cream! For this recipe I used about a pint of whipping cream, about 1/4 c sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. The trick with whipped cream is to not whip it too fast. Start out on low speed, after a couple minutes increase to medium, and ideally leave it on medium until it's finished (stiff peaks). Yes it will whip faster on high speed but the consistency is nicer & more creamy when it's been whipped on medium; also, whipped cream that has been done on high has a greater tendency to break later on, and you do NOT want broken whipped cream. Trust me. Take the few extra minutes.

The Assembly

Using a long serrated knife (a bread knife is good), split the cake into 3 layers. This cake is dense enough to handle it. On a cake plate (or in my case tonight, a dinner plate) layer: cake, then 1/3 of the strawberries, then 1/3 of the whipped cream, then the next layer of cake and repeat. Next time I would use a slotted spoon so as not to get as much of the strawberry juice, but the cake was dense enough to handle it and it wasn't too much of a problem. The juice soaked into the cake just a little and didn't make it soggy. I assembled the cake about an hour before dinner and let it chill in the fridge and it was perfect. Although it was a little messy, it looked so pretty when we cut into it and of course it was delicious!

Don't you just love strawberry season? I'll be making several batches of jam again soon...

post script... the leftover assembled strawberry shortcake sat in my fridge overnight and tastes even better!! Next time I will assemble this several hours before serving; it gives everything a chance to firm up and it becomes more like a regular layer cake, easily sliced. The cake held up well and I love the consistency. It's like a dense sponge cake; not biscuit-like but also not too light. I will definitely make this again!

Cinnamon Rolls

2009-04-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

I got the basic idea for the recipe here (thanks Emily! and Adrianne!) but changed it a little after having made a couple of batches of them. The dough is very tender and melt-in-your-mouth! I used to think that the dough component of cinnamon rolls didn't make much difference, and that it was mostly the filling & frosting that mattered. BUT, this dough is excellent for cinnamon rolls... give it a try!

Dough + filling (see below for frosting ingredients)

2 1/2 c warm water
2 T yeast
4 eggs
1/2 c sugar
1 c semi-melted butter
7 1/2 c flour
2 tsp salt

1/2 c melted butter
3 T cinnamon
2/3 c brown sugar

Dissolve yeast in warm water. In a large bowl (I use my Kitchenaid) put eggs, sugar, and 1 cup butter. Mix and then add yeast/water mixture. Add salt, then add flour gradually. Once ingredients are incorporated, mix on low speed (knead) with the dough hook for about 5 minutes. Cover and let rise for 20 minutes.

Working with half the dough at a time, roll out on a generously floured surface into a large rectangle. This dough is really sticky, so have plenty of flour on hand to sprinkle! Pour half the melted butter (1/4 c) onto the rectangle. I spread it all around with my hands. Mix brown sugar with cinnamon; sprinkle 1/2 the mixture evenly over the buttered dough. (I think that some finely chopped pecans mixed with the brown sugar & cinnamon would taste good too; I'll try that next time!) Working back & forth across the long side, roll up the rectangle (I do it towards me) and make sure to keep it tight. When it's all rolled up, squeeze the roll along to make it an even thickness throughout.

I get 16 cinnamon rolls out of half the dough; you can make more or less depending on how big you want them. 16 is easy to divide... four sections of four... so using a very sharp knife, cut the long roll into 16 equal pieces. Put them on a greased baking sheet or one lined with a Silpat like I use, with the prettiest side up. I give them each a little smash with the palm of my hand to make sure they bake evenly. Repeat entire process with the other half of the dough, so you'll end up with 32 cinnamon rolls.

Allow to rest/rise, covered, for 25 minutes. Then bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes; just until the edges barely show a little color. While they're baking, prepare your frosting:

4 oz (half a brick) cream cheese, softened
1/4 c butter, softened
3 T milk
1 tsp vanilla
powdered sugar... I'm not sure how much so just have plenty on hand

Cream the butter & cream cheese together with a hand mixer; add milk & vanilla, then add as much powdered sugar as necessary for the consistency you want. I like mine a little runny, like a thick glaze. You'll probably need at least 4 cups of powdered sugar; if the frosting becomes too thick just add a tiny bit more milk.

Frost the cinnamon rolls when they've been out of the oven about 5 minutes.

