No One Goes Hungry At Our House

I Really Did Try

2012-01-01T19:19:00.003-05:00

I really did try to get into regular blogging in 2011, it just didn't happen. On the flip side, I cooked a lot. And when I say I cooked a lot, I mean I cooked almost every single day in 2011 and tried tons of new recipes! I also frequently posted my culinary successes to Facebook. My goal for 2012 is to faithfully blog here at least once a week, even when I don't have photos to share.

To kick things off I wanted to share some dishes I found on other blogs (& on Pinterest) that really made us happy and one that was a huge fail.

1. Chicken Parmesan Bake from Food Wishes

This recipe is really good, especially considering that I was skeptical but made it for dinner anyway. It was fantastic (although I must admit I used way more mozzarella cheese than the recipe actually called for)and the hubby called it a keeper! I used Chattam Village Garlic & Butter Croutons by Marzetti and did not find them overpowering at all.

2. Chinese Lemon Chicken from Appetite For China

It's a winner! I made 1 small adjustment, I put a pinch of red pepper flakes in the sauce to knock the sweetness down a bit!

3. Panda Express Orange Chicken from Return of the Yummy

I must confess, I made lots of changes and am really glad that I did. Seeing as how I have never actually had anything from Panda Express (not even sure we have them here) I have no idea how this stacks up but we thought it was awesome! What did I change? I used about 2 inches of fresh ginger and 5 large cloves of garlic that I minced in the food chopper. I entirely skipped the rice wine in favor of 1/2 cup of orange juice (from the orange I zested) and 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. I not only cut the sugar in half but I switched out the white sugar for dark brown. The other thing? After we added the zest and chicken we let it sit for about 15 minutes and it was amazing! I highly recommend the resting period! It did not sog anything out and the chicken had this perfectly sticky glaze. One thing the hubby and I both agreed on is that it could have used more sauce so next time I will double the sauce.

4. New England Clam Chowder from Food Wishes

Truly the BEST clam chowder I have ever had in my entire life and I am picky! Our only complaint was that we wanted more! I did not use whole clams because I could not get any the night we decided to make this. It was fantastic the first day! No 24 hours of resting like other recipes I have made required to bring it to full flavor. This is chowder love!

5. Brussels Sprouts Lardons from Ina Garten

This was the year of Ina at our house. I was gifted with a box set of her first three books and several magazines featuring her recipes. It's going to be hard to ever eat frozen, steamed Brussels Sprouts again. This is such an easy and fabulous dish that I bet even non-Brussles Sprouts lovers will ask for seconds!

Lastly, for those not in the know Pinterest is an absolutely awesome digital environment for people who like to craft and cooks and share their interests. So when I kept seeing the pin for Hassleback Garlic Cheese Bread, I just had to make it. After all, three dozen pinners can't be wrong, can they? Why yes, yes they can. The idea is to bathe bread in melted butter, garlic and cheese and then to pop it into the oven to melt and goo. The idea is fantastic, the recipe floating around left a lot to be desired. All of my ingredients were good and fresh (I had used my flour and yeast in other dishes the same weekend) but the bread let just too much to be desired. I tried the butter bath/cheese part on a different loaf of bread a week later and it was excellent. So, try the bread with your favorite loaf but skip using the bread dough recipe on the site.

And with that Dear Friends, I am off to cook New Year's Day dinner.... stay tuned, you're gonna love it!

If You’re In France, Is It Still Called French Onion Soup?

2011-12-01T16:46:00.001-05:00

I adore ordering French Onion Soup Gratinée on the rare occasion when we go out to eat at a nice restaurant. My love of FOSG came from childhood when we’d go to fancy restaurants and I felt oh so grown up ordering it! The problem is, rarely do I get what I ordered these days. What comes looks like FOSG but once I dig through that beautiful lid of browned and bubbled cheese, I am left disappointed by the salty, brown, usually flavorless broth filled with strands of onions underneath. What’s a girl to do? Learn to make her own of course!

I started by going straight to the master, or in this case mistress, of French cuisine, Julia Child. I liked the soup it produced but it was missing the depth of flavor from my childhood memories. Then I tried Alton Brown’s recipe and again, I liked the soup it produced but it was too much sweet, not enough savory. After trial and error took place several times, I finally hit upon the perfect soup by combining the two recipes.

FOSG is a labor of love and one of those soups that tastes BEST the day or two after it is made. I use sweet or yellow onions but NEVER Vidalia Onions (because they are just too sweet for this dish). I use Beef Stock, NEVER Consommé which is a soup in its right, typically is made by adding a mixture of ground meats, together with mirepoix, tomatoes, and egg whites into either bouillon or stock that is simmered for a very long time during which, if done right, the soup is clarified. It is a clear soup and wasted in this recipe. Most important in this recipe is that you use ingredients you know you like the flavors of and adjust the soup to your personal liking.

4 lbs onions, peeled and sliced –I prefer yellow, sweet or a combination
2 T olive oil
2 T butter
salt
1-2 T sugar (optional)
2 T flour
½ t dried thyme
pepper to taste
1 ½ C apple cider or pressed apple juice
2 C dry white wine
2 nips cognac
6 C beef stock
2 cloves of garlic peeled & smashed

Peel and slice 4 pounds of onions. If you only have access to Vidalias, I suggest using 50/50 with yellow onions. I do not like white or red onions in my soup but if you like it, go ahead and use those. Uniformity of slicing is not important. You do not want them paper thin, nor do you want ½ inch thick slices, I find about a ¼ inch thick slice works best. I prefer to use a large skillet to caramelize the onion slices, I feel it works better than attempting to do it in the soup pot because it allows for better evaporation of the liquid the onions give off during this part of the process. Remember, you are cooking 4 pounds of onions all in one pan!
It takes a good 45 minutes to an hour to cook the onions. I place my skillet over medium heat, allow it to warm up then put my olive oil and butter in, once the butter melts I add all the onions and salt them liberally. It takes about 10-15 minutes for the onions to break down enough so you can stir them around. After than initial stirring I leave them alone in 20 minute increments to do their thing, stirring each time the timer goes off. In fact, during the long cooking period, I go do other things so I am not tempted to stir, poke or mash the onions.

I do not take my onions to a deep mahogany brown but rather a light caramel. If they “burn” it’s not a disaster but I just prefer them this way. If you are having trouble getting your onions to caramelize, sprinkle them with a tablespoon or two of white sugar and that should solve the problem. If they caramelize well on their own, I skip adding the sugar.

Once my onions are at the proper color, I sprinkle the flour, dried thyme & a few twists of black pepper over them, stir it in and kick the heat up to high and when the onions get a little darker & the flour disappears (about 1 minute) I add one cup of wine and stir constantly, scraping up the bits on the bottom for about 2 minutes or till you have a thick syrupy mass in the pan. I pour the mixture into my soup pot, if the skillet isn’t totally clean, don’t panic we’re going to take care of that. Add about 1 cup of the beef stock to the soup pot and stir well. This is a good time to point out that this is NOT a thick soup, the flour helps to create a silky mouth feel.

Now that it’s empty Keep your skillet on the high heat and use 1 1/3 cups of the apple cider/juice to deglaze the pan all the way. Cook and stir the juice for about 2-3 minutes, once the pan is completely deglazed, you are looking for a 50% reduction in the juice but not a thick syrup which can happen in the blink of an eye if you are not paying attention. Dump the contents of the skillet in the soup pot followed by the rest of the stock, 1 nip of cognac and another cup of wine. Drop in the 2 cloves of garlic and set the pot to simmer uncovered for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. If you were to taste the soup at this point, it will be very weak, almost watery. Slow simmering will take care of that.