I made a batch of these for a group of people that came over to my house this morning; I had planned to take a picture of the cinnamon rolls but everyone ate them up too quickly! No leftovers for my breakfast tomorrow; sad.

Ranch Roasted Potatoes

2009-04-01T19:07:00.001-07:00

Such an easy side dish that even my picky kids will eat!

4-5 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 1" cubes are good)

1 packet of Ranch dressing mix

olive oil

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss peeled/cubed potatoes in a big bowl with a few tablespoons of olive oil, and Ranch mix. Mix it well so that every piece of potato is covered. Tonight for dinner I thought it needed a little additional spice so I added some salt & pepper too. Spread potatoes in one layer on a large sheet pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender. At least once or twice during cooking, remove pan from the oven and turn potatoes over, scraping the pan well with a large non-stick spatula. Remember that hot potatoes really hold their heat so I always serve them up a few minutes early on the kids' plates.

Cupcakes: chocolate with chocolate

2009-03-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

These were delicious; a mild chocolate flavor that turned out great for my husband (whose birthday it was) even though he's not a huge chocolate fan. The recipe is from Southern Living via Real Mom Kitchen (my very favorite recipe blog lately).

Moist Chocolate Cupcakes

1 package German chocolate cake mix (but it doesn't end up tasting like German chocolate)

1 16-oz container sour cream (they will turn out better with full-fat sour cream, not light)

1/4 c butter, melted

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Beat all ingredients at low speed with an electric mixer until it comes together, then increase speed to medium and beat 3-4 minutes or until smooth, stopping to scrape the bowl as needed. The batter will be very thick, like a thick mousse.

Place paper baking cups in muffin pans and spoon batter evenly into baking cups, about 2/3 full. The recipe says it makes 24 cupcakes; I needed a few more than that so I stretched it to 30 cupcakes and they turned out great. So I would say, makes 24-30. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean... OR, when touched lightly in the middle of the cupcake, it springs back.

Chocolate Buttercream

1/2 c butter, softened

3 oz. cream cheese

16 oz powdered sugar

1/4 c milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

6 oz (1 cup) dark or semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Beat butter & cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until blended. Increase speed to medium, and slowly add milk and vanilla, beating until smooth.

Microwave chocolate morsels in a microwave-safe bowl on medium for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until melted and smooth, stirring at 30-second intervals. Gradually add melted chocolate into frosting mixture, one spoonful at a time so you don't melt the butter & cream cheese, until blended and smooth.

I piped the frosting on with a large star tip, which really impressed the crowd I was serving them to. Funny because I think that piping frosting onto cupcakes is much easier & faster than spreading it on with a butterknife!

Baked Potato Cheese Soup

2009-02-22T21:16:00.000-08:00

I came across a potato cheese soup recipe on another cooking blog but made several changes to it for dinner tonight... it turned out delicious. Very filling, and my husband had thirds! My kids liked it too.

6-8 large baking potatoes
1 stick butter
chopped carrots (see "tips" for quantities)
chopped onions
chopped celery
1/3 c flour
salt & pepper
3 bay leaves
Emeril's Essence Seasoning
Season Salt
2 c milk
4 c chicken broth (I used 2 cans which was about 3 1/2 cups but that was fine)
8-12 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled
8 oz grated cheddar cheese (I did two handfuls)
1 c sour cream

Wash potatoes, prick with a fork, wrap in foil and bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until tender. Melt half of the stick of butter in a large soup pot. Add chopped onion, carrot, celery, & spices and sautee over medium heat until carrot is nearly cooked (not too soft but not crunchy either). Then add the rest of the butter, let it melt and then add the 1/3 c flour, stir and cook for one minute. Add milk and chicken broth slowly, whisking to incorporate the roux (butter/flour) into the liquid. Cook on medium-high until it comes to a boil. Meanwhile, peel the baked potatoes and either mash or cube them, depending on how you want the soup's texture to be. Stir in potatoes, bacon, and cheese; then taste to see if it needs more salt/pepper. Just before serving add one cup sour cream.

Tips:

I mash about half the potatoes and cube the other half; that way the mashed potatoes thicken the soup but there are still enough chunks for a nice texture. If you decide ahead of time that you won't be mashing any of the potatoes, add more flour in the beginning, up to 2/3 c.