At the two hour mark is when I generally start tweaking the flavors. I like to develop a nice rich soup, not too sweet. I have simmered this soup as long as 4 hours to get the flavor I want. If I am close and not serving the soup till the next day, I pop it in the fridge and tweak it again as I heat it up the next day.

Tips to adjust the flavor:

Not sweet enough? Add more cider/juice

Not savory enough? Add the other nip of cognac

Missing that acidic twang? Add more wine.

Did it reduce too much? Add more stock.

Of course you can adjust salt and pepper but be careful with the salt, especially if you are making this ahead as the salt will develop more over night.

For serving I top my ovenproof crocks of hot soup with garlic "croutes" that I also make the day before. ¼ - ½ inch slices of French bread, dressed in olive oil baked at 325* on a sheet pan for 15 minutes a side. While still hot and toasty I rub one side of each toast with a clove of garlic. It’s also yummy using pumpernickel or seedless rye bread! I float two on the top of the soup and cover with an ample amount of Gruyere and Mozzarella cheeses and put under the broiler till the cheese is melted and bubbly and brown but not burnt. Alternatively you can float croutons on top to cover with cheese but put enough in to create a shelf. If you use the croutons, you can use a mix of all the breads I mentioned above (heaven!!!)

Better Late Than Never.... Pink Zebra Cke

2011-05-24T18:21:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I use cake mix, this was one of those occasions. Since I knew I wanted a 3-layer cake, I knew I would have to bake a total of four 9" cakes. I also knew that light, fluffy, airy cake would not hold up to being stacked. So I used my tried & true doctored up cake mix cake. For each two rounds I used:

1 Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake mix

1 4-serving Jell-O Instant French Vanilla pudding mix

4 large eggs

1/2 C vegetable oil

1 1/4 C whole milk

Follow the directions on the package to mix. Make sure you mix it on the correct speed for the amount of time called for. Once it's mixed, measure out two cups of batter in a measuring cup intended for liquid measure. Tint the 2 cups of batter whatever color you want but make it bold & bright!

I know a lot of people are confused about how to layer a zebra cake. It really is as simple as dumping scoops of batter on top of each other. I used ice cream scoops with the thumb release to portion out the batter. One thing I did note is that you need to make sure your prepared pans are on a level surface or the batter will not spread evenly. Also, I used pan release in a can to grease & flour my pans and it worked like a charm!

The first batch of cakes I made I did not measure out two cups of batter to tint, I eyeballed it and as a result had too much pink and not enough white batter. You can see it in the middle layer of the finished cake. If you want perfect zebra stripes, you need to make sure your scoops hold the same amount of batter. You also need to be mindful to dump each scoop of batter in the middle of the the last scoop of batter you dumped in.

After the cakes come out of the oven, cool them for 15 minutes before removing them from the pan. Then allow them to cool on racks until they are completely cool. Wrap them well in plastic wrap and stash them in the fridge to get cold before leveling, filling and frosting.

I Am A Tease

2011-05-21T01:16:00.006-04:00

I would like to tell you that I am gonna sit here and write out all the information on this cake tonight. I am not. I. Am. Exhausted.

What I will tell you is to check back Sunday for a Zebra Cake walk through....

How cute are those butterflies?

If It Has No Sugar, No Dairy & No Gluten, Is It Still Dessert?

2011-05-17T09:00:00.012-04:00

I am such a dufus sometimes. I made a totally rockin' dessert for Easter and failed to take pictures of it. Regardless, I wanted to share the "recipe" because it might help the next person who is tasked with making a sugar free, lactose free, gluten free dessert to take to a gathering without having any prior experience dessert making in any of those categories never mind all three at the same time.

I really had to do my homework on this one. It almost frustrated me to tears. When someone mentioned Coconut Cream Pie to me, I laughed. Uh, hello! Cream? But thanks to some really lovely and talented bloggers out there (too many to mention) I was pointed in the direction of coconut milk & Cool Whip for a lactose free alternative to milk and cream. I did a little more digging and found that both Jell-O and Cool Whip (both Kraft foods) could be purchased in sugar free varieties and both were gluten free.

I'm giving you guys the brand and a link to the coconut because I had a really tough time finding unsweetened flake coconut for this dessert. You can use whatever brand pleases you. To toast ANY coconut. Pre-heat your oven to 350*. Spread unsweetened coconut shavings, or sweetened shredded or flaked coconut on a rimmed baking sheet and bake, stirring once or twice, until golden, about 5 to 10 minutes. If toasting sweetened coconut, check and stir more frequently because the added sugar causes irregular browning.

A note about the prepared crust. If you don't need gluten free you can use any store bought shortbread crust you want. If you need gluten free you may have to make your own by crushing up some gluten free shortbread and mixing it with melted margarine.

Coconut Custard Pie

2 4-serving box Jell-O* brand sugar free cook & serve vanilla pudding

1 13.5 oz can Goya coconut milk

1 8 oz tub of Cool Whip free

1 prepared 8" shortbread crust

1 C Bob's Red Mill unsweetened, flaked coconut**, toasted

Follow the directions on the boxes of Jell-O for pie filling EXCEPT replace the milk with the 13.5 oz can of coconut milk. It will be thick but you want it thick. Just before you pour it into the prepared crust, stir in about 1/4-1/2 cup of the toasted coconut. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap straight down on the custard and place in the fridge for 4 or more hours.

Before serving slater the pie with the Cool Whip. I could lie and tell you that I only used half the tub but it was Easter and the pie screamed for loft! Scatter the remaining toasted coconut over the pie to garnish and serve.

Those that ate the pie, loved the pie! The rest of us (those without dietary restrictions) ate Chocolate Pudding Pop Pie (that was good too)!

*JELL-O is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods. Kraft Foods is not affiliated with this blog.

* Bob's Red Mill is not affiliated with this blog.

Better Than Take Out

2011-05-16T09:00:00.008-04:00

T-minus three days and counting till the birthday caking begins so I thought I would share another recipe I made over the winter. It's no secret that we do not eat out very much and even that is an understatement. If we eat takeout twice a year that's a lot for us but we kept seeing commercials for the Olive Garden's Vino Bianco Pork Scallopini and it looked so yummy! The problem is, neither one of our stomachs do well at Olive Garden. Yeah it tastes good going in but an hour later both of us have tummy aches and rumbles and well, you get the idea. I figured that I could make a reasonable facsimile here at home that tasted great, was less expensive and more easily digestible by our finicky tummies.

Tortellini With Spinach & Mushrooms

1 package frozen Cheese Tortellini, cooked & drained
4 T butter
8 oz sliced Crimini Mushrooms
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 C white wine or chicken stock
1 C half & half

1/2 C milk
4 T Parmesan Cheese, grated
1 lb bag frozen leaf spinach, thawed and well drained

Melt butter over medium heat then add mushrooms, stir to coat with butter. Allow mushrooms to cook for 1-2 minutes then add garlic. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Raise heat to high, continue to stir and when you begin to see brown bits on the bottom of the pan dump in all the wine and stir to deglaze. Bring to a hard boil and allow to boil for about 3 minutes or until slightly reduced. Add cream all at once, bring to a boil again and continue to stir while mixture reduces about 4 minutes. Lower heat slightly, add cheese and continue stirring and cooking until sauce coats back of spoon. Remove from heat and stir in spinach and tortellini.

After making this the first time (pictured above) we decided it would have been nice to have it a little more saucy so I suggest (and accounted for it in the recipe) adding the 1/2 cup of milk. Of course, if you like it thick feel free to omit it.

While You Wait For Cake, Eat Pork

2011-05-15T09:00:00.019-04:00

Even though I haven't been blogging we certainly haven't gone hungry around here...

I perfected the look of my peanut butter cake by practicing patience.This is my 2nd attempt at this cake & it came out so much prettier because I took the time to crumb coat and chill before I ganached it! I also used different brands of butter, cream cheese and peanut butter and I like the flavor of the finished frosting and ganache much more!

I came up with a ripoff recipe for Olive Garden's Pork Scallopini (I will post recipe at some point). The side dish is tortellini with spinach and crimini mushrooms! I made this on one of the long, snowy weekends we survived up here. It was a huge hit!

But the thing I am most proud of was the perfection of my pulled pork sandwiches! I love pulled pork but have never been able to make it in my crock pot where it didn't turn out like sawdust! I am convinced that I am a Southern Soul stuck in a New Englanders’ body. I adore Southern foods; buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, pimento cheese, sweet tea and any variation of pork. There is nothing more satisfying to me than smoked pork ribs or a pulled pork sandwich laden with coleslaw both dressed in a smattering of tangy sauce. I'm sorry Texas, I love beef; steaks, burgers and roasts but when it comes to BBQ make mine pork please! So with more foul weather on the radar for the winter weekend I found myself in again and a sale on pork shoulder, around midnight I loaded the crock-pot with pork, onions, garlic and ginger ale set it on low and went off to bed.

The crock-pot recipe I use for pulled pork is easy but takes around a total of 18-20+ hours. The first round of cooking takes 12 hours on low and it’s during this twelve hours that the real magic takes place. If I want to serve this for Saturday supper I start my crock-pot around midnight Friday. Slice a sweet onion, smash 5 cloves of garlic and put in the bottom of the crock, put the meat in next (I use either a “Picnic Shoulder” or a pork butt), pour 1 cup of a not too sweet ginger-ale (I like Canada Dry) over all, salt and pepper liberally and top with another sliced onion. Do not, do not, do not open the crock-pot lid for 12 hours (hence why I let it cook overnight).

When you hit the 12 hour mark open the crock and check the meat with a fork if it starts to fall apart you are good to go, turn off the crock. Remove the meat, onions and garlic into a 9x13 pan. I use a gravy separator to remove the fat from the cooking liquid and then put most of the juice back in the crock along with the cooked onions and garlic, the pork that I shredded with 2 forks, a freshly sliced sweet onion and about a cup and half of my favorite BBQ sauce (I like Sweet Baby Ray’s). Plop the lid back on and cook on low for 6-8 additional hours or until it’s tender. During the last 6-8 hours I do remove the lid and stir it, check to make sure there is enough liquid and sauce and occasionally I end up turning my crock-pot down to the lowest setting.

Trust me when I tell you that it is moist and tender and tasty. If it’s not, you did something wrong!

I'm Back & There's Going To Be Cake

2011-05-14T16:14:00.001-04:00

Despite my best efforts, I never managed to get regular blogging back into my schedule. Recently I was tapped to make our niece's birthday cake (Pickles is turning 6!! Where does the time go?) and I thought what better way to rejuvenate this labor of love? So without further ado let's jump back in, shall we?

One of the more frequent questions I am asked is how I come up with the ideas that we eventually turn into cakes or candies. Sometimes it's because we have seen something similar in a book or blog but most of the time it's because we are given some direction by the person hosting the event. For Pickles' 6th birthday we have been provided with a napkin from the already purchased party supplies and a photograph that inspired the birthday girl's choice of theme.

Isn't it cute?

Not terrible for a grocery store cake. See the inspiration napkin in the upper left of the photo?

The hostess only had a few simple requests, no chocolate cake and she didn't want a ton of leftovers. The rest of it was up to me! So, non-chocolate cake for 20, based on the garden party theme and something a bunch of kids will love. Hmmm...

I am a very visual person and I like to have a plan. Having a plan is good because it decreases the chance that you are going to run out of ingredients (like candy melts -a hem) at 10 PM the night before the party!

The first thing I did was think about the actual cake and settled on a French Vanilla zebra cake although I haven't decided on batter colors yet. I am leaning towards hot pink! Once I had that established, I needed to figure out how much cake was needed. After scouring the internet it seemed a two-layer, 9" round would fit the bill and just because I wasn't entirely convinced I traced my 9" cake pan onto a sheet of paper (which I was going to have to do anyway) and made sure it could be cut into 20 pieces. I'll be honest, it's tight but you can cut a 9" round into 20 pieces as long as you keep them on the small side (and I don't know anyone who cuts cake into pieces that small). The more I thought about it, the more I became concerned about having enough cake because until the cakes are baked, you have no idea how much you are going to end up cutting off in the leveling process. To alleviate that problem I decided on making a three-layer cake. With that settled (and yes, baking the zebra cake will be it's own post in the coming days) it was on to design!

I already had my 9" pan traced onto a sheet of white paper so it was easy to begin visualizing the finished cake. I knew I would be using elements from the napkin on the cake The next thing I did was draw out the elements on a separate piece of paper (using the napkin as a guide for size) and cut them out. Doing this allows you to design a cake as easy as playing with Colorforms (remember those?) and in my case will eventually provide the pattern for chocolate crafting the butterfly and any other elements I choose. I'll spend the next few days working out a design so I can go shopping for ingredients and start baking on Thursday. Wish me luck!

Tradition Smells Like Gingerbread

2010-11-27T18:20:00.006-05:00

We have a gifting tradition where we pass this horrible, silver, laser cut dragon pendant back and forth. It started the year Sandy bought it for Mike, after I told her not to waste her money. There are rules;

1.) You can't just wrap it & give it, you must turn it into something else.

2.) The dragon must be able to be removed from whatever you turn it into.

3.) The remainder of whatever you turned it into has to remain usable.

We had it the first "gift back" year, I made a waterless snow globe out of a vintage mason jar and suspended the dragon from fishing line from the lid. They had it the following year and wired it into a wreath. Then we had a break and it was our turn again last year, we decided to encase it in a gingerbread house.

Mike had never made a gingerbread house and truth be told I had not done one in years. We decided to use the recipe for gingerbread from scratch and instructions on the King Arthur website. www.kingarthurflour.com/baking/documents/gingerbread.pdf

It was pretty easy. We had fun. And the look on her face when she realized the dragon was inside was priceless!

We use Nabisco 100 Calorie packs of Oreo crisps for the roof. The rest if self explanatory. I would recommend baking the gingerbread 24 in advance of building and letting it sit out with no cover, it makes it easier to trim if needed.

Never Enough Time

2010-11-27T18:14:00.003-05:00

My sad, sorry, neglected food blog. Oh how I had such great plans for you. But I am back and in the process or writing a "how to" for a simple gingerbread house. If you all come back in a few hours, I promise you won't be disappointed!

I Only Wish I Had Known Sooner

2010-04-26T21:20:00.001-04:00

Oh Carrot Where Art Thou?

2010-04-03T20:09:00.002-04:00

I have been craving carrot cake since last summer. I have no idea why I haven’t gotten around to making one except that I always seem to baking for someone else. I adore carrot cake, moist, flavorful and another culinary excuse to have cream cheese frosting. I haven’t made carrot cake in years and for the life of me couldn’t remember my recipe so I set out with my trusty laptop to find one. Every single recipe I found contained massive amounts of white sugar, loads of oil and very little or worse yet, no actual carrot at all (baby food? Really? I didn’t even like that stuff when I was a baby, well except for blueberry buckle but that’s another story for another time). I found there are two extremes when it comes to carrot cake, uber-healthy or sugar laden and not much in between and none of it screamed decadent holiday dessert to me. I even consulted The Cake Bible I received as a birthday gift and to my utter disappointment, found Rose’s recipe using whole wheat flour to be lacking for my purposes. So the challenge had been set, I needed to put together an actual carrot cake that would make my tummy sing.