Spices are of course to taste. I put in about a teaspoon of salt at the beginning, and taste it later to see if it needs more. Bacon will add a salty flavor, so you might not need as much salt if you put in a lot of bacon. The cheese will add saltiness too, so don't oversalt it in the beginning. I put in about 1 1/2 teaspoons of Essence, and several dashes each of pepper & season salt.

As for the vegetables... the recipe I adapted this from didn't call for any onion/carrots/celery so I just guess on quantities (and actually didn't put in any celery since my husband doesn't like it, but it would've tasted really good in there!) I had about two big handfuls of carrots and about 1/3 of a chopped onion.

A soup like this really holds the heat, so if you turn off the burner and then stir in the sour cream at the end, the sour cream will help it to cool off just a bit before you serve it.

Hot fudge sauce

2009-02-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

This is from the New Good Housekeeping Cookbook; it's the best hot fudge I've ever had! Easy and quick to make, nice and thick to coat any ice cream or banana split.

3/4 c sugar
1/2 c cocoa
1/2 c cream (heavy or whipping)
4 T butter (1/2 stick)
1 tsp vanilla

In a heavy 2-qt saucepan, combine sugar and cocoa until no lumps remain. Turn on medium heat; add cream and combine, then add butter cut into pieces. Heat until boiling, stirring frequently. Do not allow to boil more than a minute or so; remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve immediately. My favorite is over good-quality vanilla ice cream and bananas.

Tip:

This behaves like fudge or any cooked candy, so if it's boiled too long it will end up too thick when it cools. It keeps well in the fridge for later, but when reheating in the microwave, do not overcook it or it will easily become too thick! Reheat for 15-20 seconds at a time and stir in between; heat only until it's as warm as you like it and not until it's boiling.

Blueberry Muffins

2009-02-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

From the New Good Housekeeping Cookbook

1 3/4 c flour
2/3 c sugar
1 T baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
6 T butter (3/4 stick)
1 egg
1 tsp grated lemon peel
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. With a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs (if the pieces are bigger, like the size of peas, that's okay too). In a small bowl mix egg, milk, lemon peel, and vanilla with a fork until blended. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Fold blueberries into batter.

Spoon batter into greased muffin tin. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan; serve warm.

Tips:

If you use frozen blueberries, don't thaw them before adding to batter. Fresh turn out a little better because they don't bleed as much into the batter and the muffins turn out looking "cleaner." But they are tasty either way!

For these muffins or for any quick bread or cake, I never use a toothpick. I check for doneness by lightly pressing down on the center of the muffin/bread/cake with one finger. If it springs back, it's done. If a depression remains, it's not cooked through.

My muffin tins are dark metal and these muffins are always done in 20 minutes; check after 18 or so to see if yours are done.

And I can't believe I forgot to mention; I always sprinkle a little regular white sugar on top of each muffin before putting them in the oven -- it gives them a nice crunchy sweet top! A friend of mine puts brown sugar on top of hers; I haven't tried that but I bet that would be tasty too.

Baked white fish

2009-02-07T18:37:00.001-08:00

Fish is so good for you, but I have always been intimiated by it! After 11 years of being married and cooking delicious meals for my family, I have just in the past few months ventured into the wonderful world of fish... I mean, "real" fish and not frozen breaded fish-sticks! It isn't hard at all to prepare and we have really been enjoying it lately.

3 or 4 fillets of any white fish (I buy mine frozen at the grocery store; usually between $6-10 per pound... orange roughy, talapia, cod, halibut, etc.)
1 lemon
olive oil
salt & pepper

To thaw fish, leave in plastic packaging or remove and put in a big Ziploc bag; run under cold water or submerge in a sink full of cold water until thawed. Arrange fillets on a baking sheet or casserole dish. Brush both sides with olive oil and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Slice lemon into thin slices; arrange lemon slices on top of fish. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. To check to see if it's done, stick a fork in the thickest part of a fillet and see if it's solid white all the way through and if it flakes easily. If so then it's done! I serve mine with this sauce and this rice... tonight for dinner we ate all of that plus these carrots. And I'm very full!

Herbed Rice

2009-02-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

I came up with this rice to go with baked white fish and sauce; a great combination! Try any combination of spices you have; this is what I use and it turns out good... unfortunately I rarely measure in cooking so these amounts are my best estimation :)

In a medium saucepan, put 2 1/2 cups water. Add about one teaspoon chicken bullion granules (instant bullion) or one chicken bullion cube, two generous pinches of dried parsley, a pinch or two each of dried crushed mint and basil, and a dash or two each of garlic powder, onion salt, and dried lemon peel. Bring to a boil over high heat; once boiling add 1 cup of white rice (regular, not instant). Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until rice is tender and fluffy!

I like to put my fish fillet on top of a bed of this rice, and then spoon some of the sauce over the whole thing. Serves four.

Lemon Squares

2009-01-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

I got a good recipe from a friend and then made some changes to it... I made four batches over the weekend and I have figured out exactly how I like it!

Crust:

1 1/2 c flour
2/3 c powdered sugar
3/4 c butter, softened
dash salt
2 tsp fresh lemon zest (optional)

Filling:

6 T flour
2 c sugar (regular white granulated)
3/4 c lemon juice (fresh is the best!)
6 eggs
1 T fresh lemon zest (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine ingredients until dough-like (I use a fork); press evenly into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350. While this is baking, prepare filling: first combine flour and sugar to make sure all the lumps are out of the flour. Mix in lemon juice and eggs (and zest if you want) and whisk until well-combined and a little frothy. Taste the filling mixture; everyone has a different opinion of the correct sweet/sour ratio of lemon squares! If it's too sour, add another couple of tablespoons of sugar. If it's too sweet, add a little more lemon juice and/or zest. After the crust has baked for 20 minutes, take it out of the oven and pour the filling over it while it's hot. Return to the oven and bake for 25 minutes more. After it has cooled, sprinkle powdered sugar over the top.

Tips:

The key (at least for me) to making this turn out best is the baking pan. I have found that my very favorite 9x13 works the best... it's aluminum and has very straight sides and square corners and I bought it at a cake decorating supply store. Looks just like this one. It's perfect for cake-baking and has turned out to be miraculous for brownies, lemon squares, etc. because the whole pan bakes evenly; no overdone edges, etc.

I am a nerd about eggs... you know those little white stringy parts that connect the white to the yolk? Have you ever noticed biting into a firm little chunk in a cake or brownie and realized it's that little part of the egg baked in there? For something like lemon squares, I want the filling to be smooth and flawless, so I strain the eggs. Just break them into a wire mesh strainer over your mixing bowl, and use the back of a spoon to push the egg through the strainer. It takes a while; in fact if you just scramble the eggs and the walk away for 10 minutes, a lot of it will ooze through on it's own, but then you'll still need to push the rest through. When most of the egg is through you'll be left with those gross white stringy parts in the strainer, and you can rest assured that your lemon squares will be smooth and lovely.

The best way I know to squeeze fresh lemons without a juicer: cut a lemon in half, stick a fork in the middle of it and squeeze it around the fork, twisting the fork so that all the juice comes out. Putting each lemon in the microwave for 10 seconds or so (before cutting) can help get more of the juice out, but I have found that using a fork is the best trick. Do it over a strainer into a bowl or large measuring cup. If you want to use the lemon zest, zest your lemons before cutting/juicing.

There's no need to dirty up two mixing bowls; just use the same bowl for the filling that you did for the crust. Aside from juicing the lemons, this recipe really doesn't mess up your kitchen too much.

I use one of these for dusting lemon bars (or anything else) with powdered sugar. So handy! And this is my favorite zester, fyi. I love it.

These lemon squares will stay good and yummy for a few days, covered (no need to refrigerate) but they will get a layer of moisture on top and will need to be re-dusted with powdered sugar before serving.

Creamy butter sauce for fish

2009-01-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

I'm kinda proud of myself for coming up with this sauce recipe; it turned out so yummy! We had it spooned over oven-baked orange roughy; it would be good with any white fish.

1 stick butter
1/2 tsp Emeril's "Essence" seasoning (or more if you want it spicier)
1 tsp worchestershire sauce
2 T lemon juice
2 T cream

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When completely melted, turn heat off and add next four ingredients. Whisk together thoroughly, then whisk in cream. It will take a few minutes of whisking to get the sauce to the point where it doesn't separate. Keep saucepan over low heat until ready to serve, whisking as needed.

Emeril's "Essence" Creole Seasoning

2009-01-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I mixed up a batch of this spice blend and have kept it in a small tupperware container with my spices. It has been convenient to use from time to time. Good on meat, Thanksgiving turkey, and fish!