Many of the recipes I looked at were not actual carrot cakes, they were quick breads or muffins with a little bit of carrot and a ton of sugar baked in a cake pan and frosted with cream cheese icing. Carrots are naturally sweet and masking them under piles of sugar seemed wrong to me. Also, if I wanted carrot bread I would just make carrot bread. I wanted cake. Too many of the recipes called for extended mixing times AFTER the flour had been added. Hello! I want cake, not bread and over mixing causes gluten production, which makes bread.

So I started with what I knew… I knew I wanted carrot to be the star player and not merely an add-in. I knew I wanted walnuts but no raisins or coconut. I knew I didn’t want to taste vegetable oil or end up with a heavy brick that sat in my stomach hours after consuming it. I knew I wanted it moist, flavorful and decadent just like my Gram used to make. The last thing I should mention is that I ultimately decided on cupcakes instead of a 9x13 or layer cake. Why? Just cuz, that’s why. I gathered my ingredients and hit the kitchen…

You’ll notice a few things different about my version of carrot cake, most notably (I think) the absence of vanilla and a significant reduction in sugar and oil. I love vanilla. Vanilla is my friend. Vanilla has no place in this cake. Vanilla would be wasted in this cake. The cinnamon and ginger are such strong players that they would completely swallow 1 or 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Save the vanilla for the frosting. There is no white sugar in this cake. The frosting has more than enough white sugar in it to satisfy the sweetest of sweet-toothed people. I used a combination of brown sugar and unsweetened, crushed pineapple and its juice to sweeten the cake. I swapped out most of the oil for plain yogurt. Lastly, I used salted butter because that’s what most people have on hand. What did all of this produce? Actual cake. Carrot cake where you could see the carrots, walnuts and pineapple in the finished product. Cake that feels like cake in your mouth not bread. Cake that is savory and slightly sweet and yummy and a perfect vehicle for cream cheese frosting!

Carrot Cake

2 c Walnut halves and pieces or halves, your choice, toasted, cooled and chopped to size
1 lb of carrots, peeled and grated
2 ½ c AP flour, I prefer King Arthur
½ t salt
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
½ t freshly rasped ginger (use 1 t if powdered)
¾ c brown sugar
½ c melted salted butter
¾ c + 2 T plain yogurt
3 eggs
8 oz crushed, unsweetened pineapple in juice, drained- reserve juice
2 T of the reserved pineapple juice
1 recipe Creamy Cheesy Cream Cheese Frosting
Pulverized, toasted walnuts for garnish optional

I started by toasting walnuts and yes, it’s worth the extra step. I had a one-pound bag of walnut halves and pieces. I toasted half of the bag on an un-greased cookie sheet in a 350* oven for 10 minutes while I peeled and grated a pound of carrots on the larger side of my box grater (yes it matters, the smaller side turns them to mush). I ran my knife through the walnuts to make them the size I wanted, which is to say in small chunks.

In a large bowl whisk together the: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ginger. Using your hands, toss the carrots and nuts into this mixture. You really need to do this part with your hands to ensure that everything is evenly distributed and the carrots are well coated with the flour. By tossing the ingredients at this stage, you don’t end up developing gluten by over mixing once the wet ingredients are added.

In a separate bowl beat together the oil, yogurt and sugar until smooth and no traces of sugar remain. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the pineapple. Pour this mixture over the flour and stir just until combined. I found my mixture to be a little too thick at this point and added 2 T of the reserved pineapple juice.

I used my handy-dandy ice cream scoop to portion out the cupcakes (this recipe made 2 ½ dozen). Bake at 350* for 18 minutes, allow them to cool in the pan for a few minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely. You could easily bake this in any cake pan you wish.

Creamy Cheesy Frosting*

8 oz cream cheese, room temp.
1 stick of salted butter, room temp
1 lb box Confectioner’s/10x sugar
2 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon juice

I start by creaming the cream cheese and butter together in my kitchen aid. Once they are mixed and smooth I add the sugar and flavorings. I start on the "Stir" setting so I don't get covered in powdered sugar and then kick it up to 8 and let it go for 5 minutes. Too thick? Add about a tablespoon of milk. Too thin? Pop it in the fridge a bit and it will firm up.

I used a Wilton tip for the frosting swirls and toasted, pulverized walnuts to finish them off. There are a few tips I can give you that I find help me immensely. Before I start frosting I divide the cupcakes into 2 pans that are sturdy enough to be able to carry over to the fridge. When using tips to frost I find that in addition to the soft consistency of the frosting, holding the tip directly over the cupcake and NOT at any kind of angle gave me the best look. I frosted 4 at a time and then stopped to pat on the walnuts. When one pan was done it immediately went into the fridge to firm up. Firming up the frosting BEFORE transporting is the key to your cupcakes arriving as beautiful as they were freshly frosted in your kitchen.

*Squirrely wrath!

Sabbatical Over

2010-02-15T15:13:00.013-05:00

Greetings to anyone left reading my blog. I would apologize for being away so long but in truth I am not at all sorry that life has been so busy that I haven't had the time to blog. The 2009 holiday season was a blast! We had such an excellent time filled with friends, food and lots of laughs. Some time in the next week I will post about the gingerbread house we made as a gift but today I wanted to announce the addition of a new family member and sing the praises of a company that I just could not live without! This is Diamond, although we call her DD for short. While we've know her for a few months, she officially came to join our household a little over a week ago.

We had a little notice that she was coming and we also had known that there had been a little flea problem where she was living. I won't lie, I was a little panicked because originally we had discussed meeting at a grooming shop and that wasn't going to be able to happen. No problem, I am adaptable, so I called my friendly groomer who reminded me that Bobbi Panter makes a great flea and tick shampoo. Only one problem, I called over a dozen shops and no one had a bottle of Charlie Dog for us. What's a girl to do? I called Bobbi after 5:00 my time, on a Thursday night and left a message. Bobbi called me back in about 20 minutes and promised me that she would find a way to get a bottle of Charlie Dog into my hands before DD got here and Bobbi lived up to her word!

I have loved Bobbi Panter products since I was first introduced to them a few years ago. Her Itchy Dog shampoo was the only shampoo we used on our beloved Jack up until he passed away last year. Jack had some pretty serious skin issues from allergies and Itchy Dog would take the red and heat right out of his skin on contact. But it's not just that I think* Bobbi Panter's product are amazing and have seen them work wonders, it's the fact that Bobbi herself stands behind each and ever bottle of product. I know this because about a year before Jack passed we purchased a bottle of Itchy Dog from Pet Co and I wasn't happy with it at all. I literally had a nutty because the product just seemed off to me. In my passion to ensure that Jack only got the best I shot off a rather angry missive to Bobbi Panter and was shocked when she not only personally replied to me but did everything in her power to make it right for us. I became a fan of her personally and her company in addition to already being a fan of the shampoo line!

True to my other experiences with Bobbi Panter product, Charlie Dog did not disappoint. Unlike other chemical filled shampoos this had a great scent and left DD's coat so soft and smooth. We couldn't get over how great the product smelled int he bottle and how good DD smelled and continues to smell. It also appears to have significantly lessened DD's itchy skin as we have noticed a decrease in scratching and licking. Bobbi Panter has another win on her hands with Charlie Dog and we see it being a summertime staple in our house for regular grooming when we spend lots of times outside!

Thank you Bobbi!

*For the record this is an unsolicited and unpaid for review of Bobbi Panter products. I received no incentive for writing this review.

Best Birthday Cake Evah!

2009-09-04T02:11:00.004-04:00

It's chocolate. It's peanut butter. It's cake. What's not to love?

Chocolate, chocolate chip cake, peanut butter cream cheese frosting and chocolate peanut butter ganache! OMG! So rich. So good. Requires lots and lots of cold milk!

I can't lie ... I adapted the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It's not as pretty as hers but damn it was goooooooooooooooooooooooood!

The changes I made were small. I used my own cake recipe and only made 2 layers. I also added a bit of salt to the filling/frosting and found that I needed to thin it with a bit of milk. The chocolate peanut butter ganache was hands down the best thing I have ever tasted!

Boo-ter-fly Cakes

2009-08-30T00:01:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I get myself in over my head without even trying. Such was the case with these adorable little cakes made for our little friend Boo. Exactly 7 days before her party her mother and I went over to the bookstore so I could show her Hello, Cupcake! to see if there was anything in there she liked. To my honest shock and surprise there was nothing in the book that tickled her fancy so we moved on to other books, fancier books, more complicated cakes. In the end we settled on a combination of the butterfly cupcakes from Hello, Cupcake! (with modifications) and a mini-cake from Mich Turner's book Spectacular Cakes. While the cakes would be labor intensive they weren't really all that complicated, especially if I started them three or four days before they were needed for the party. What I didn't count on was an entire week of whatever could go wrong, would go wrong (including me getting a migraine that just wouldn't quit).

The plan was that the mini cakes would be french vanilla, filled with soft pink buttercream, covered in poured fondant of pale green, striped with thin lines of pale pink and magenta buttercream and topped with a pastel colored butterfly. They needed 36 little cakes for their party. In order to ensure that I would have enough I decided to go with cupcakes thinking I would use a timbale mold/cutter to make them all uniform. Due to time constraints, I used french vanilla cake mix that I doctored up with a box of instant pudding and some vanilla extract. The cakes were soft and dense and yummy! However the timbale mold/cutter I bought was 1 size too big and I was unable to make them all completely uniform. Not a problem for cupcakes but for sure a problem when you're going to be coating them with poured fondant. Next time I will make sheet cakes and cut the cakes out to ensure uniform cylinders and save myself the headache when it comes time to coat them. The cakes looked like little light green Ring Dings (or Ding Dongs depending on where you grew up) but tasted amazing!

I used my go-to vanilla buttercream for the filling and butterfly bodies. Man I love that stuff ... it's just everything you want and need a buttercream to be. The pourable fondant however was a COMPLETE disaster! I used the recipe on the King Arthur website. Now, before I go on, I want to remind you guys of my love affair with King Arthur flour. To be fair, it's not that their recipe was a complete disaster, it was a comedy of errors and miscalculations and a migraine that set the whole thing on the road to horrible. We ended up having to scrap the Mich Turner like stripes we had planned on piping onto each cake pre-butterfly because we ran out of time and patience with this project. In the end I don't think it made that much of a difference to anyone but the two of us. Both child and mom were thrilled with the cakes and really that's all that mattered!

I had a little accident in the kitchen and I lost 1/2 a pot of liquid fondant to my kitchen floor. I also thought the original coating looked like, well, snot. It was light green and shiny and definitely had an "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew" factor. In the end I had to remake the fondant and add a can of ready made frosting to make it opaque (which turned out really well for my purposes) but not before I ended up with a sugar burn on the fingers of my right hand. I used a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water for the second batch and it makes the whole process so much easier as you can regulate the temp as you go. Also, the second time around we chilled and dipped the cakes instead of pouring them. I highly recommend using the dipping method! However, my partner in culinary crimes ended up with sugar burns on his palm when one of the cakes got away from him and instead of letting it fall to the floor he tried to be a hero and save it mid-fall only to have it land top down in his palm. This is not a project to try with the kids in case anyone was wondering. That being said, I have it on good authority that the cakes were a big hit with kids and kids at heart alike! Although, the kids weren't sure what to do with the wings and had to be told they could eat them!

The butterflies were the easiest part of all this and made using Merckens Rainbow Wafer Coatings (in white, pink, purple, blue, peach, yellow and light green) and a hand drawn pattern that eventually was only used as a guide. Once again my creative partner saw potential to put his own stamp on something already pretty cool and he made the wings more monarch-like by free-handing a wing extension. There are detailed directions in Hello, Cupcake! but you really don't need them (buy the book anyway, it really is cool). Just melt some coating or chocolate, draw a butterfly and fill it with a second color of coating or chocolate and then swirl. You should also know that we had to custom blend the Merckens to get these shades by mixing them with white. There are a few tricks and tips, enough so that they will be their own post in the near future.

Assembly was easy and went pretty quick. Just make sure you are not working in a hot kitchen or the wings will get too soft and give you issues. We placed each cake in a pastel cupcake liner, piped on the body and stuck the wings in place. They all sat in the fridge for almost 2 hours pre-transport to make sure the buttercream and fondant were really hard to minimize the potential for transport disaster. I made a cake taker out of a heavy duty plastic soda case topped with a cookie sheet that sat on the edge of the case and wrapped the whole thing in plastic. It worked like a charm and fit in a fridge perfectly! For display at the party I lent them my wire cupcake holder and a silver platter. With a few pretty cupcake papers and some doilies it made for a really neat display! I may try these again at some point, the original version as they were supposed to be .... maybe not. I am such a huge fan of petit fours and to me this was a great updated version of a classic little cake that time has forgotten. Hopefully next time there won't be so much other stuff going on, I won't have a migraine and they will come out as anticipated!

Princess In A Punch Cup

2009-08-24T21:46:00.014-04:00

It's almost time for back to school around these parts but not before just one more summer birthday bash! It's a fairytale theme for one of my favorite little princesses, adorable, squishable, kissable "Boo"! Boo's fairytale comes replete with Butterfly Petit Fours (check back soon to see them in all their glory) and pink and purple princess lollies!

For the record there are not made with actual chocolate. Merckens, the white and colored disks we used to make the lollies, is confectioners coating. What's the difference? F.D.A. specifications for chocolate say it must contain chocolate liquor and cocoa butter. While the Merckens wafer coatings contain neither of these ingredients they are good, creamy and most people won't know the difference. We've worked with several flavors and colors of Merckens over the past few months and have had great success with all of them!

I can't say I would make this the first chocolate mold a beginner should attempt. Why? Because this, at minimum, is a three color lollie which means getting down your chocolate painting technique in addition to melting and pouring. We also have to play with paramount crystals because some of the colored wafers were just took thick for such detailed work. Ultimately we did not use paintbrushes to fill in the colors. My partner in crime found that wooden kabob skewers actually worked better and he was able to drop the colors exactly where he wanted. He was also steady enough that he was able to drop all the areas of color without chilling until he was ready to pour but I wouldn't recommend doing it that way. I think slow and steady will win the race for most beginners. Melt and paint or drop one color at a time in your mold then chill before you move on to the next. Also, when choosing your colors, be mindful of how they will play off each other when layered. The lollies back filled with pink left the peach/skin tone unchanged. The lollies back filled with purple made her look like she had a tan. This wasn't a huge deal for this project but I could see it easily becoming one in others.

Another tip I can offer when you are making multiples is to package as they are done. The mold we had made 6 at a time so I had set up a foam holding area/wrapping station while the first batch was in the freezer. I picked up the bags and ribbon at Eatons at the same time I got everything else we needed for this project. Each one got bagged and tied with one of two colors of ribbon and nestled into their final destination which turned out to be a few vintage punch cups I had laying around. I had some opalized basket filler that I lined the cups with, dropped in a small block of Styrofoam, wrapped the long strands of basket filler over the top to hide the foam and then arranged the lollies in the cups. Hindsight being 20/20 and of course if this weren't another party on a budget I would have purchased large bags of pastel jellybeans or M&Ms to fill the cups with before sticking the lollies in. In any event everyone seemed thrilled with the final product and Boo got to have handmade lollies at her party!