2 1/2 T paprika
2 T salt
2 T garlic powder
1 T black pepper
1 T onion powder
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T dried oregano
1 T dried thyme

Combine all ingredients thoroughly.
Yield: 2/3 cup

Banana Nut Bread

2009-01-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

I have tried different recipes over the years and this one is my favorite!

1 1/2 c sugar
3/4 c butter
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/4 c flour
1/2 c buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla
1 c chopped nuts

Cream together sugar and butter; add eggs and blend well. Dissolve soda in buttermilk. Mix flour, salt, soda & buttermilk with sugar/butter/egg mixture, beating well. Add bananas, vanilla, and nuts. Pour batter into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 300 and bake for another 30 minutes. To prevent top from browning too much, cover loosely with foil for last 20 minutes, or, put a cookie sheet on the rack above the banana bread. It may not be cooked completely after an hour; to check, gently touch the top middle of a loaf to see if it is semi-firm. If not, continue cooking and check every 5 minutes until it's done.

Tips:

For quickbreads I always spray the loafpans with Pam, and only on the bottom on the pan. Spraying only the bottom will prevent the batter from creeping up the sides as it bakes, and will result in nicely-shaped rounded loaves. After baking, let cool for 10 minutes and run a butterknife around the edge to loosen and they'll come right out of the pans.

There are a few recipes I use regularly that call for buttermilk, but I rarely buy buttermilk. To "cheat" just put 1/2 T white vinegar in a 1-cup measure, and fill the rest of the way with milk. This will make 1 cup of sour milk; a great substitute for buttermilk!

Don't throw away bananas whose skins have turned a little too brown; make banana bread! OR - if you don't have time to make banana bread today, just put them in the freezer. Their skin makes a great container! Leave them in there up to a few months and get them out when you're ready to make some banana bread. Let them thaw partway before peeling. Thawed frozen bananas are very mushy inside but will still be yellow and just perfect for banana bread!

New Year's Eve Clam Dip

2008-12-31T11:15:00.000-08:00

Recipe from my good friend Laurie

1 pt sour cream
8 oz cream cheese
3 T mayonnaise
1/4 c cottage cheese
1 can minced clams, drained
1/4 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix together and chill. Enjoy with potato chips on New Year's Eve; I do almost every year!

Peppermint white chocolate cake

2008-12-22T09:29:00.001-08:00

I made this for dessert for a fun family progressive dinner last night! I got the idea from Leslie, who got the recipe from Jenny. Thanks ladies! You have to click over to Jenny's, if for nothing else to see the pretty picture. She even has super cute recipe cards you can print out (which I did!)

The flavor was very good. I couldn't find enough candy canes to decorate the outside like Jenny did but the starlite peppermints looked cute too.

The cake is basically white cake (from scratch) with peppermint extract & crushed peppermint candies. A very nice flavor but the cake itself was a little too dense and heavy. The recipe calls for separating the eggs; adding the yolks with the other ingredients and then beating the whites separately until stiff and folding in. But the batter is pretty thick and very hard to fold meringue into. If I were to make this again, I would put the eggs in whole and beat it for a long time like a regular cake mix, in hopes of fluffing it up a little.

The frosting has white chocolate in it, and is very yummy.

All in all... it was a success. The flavor is very nice; light and festive and not too rich. But, with the heaviness of the cake itself, I succeeded in feeding a large group since we each had small slices and I have a lot left over!

English Toffee

2008-12-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

My Grandma B* has made this every Christmas for as long as I can remember; it's a family favorite!

2 c. sugar
1 lb. butter (get a "good" brand - not the cheap kind!)
6 oz. slivered blanched almonds
2 - 8 oz. Hersheys milk chocolate bars (or, 4 of the 4.4 oz size)
6-8 oz. regular (whole) almonds, ground

Melt butter in heavy pan over medium heat. Add sugar and turn on high. Stir fast, constantly, with a wooden spoon. When it's a cream color, add blanched almonds while continuing to stir (keep on heat). Continue to stir fast until butter and sugar work together and turns a light brown color (color of a paper bag). Pour into ungreased pan (9x13 or cookie sheet depending on how thick you like your toffee) and spread out evenly. Cool. Wipe off excess grease from surface, then frost with one 8 oz. melted chocolate bar. Sprinkle half the ground almonds and press into the chocolate. When set, turn over and repeat using the other chocolate bar & remaining nuts. Once set, break into pieces and enjoy!