Chicken Spaghetti

2009-08-11T01:00:00.002-04:00

My mother made very few dishes well and this was one of them. Mind you, when this dinner came into rotation grocery stores were literally giving chicken wings away. Buffalo Chicken Wings weren't invented until the early sixties and they wouldn't come into vogue for years to come so back then chicken wings were probably the least desirable part of the chicken where I grew up. Now chicken wings are often the most expensive part of the chicken at the market and so I use legs and thighs if that's what's on sale. The meat isn't as sweet but it's still pretty good.

I have three different versions of this sauce, one is exactly how my mother made it, the other is how I make it when I have the ingredients on hand and the third is using raw or homemade ingredients only. Her version uses the pre-made spaghetti sauce only (poured over the browned chicken & simmered for hours) and is pretty good but I think the addition of canned tomatoes, chicken stock and garlic make it so much better. However you make it, this isn't a weeknight dish unless you have extra time on your hands simply because of the time involved in cooling and deboning the chicken that was cooked in the sauce.

1 flat of chicken wings (5-8 lbs is what they usually sell) or 4 chicken leg & 4 chicken thighs
20 cloves of peeled garlic
olive oil for browning
salt & pepper
1 4lb jar of spaghetti sauce
1 large can crushed tomatoes
2 C chicken stock
1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese

In a large stock pot combine the spaghetti sauce, the crushed tomatoes and 1 cup of the chicken stock. Set over medium heat while you prepare the chicken.

Wash the chicken parts, pat them dry and season with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken over medium-high heat in the olive oil, in batches removing the browned pieces to the stock pot. When all the chicken is browned, turn the heat down to medium and saute the garlic cloves until lightly browned (5-10 minutes.) Deglaze the pan with the remaining cup of chicken stock and add it to the stock pot. Stir to combine, cover and simmer for 2 hours or until the chicken is cooked through and basically falling apart.

Remove the chicken sauce from the heat. Using tongs or whatever tool you find works best for you, remove the chicken pieces to a platter leaving as much of the sauce as you can in the pot. Allow the chicken to cool until it can be handled comfortably and then remove the skin and bones returning the meat to the pot. When all the chicken meat is back in the post, stir in the Parmesan cheese and simmer uncovered until the sauce is reduced by about 1/4 and has thickened up.

You can serve this over pasta but my favorite way to eat it is over mashed potatoes with a side of baby peas (that I prefer to make part of the potato mound.) It's a great meal and one of those feel good comfort foods that we all crave from time to time.

Food Cheats: Just Like Tomato Sauce From Scratch

2009-08-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

I hope to make Food Cheats a semi-regular feature here at Our House. There are tons of food sites out there with phenomenal gourmet recipes but truth be told there are times when even the best of us have zero time to give in the kitchen, not to mention that many of the recipes have costly ingredients that aren't always in a family budget. Over the years I have developed more than a few of what I call "food cheats" using ingredients right from my pantry. Most of these cheats are so good people swear they must be "from scratch recipes" or that I slaved all day. Neither of these things are true. Case in point my basic tomato sauce.

1 jar of Prego Fresh Mushroom Italian Sauce
1 28 oz jar of crushed tomatoes
1 14.5 oz can College Inn Light & Fat Free Chicken Broth
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/4 c Parmesan cheese
Meatballs, sausage or other meat optional

In a large saucepan combines all the liquid ingredients, garlic and Parmesan cheese, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer uncovered for about an hour. If I am going to add any meat I do it after the hour mark and let it simmer another hour. The longer you let it simmer, the thicker the sauce gets. And just like most other tomato based sauces, it's better the second day.

I use this sauce in everything from simple noodles and sauce to lasagna to stuffed peppers and even in my stuffed cabbage. It's great for subs, homemade pizza and can't be beat when you make it with meatballs. It tastes like you slaved away when all you really did was throw it all in a pot and leave it alone. I've even made this sauce in a crock pot on low and let it go all day while I was out and about.

I've tried it with other brands of sauce and they just don't cook down as well. However, I've changed out the College Inn broth for homemade chicken stock when I've had some on hand and man alive was it good. Play around with your own favorite brands and I'm sure you'll find one that your family will call a winner and dub you Queen Of All Things Yummy for!

Brioche Sticky Buns

2009-08-09T00:30:00.000-04:00

In this house we have huge affection for breakfast rolls. Cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, sweet rolls, orange rolls... Is there anything better with your morning coffee than a fresh from the oven bun? Of course there is! A fresh from the oven bun with a tall glass of cold milk any time of the day! I have my favorite go to for Cinnamon Rolls covered in Cream Cheese frosting (which I will share at some point) but sticky buns have been a favorite of ours long before the cinnamon rolls came into rotation. For years I used a simple scalded milk dough recipe from the 1800s. It was simple and good and fail proof. When we lived in Las Vegas I made more sticky buns that I can remember because baked goods like that didn't exist in any of the shops out there, either did real bagels if you can believe that. The smell that emanated from our apartment brought company by (no matter the hour) wondering what the delicious aroma you could smell on the other side of the complex was. I never thought I would replace that recipe until one night a few months ago when I got it into my head to make them out of brioche.

For those of you who have never experienced the bliss that is brioche it's a yeasted bread that masquerades as a pastry. It is buttery and rich and sweet and flaky when made right. It's also one of those doughs that requires patience. I was pleasantly surprised by the brioche dough recipe I used. Looking at the recipe I wasn't 100% convinced that it was going to work, be enough or taste all that great, boy was I wrong! The starter actually sat in the fridge for over 24 hours with no problem. I'm not gonna re-post the dough recipe here because Joe Pastry does an awesome job, complete with much better photos than I can produce, walking you through the whole recipe. I used King Arthur all purpose flour and lightly salted butter because that is what I had on hand. I only left the finished dough rest in the fridge for 2 hours before I formed the rolls.

While the dough sat in the fridge chillin' I made the sticky part of the Sticky buns. I melted 1, 4oz. stick of lightly salted butter together with 1 C light brown sugar. Once the mixture melted I added 2.5 oz of light corn syrup (I was out of honey & golden syrup) and set the mixture aside to cool. About 20 minutes later I whisked in 1/4 C half & half and 1/4 C water and stashed the mixture in the fridge until I was ready to form the rolls. The brioche dough really was a treat to work with. Nice and firm, it rolled easily into a 12"x12" square that I sprinkled with 1 C of dark brown sugar and about 2 t of cinnamon before rolling up, slicing into 12 pieces and placing in a 9"x13" glass pan that I had already poured the sticky sauce into.

I left the covered pan on my counter for 90 minutes before placing them uncovered in a cold oven next to a saucepan of boiling water for another 20-30 minutes. I took the rolls out, preheated to 350* and baked them for 40 minutes. Once they were done I left them in the pan for ten minutes, removed them to a serving platter and spooned the remaining sticky sauce on them. They are good and completely worth the time and effort! Plus, when is the last time you had a really good sticky bun that didn't taste like chemicals or cost you $5.00 a piece?

Party Treats

2009-08-08T14:51:00.007-04:00

Have you ever wanted a custom look to a party, special event or wedding you were throwing but knew you couldn't afford the custom price tag? Been to those pricey gourmet stores and seen little truffles and bags of candies at outrageous prices? What if I told you that you could make these cute little cupcake truffles (as seen with packaging) for less than $1.00 a piece? The bucket full of candy popcorn? About $2.10 per bag. Not bad for edible treats in this day and age. In fact, assuming you have a few basic kitchen tools and some of the usual suspects (butter, sugar, vanilla) on hand, there really isn't much you can't turn out of your own kitchen for less than those fancy shops charge.