TIPS:

The pan has to be HEAVY. My grandma uses an old pressure cooker pan. I use a heavy 4-qt Calphalon. I recommend using at least a 4-qt because it will splatter a little bit as it cooks, so with a bigger pan the splatters have further to travel! In fact, after about the 5th batch I made this year (I made 12 batches this year altogether!) I figured out that my hand/arm was spared the scalding splatters if I wore an oven mitt while stirring. My mom found an old pressure cooker like my grandma's on Ebay (just for this purpose) and she says it's a "magic pan" and that the toffee started turning out better from the first batch. I have had pretty good success with my Calphalon but I think I have to stir harder than if I had a magic pan...

Do not underestimate the amount of stirring involved. I have to give my arm a couple hours' rest between batches, at least! Every year I forget how labor-intensive this is until I do it.

Every batch turns out a little differently; at least for me. The brand of butter, the humidity, the intensity of stirring, the pan, etc. all affect the outcome. Sometimes the butter separates and you have a bunch of extra grease; that's okay -- just soak it up with paper towels and it will still taste good.

Most candy recipes you've made have probably given a temperature to cook it to. Sorry! I haven't ever figured out the magic temperature to cook this toffee to, so I stick with my Grandma's instruction to cook it until it's the color of a paper bag. An uncle of mine who also makes this says he can tell it's done when it "starts to smoke." I have noticed the smoke too, especially on batches that haven't separated; you can smell it if it does smoke... but as I said before, every batch turns out differently and it won't always smoke when it's done! If you start to notice dark brown swirls as you stir, it's starting to burn so take it off the heat right away!

I put mine in a 10x15 cookie sheet since I like that thickness. I leave about 1" of space on the ends. I grind my almonds in a mini food processor. 6 oz of whole almonds is about one cup.

You may be tempted to put it in the fridge or freezer to help the chocolate set faster, but I think it turns out better if you just be patient and wait all day or overnight for it to set at room temperature. For some reason, doing it "right" seems to result in the chocolate sticking to the toffee better in the end.

Brownie Pudding Cake

2008-10-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

"As this homey dessert bakes, a layer of cake magically rises to the top, leaving a sauce underneath."

1/2 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1 T cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 c milk
1 T cooking oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 c chopped walnuts
2 T cocoa powder
1/3 c sugar
3/4 c boiling water

In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, the 1/4 c sugar, 1T cocoa, and baking powder. (And a dash of salt; the recipe doesn't call for it but I think that every recipe that has flour in it needs at least a little salt!) Add milk, oil, and vanilla; stir until smooth. Stir in walnuts. Transfer batter to a 1-qt casserole.

Combine the 2T cocoa with the 1/3 c sugar. Gradually stir in boiling water. Pour evenly over batter in casserole. Bake in a 350 degree oven about 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. Serve warm. Makes 4 servings. (They say it makes 4 servings but those would be pretty small servings unless it's served a la mode.)

My notes: I always eat this with fresh whipped cream. I *can* eat the whole thing, if I'm feeling especially piggish and/or sorry for myself! My little trick is that while the cake is baking, I whip the cream by hand, which is a little labor intensive, figuring that it's helping to burn some of the calories I will soon consume.

Whipping cream by hand: start with a cold glass or metal bowl (glass will stay cold longer) and a cold whisk; just put them in the freezer for a few minutes ahead of time. Pour 1/3 c or so of cold cream into the bowl, and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Tip the bowl towards you and whisk briskly, in an up-and-down circular motion so that you are really whisking air into the cream. It will take a little while but in my opinion, cream that has been whipped by hand is so much better than if it's been whipped with a mixer! It will probably take at least 10 minutes, and your arm will burn... for a long time it will seem like nothing's happening but then when it turns into soft, fluffy whipped cream, you'll know!

Peach Pie

2008-10-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

Crust:

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 c butter (two sticks)

Mix dry ingredients together. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until it's about the size of peas. And 4-8 T ice water, one T at a time, mixing with a fork, until the dough will form a ball when you squeeze a handful of it. Divide into two equal portions, flatten into 1/2" thick discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Ideally, make this the day before and store in the fridge. To make your pie right away, put the dough discs in the freezer while you prepare the filling.

Filling:

1/4 c flour
3/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6-7 peaches, peeled and sliced, or about 4 1/2 to 5 cups

Mix dry ingredients and then add peaches. Mix well, but not to the point of smashing your peaches!