The cupcake truffles are a variation of the cake-pops we made for June's Graduation BBQ and again the idea comes from Bakerella's blog. Using the same candy mold that made the base for the grad cap, two flavors of cake (left over cupcakes from the gator cake made for the same party), about a cup of cream cheese frosting, two flavors of candy melts (Merkins is my favorite) and the leftover sprinkles from the cake-pops we turned out these little cuties in no time at all. In fact, the only frustrating part was the heat and humidity the week these needed to be made. Just like last time we used the freezer to our advantage!

The candied popcorn idea came from one of my favorite blogs Saucy's Sprinkles! It's candied popcorn flavored with Kool-Aid! In this case we used pink lemonade and black cherry. It's colored with the same Wilton gels you use to tint frosting and friends it's good. I mean crazy good. I mean crack-like addictive good! It's sweet and buttery and "omnomnom" is the only thing you really hear when people get their hands on it. A candy thermometer is a must for this because unlike other kinds of candied popcorn this does not get baked to set the coating! Here's a few tips if you decide to try your hand at candied popcorn:

* 1/2 cup kernels = 12 cups popped corn
* have a partner when you make this, 2 sets of hands are infinitely better than 1
* butter/otherwise grease the pan you are going to mix the coating with the popcorn in and the mixing utensils for easier cleanup
* don't try to make this when it's humid
* a lidded bowl or other food-safe container is perfect for mixing two flavors together and breaking up any large chunks of popcorn that stick together

Hello, Cupcake! A Review and Project Test

2009-08-02T02:53:00.007-04:00

Our little friend Emmy had a birthday this past week and it was her wish that she get a crocodile cake for her big party. As it turned out the book Hello, Cupcake! (by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson), which I've been wanted to check out for a while now, had instructions on how to make such a marvelous creature. As you can see we (we being myself and my wonderful, never used a piping bag before partner in confectionery crime) were able to turn out an end product that look pretty close to the photo in the book!

Hello, Cupcake! is an excellent resource for any baker's personal library and well worth the modest price tag! The bigger bonus is that you honestly do not need baking, cooking or decorator skills or any special equipment to turn out end products that look like the creations from the book. While I disagree with the authors on both the subject of cake and frosting (which I'll get to in a minute), I couldn't help but get lost in all the wonderful photographs and easy to follow directions. The cookies and candies that make up each project are readily available at more than one retail outlet in my area. In fact the only things I was unable to find for my project were white cupcake liners (my supplier was out) and green jelly beans (because I was unwilling to pay $4.50 for a bag when I only needed 2 beans).

"Old Swampy" as we made him consisted of 12 Chocolate Buttermilk cupcakes and 12 Buttermilk French Vanilla cupcakes tinted pink (to please the Birthday Girl) with Wilton "Rose" colored gel. He is frosted in homemade vanilla buttercream tinted with a mixture of Wilton "Leaf Green" and "Brown" gel tints. I followed the cake instructions in the back of Hello, Cupcake! and was very disappointed with the cakes themselves finding them a bit dry, bland in flavor and not at all as solid as the book suggests they will be. For future Hello, Cupcake! projects I will be sticking with my own tried and true cake recipes that have stood the test of time as being moist, dense and full of flavor. Hello, Cupcake! also claims that canned frosting works best for their projects however my own vanilla buttercream frosting pipes well and when refrigerated holds its shape even in the heat of an outdoor party (unlike canned frosting which gets drippy when it gets too warm)!

One of the other benefits of using my homemade frosting is that you can make up to 2 days before you plan on eating the end product and it actually improves the flavor! It's super easy to make and lends itself to an infinite variety of flavor possibilities!

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

1 stick room temperature salted butter
2 1/2 C confectioner's sugar
2 t milk + a little more
1 t vanilla
1 t freshly squeezed lemon juice

Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix on low until blended then kick it up to high and let it go for 3 minutes adding more milk if necessary for thinning. Store in an airtight container for up to 48 hours prior to use. Holds well in the fridge for the life of the finished cake product (they never seem to be around for more than a few days here!)

My Sister's Friend's Pot Roast Reworked

2009-07-19T00:01:00.003-04:00

I can't take all the credit for my awesome pot roast, the recipe was taught to me years ago by a friend of a friend. I remember walking into her house for the first time and having my senses overwhelmed by the buttery smell coming from her kitchen. I never knew beef could smell like that. From the first bite I took I was hooked and never looked back. Over the years I tinkered and tweaked the recipe until it stands as written here today. Best. Pot roast. Ever.

The secret to perfect pot roast is time. Nothing more, nothing less. The secret to lustful pot roast is using beef stock instead of water.

5 or 6 pound blade chuck roast
3-4 thinly sliced onions
salt
pepper
1 1/2 C beef stock or water
1 head of garlic, peeled, cloves left whole
2 carrots per person, peeled and cut into chunks
2 potatoes per person, peeled and quartered
1 purple turnip per person, peeled and halved
as many extra onions as you would like, peeled and halved or quartered
You can really use any root vegetables you like and as much or as little as you would like.
2 +/- C beef stock
you may need additional water
1 bag of frozen peas-thawed**
1 box of crimini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
flour or other thickening agent

Preheat your oven to 400*

Put your roast and the onions in a large roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until well browned about 1 -1 1/2 hours.

Take the pan from the oven and reduce the heat to 350*. Add enough stock or water to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle the garlic cloves all over the pan. Cover and cook for 2 hours. Check the roast at the hour mark as you may need to add more stock/water, you don't want the pan to dry out.

Remove pan from the oven, add your veggies (except peas), add enough stock to cover the veggies, replace the cover and cook another 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven, add peas, recover and cook another 15 minutes.

When the cooking time is done I put all the veggies on a serving platter right along with the meat and cover with foil and proceed to make mushroom gravy using the pan drippings and extra beef stock (as needed) along with a little vermouth or red wine if I've got it kicking around.

Bread Anyone Can Make

2009-07-18T14:48:00.002-04:00

There is something about a loaf of bread straight from the oven. Maybe it's the way it makes the whole house smell? Maybe it's the taste? Whatever it is, homemade bread makes me feel like everything is just a little better, even if the feeling only lasts a few hours. I love to make homemade bread. It looks awesome! It smells awesome! It tastes awesome! The only thing that could make it better? The fact that it takes less than 5 minutes of actual time to make! This beautiful loaf came out of my kitchen without a bread machine or the use of my Kitchen Aid. This is a loaf that requires patience though, you need to mix the dough 12-18 hours BEFORE you bake it.

In your favorite large bowl mix together the following ingredients with a wooden spoon:

3 C King Arthur all purpose flour (trust me on this one)
¼ t instant yeast
1¼ t salt
1 1/2 C + 2 T warm water

Cover it with plastic wrap, place it in a draft-free place where it won't be disturbed or in the way. Now here is the important part... Walk away. That's it, put down the spoon and go about your business. Move along now, nothing to see you looky lous! Go away and don't touch it for a minimum of 12 hours.

If your yeast was good and you left the dough alone long enough this is what it should look like. It will be wet and full of bubbles, don't panic! Wet dough freaks me out, it doesn't hold it's shape and the first time I made this I worried that it would not bake into anything edible. There is no mistaking that this is a super wet dough, at the twelve hour mark you can see the wetness (click on photo for larger image) but I finally figured out that in order for the recipe to work properly, the dough needs to be wet. It's this waterlogged like dough that creates the steam bath in the covered pot while it bakes. Speaking of pots...