Cover your work surface and rolling pin with flour. Unwrap and roll out one dough disc, making a circle about 3" bigger on all sides than your pie pan (a 9" pie pan is ideal). Carefully roll the pastry halfway onto your rolling pin and drag it carefully onto the pie pan, centering it. Carefully press pastry into pie pan. Now put in your filling, spreading and being careful not to get any filling on the edges. Take about 1 1/2 T butter and make several dots on top of the filling.

Re-flour your work surface and pin; unwrap and roll out second disc, again making it amply bigger than your pie pan. Roll onto pin and then onto pie. With a paring knife, cut away extra crust around the pan, leaving at least 1" overhang of both layers all the way around. Turn the crust under, making an even ridge around the pie. Using your thumb and forefinger, pinch the crust together -- the motion I use is similar to untwisting a bottlecap. You can use a different design or even crimp with a fork; the important thing is that the top and bottom crust get pinched together in some way so as to be sealed together.

Cut a few slits or small shapes out of the top crust (this may also be done before putting the top crust on) so that steam can escape as it cooks. To make a pretty, crispy, sweet crust, brush the top with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Then, cover edges of the crust, reduce heat to 350 and bake for 30 minutes more. If you don't have one of these, cover the edges with strips of foil.

Although the temptation will be great, let it cool for at least half an hour before cutting into it! If you cut into it too soon, the filling will run; it needs time to cool and set up.

When you do cut into it... serve with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

Wheat Bread

2008-09-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

This is the way my Mom makes wheat bread and it's delicious! I made a batch last week and it's already gone; my kids and husband love it almost as much as I do. A few months ago I was interviewing my kids for a blog post and one of the questions was, "If you mom was famous for something, what would it be? Noah's answer was, "You would be famous for making wheat bread." It was such a funny response since at that time I hadn't made it in a few months. Another thing about wheat bread... Lucy put the emphasis on the word "bread." And she looooves to eat it!

5 c hot water - or more like 4 3/4 cups*

1 egg (*the egg is part of the liquids; so it's 5 cups of total liquid. Make sense?)

12-15 c freshly ground whole wheat flour

2/3 c vegetable oil

2/3 c honey

1/4 c (rounded) wheat gluten flour (I found mine in the health food section of my regular grocery store)

2 T dough enhancer

3 1/2 T Saf yeast

2 T salt

Grease four loaf pans (I use Pam, or Pam baking). In a stand mixer, put water, egg, and 7 cups of whole wheat flour. Mix until blended. Add: oil, honey, gluten, dough enhancer, and yeast; mix again. Add 3 more cups of wheat flour and salt, mix again until well blended. Gradually add 2-5 more cups of flour until the sides of the bowl start to come clean. For me, 2 more cups is usually enough. Don't add more than 15 cups total. Knead on low speed in your mixer for 8-10 minutes. Dough will be more "runny" after kneading. Oil your hands and the counter; form dough into four equal portions and put into loaf pans. I use Pyrex glass 1.5 qt pans. Let rise 45 minutes. Cook at 350 for 30 minutes.

Dinner rolls - recipe

2008-08-08T03:48:00.000-07:00

This post will just be the recipe for my family's favorite rolls, with undetailed instructions. Below is a long, step-by-step post with lots of pictures ~ for anyone who has never tried to make rolls from scratch!

1 pkg dry yeast
1/4 c warm water
1 c milk, scalded
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c butter (or shortening)
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 c sifted flour
1 egg

Soften yeast in warm water (110 degrees F). Combine milk, sugar, butter, and salt; cool to lukewarm. Add 1 1/2 c flour; beat well. Beat in yeast and egg. Gradually add remaining flour to form soft dough, beating well. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the surface. Cover and let rise until double (1 1/2 to 2 hours). Turn out on a lightly floured surface and shape as desired. Cover and let shaped rolls rise until double (30-45 min). Bake on greased baking sheet or in greased muffin tins at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Yield: 2-3 dozen.

Dinner rolls - tutorial

2008-08-08T00:49:00.000-07:00

For anyone who is nervous about making yeast breads or rolls from scratch -- here are my detailed instructions for delicious dinner rolls, which my family prefers to eat in crescent shape. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 pkg dry yeast
1/4 c warm water
1 c milk, scalded
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c butter (you can also use shortening, but I prefer the flavor of butter)
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 c sifted flour
1 egg

Step 1. Put 1 cup of milk into a small saucepan, over high heat. Watch it; it won't take long to scald. You know it's scalded when small bubbles form at the edges, as shown below, and it hasn't started boiling yet. When it reaches this point, remove it from the heat. If you don't, it will soon boil over and make a huge mess.

Step 2. You'll need 1/2 stick of butter. If it's cold, cut it into small pieces and put into your mixing bowl (you can use a stand mixer or a hand mixer; but if you're using a hand mixer you'll need to stir the last of the flour in by hand). Pour the scalded (hot) milk over the butter pieces; this is what it looks like as the hot milk melts the butter.

Step 3. Get your yeast ready. Measure 1/4 cup of very warm water. Not too hot to the touch; maybe like a hot bath. Sprinkle the yeast over the water, you can stir a bit if you want, but then leave it alone and after a few minutes it gets all bubbly like this. This means the yeast is coming to life and ready to go to work!

Step 4. Back to your mixing bowl: add 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tsp salt to your milk/butter; mix.

Step 5. Add 1 1/2 cups flour and beat well. Now it will look like this:

Step 6. Now that your yeast is ready, add the yeast/water and one egg to the bowl. Mix well.
Step 7. Add the rest of the flour (2 cups) and mix well. The finished dough will look like this:
Step 8. Time to let the dough rise! Spray a clean medium bowl with non-stick spray. Scrape the dough out of your mixing bowl and into your new bowl. Turn the dough over once so that all sides are lightly coated with non-stick spray. This will help prevent a hard "skin" from forming on its surface.

Step 9. Cover with a clean dishtowel and leave it alone for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

...and voila! Look how pretty it is now!

I always make my rolls into crescents. You can roll it into balls and bake in greased muffin tins, or you can form it into thin snakes for breadsticks; there are many possibilities. I will show you how to do crescents.

Step 10. Sprinkle some flour onto a clean flat working surface and get out your supplies. Rub a little flour on your rolling pin too.

Step 11. Divide the risen dough in half. If it deflates substantially, no biggie. Roll out half the dough into a large circle (doesn't have to be perfect).
Step 12. Using a pizza cutter (or a paring knife would be fine too), cut the dough into quarters.
Step 13. Then cut each fourth into 3 pieces, making 12 in all.

Step 14. Beginning with the base of each triangle, roll tightly toward the pointed end.

Repeat steps 11-14 with the other half of your dough, so you end up with 24 crescents total. 24 will fit nicely on a large sheet pan like this one (a "half sheet" by professional baking standards). If you're not using a Silpat sheet like I do, just spray the pan with non-stick spray so the rolls won't stick as they bake.

Step 15. Cover with the towel again and let rise another 30-45 minutes; they will plump up like this:
If you don't think they look big enough, they will still rise more as they bake.

Step 16. Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes.

You can brush the tops of the rolls with melted butter before baking if you want. Or, to make them look shiny, beat an egg and mix a little bit of water or milk into it, and brush that on top of the rolls before baking. I would do that if I were bringing them to a fancy party. For my family at home, I leave them alone and we eat them with butter and jam. They are so tasty leftover for breakfast with jam... or heated up, dipped into butter and then into a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. Delish!

Easy Soy Chicken

2008-08-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

This is so quick and easy; we have it all the time. I always serve it over rice, and usually with some cooked frozen Asian-blend vegetables, or peas.

Small pieces of chicken cook quickly so if you want to serve this over rice and are using traditional rice (not Quick rice), start the rice a few minutes before you start on the chicken.

Boneless/skinless chicken breasts - enough to feed your family... in my case it's two (my kids don't eat much)

1/3 c sugar

1/3 c soy sauce

1/4 tsp dried ginger

2 tsp cornstarch

Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, or into slices (whichever you prefer). Spray a large skillet with Pam and put it on medium heat. Cook the chicken in the skillet just until the outside of it is cooked. Pour sugar, soy sauce, and ginger over chicken, mixing it around. In your measuring cup, mix the cornstarch with about a tablespoon of water (I just mix it around with my finger) until the cornstarch is dissolved; pour into the skillet. Mix it around. Turn up the heat and let it come to a boil. Let it bubble for a couple minutes and then turn the heat to low, keeping it warm until ready to serve.