This is what I bake this particular bread in but you can do it in any oven safe covered vessel. You put the pot in the oven while it's preheating and then open it up, plop the dough in, re-cover and let it do its thing. Don't worry, I'm going to give complete directions in a minute but I wanted to show you guys that you don't need a fancy Le Creuset pot to bake this bread. Getting back to the recipe...

At the 12-18 hour mark it's time to form the dough into a ball. I use a 2 tea towel method. I put one tea towel on a cookie sheet and liberally sprinkle it with flour. I fold the dough over on itself several times, form it into a ball and place it seam side down on the flour. I sprinkle the top of the dough ball with cornmeal and place the second towl on top. I leave the dough to rest for about 2 hours total. At the hour and a half mark of rising, I put my covered pot in the oven and turn it on to 450* abd leave it alone for a half hour. To put the dough in the pot I slide one hand under towel and, although awkward the first few times, I flip the dough into pot, floured side up. You can shake the pan a little if the dough didn't land in the center but it will straighten out as it bakes all on its own. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is browned. Cool on a rack for about 15 minutes before you cut into it or you will have a mess.

A Cookie Twofer

2009-06-30T00:18:00.001-04:00

I don't think I have ever met anyone who doesn't like cookies. I know we all have our favorites and there are some of us who have specific dislikes but on the whole I think everyone can agree that there is nothing wrong with cookies. Cookie trays are an awesome addition to any dessert table (like the one above at the Grad BBQ*) and can even be turned into a dessert table of their own. They are easy to make, affordable and invoke happy memories of childhood and holidays past.

I chose to make three kinds of cookies for the Graduation BBQ, Pinwheels (which need their own post in the near future), Oatmeal Raisin (because one of the Grads the BBQ was for requested them) and Toll House (because almost everyone likes them.) The Toll House cookies really don't deserve their own post but I do want to talk about them a bit because any time I make them they quickly disappear and in the midst of all the "yums" and "ahhs" I do get the occasional question as to why mine turn out so different than everyone else's.

In the 1930s Ruth Wakefield accidentally invented the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie when she decided to add bits of chocolate to some Butter Cookies she was making for guests at the inn she ran with her husband. No matter what modern Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe you look at, they can all be traced back to this happy mistake. I love Toll House Cookies, especially when you cook them to the point of being "well done" and they are all brown and crispy on the outside and all melty and gooey on the inside. And in most cases I would tell you not to mess with perfection but tweaking my friends in a horse of another color altogether and it's the tweaks that takes these cookies from awesome to amazing!

Toll House Cookie Tweaks

1. Use real, good quality, unsalted butter and let it get really soft but NOT melted before you cream it with the sugars.
2. Use real, good quality vanilla extract. I like Madagascar Bourbon vanilla.
3. Make sure your dry ingredients are fresh.
4. I only use King Arthur AP flour in my cookies. Trust me, it makes a difference in flavor.
5. And this is the most important tweak... after you make the cookie dough, let it sit in the fridge overnight. To make my life easier I dump the dough onto a large (about a foot and a half long) piece of wax paper and roll the dough into a log. I wrap the log in plastic and let it chill until I am ready, then I slice and bake. It's the letting the dough rest that makes all the difference in the world with these cookies!

I guess we're now at the portion of this post where I have to make a confession. I really don't like raisins in baked goods and try to never add them. I find them dry, chewy and just plain old yucky. So when I knew I couldn't say no to the request (how could I ever say no to that face?), I set out to scour my cookbooks for the most awesome Oatmeal Raisin Cookies ever! And guess what? With a little tweaking and patience, I found hit on just the right combination of ingredients and technique!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

This recipe is a little different than I usually give in that there are instructions before the ingredients list. These first directions make a HUGE difference in the cookie and should not be skipped.

1.) Two hours BEFORE you are going to make the cookie dough beat 2 eggs with 1 Tablespoon (yes you read that right) of good quality vanilla, add 1 cup of raisins or dried cranberries, cover and set aside. You can stir them occasionally if you would like but you don't have to.

2.) One hour BEFORE you are going to make the cookie dough set 1 cup of butter on the counter. Since I like to make my life easier and spoilage is not an issue, I took mine out when I did the raisins.

1 C unsalted butter -softened
1 C light brown sugar
3/4 C sugar
2 C flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t freshly rasped ginger
1/4 t freshly rasped nutmeg
2 1/2 C old fashioned oatmeal

Pre-heat oven to 350*, prep your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Sift all the dry ingredients except oatmeal in a bowl. I usually just dump all of my dry ingredients into a bowl and give it a few turns with a balloon whip.

Cream the butter and sugars. Mix egg/raisin mixture followed the sifted, dry ingredients and then by the oats. I do all of this on my Kitchen Aid but you can do it by hand too.

Now cover the dough and let it chill for 3 or 4 hours. When you're ready to bake, scoop out about a tablespoon of dough, roll it into a ball and space them about an inch apart on a prepared pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool for one minute and set on rack to finish cooling.

These are without question THE BEST Oatmeal Cookies Evah!

*I did not make the "photo cake" and I don't know where it was purchased. I do know however that almost any place that sells cakes can produce a "photo cake" and in most cases they will make and sell you the edible image(s) to put on your own homemade cake/cupcakes. All of the other goodies on the table came out of my kitchen or "Kitchen North" where I was aided by my best friend and the light of my life.

Chicken Fried

2009-06-29T00:01:00.008-04:00

I swear I have Southern blood running through my veins or must have been Southern in a previous life because their food calls to me at every turn. Buttermilk biscuits, Coke A Cola cake, butterbeans, peaches, pecans... I am drooling all over my keyboard! I have never been better fed outside my Grandma's kitchen than when I was down South. Maybe it's the food, which always seems to be prepared by loving hands or maybe it's the people, some of the kindest on Earth but the South has called to me since I was in my early twenties. It's no wonder then that I am crazy-go-nuts for things like pulled pork, Chicken-n-Dumplings and of course, fried chicken.

Poor fried chicken. So well loved, so misunderstood. Too often (and needlessly) greasy, flavorless and soggy. IMHO, there's almost nothing that screams "It's Summertime!" as much as plate of fried chicken, really good potato salad and a tall glass of frosty cold iced tea with a big hunk of lemon! And no, I'm not talking KFC or any of the other (sadly misguided) restaurants that claim to offer "real" or "authentic" Southern Fried Chicken. I'm talking straight from your own kitchen yummy goodness and all you really need is a well-seasoned cast iron skillet (or a turkey fryer setup if you've got a crowd) and if you're really lucky someone to do the actual frying like I have. A testament to the excellence of my particular version of Fried Chicken is that there was none left to photograph at the BBQ so you'll just have to trust me that it looks as awesome as it sounds and tastes!

Good fried chicken takes time but is in no way time consuming! I start the day before (or in the case of the BBQ my dear friend started the day before) by cutting up and washing all the chicken pieces. For regular fried chicken the pieces go into plain old buttermilk, for the spicy version they went into buttermilk that had a few tablespoons of this really cool chicken seasoning we found in its own grinder at BJ's. If you don't have really cool seasoning in its own grinder you can pretty much put anything your would like in the buttermilk; salt and pepper, garlic powder, a few shots of hot sauce... you get the idea. But remember that whatever you use is going to actually permeate the flesh of the chicken so once it's in there, it's in there. Now put the chicken in the fridge and walk away. Just walk away and leave it alone for 24-36 hours. If you are marinating the chicken in bags you can flip them over to make sure the buttermilk is hitting all parts of the chicken but that's it.

No less than one hour before you're going to fry it's time to put the coating on the chicken. I fill up my largest bowl with a few cups of flour seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, celery salt or whatever I have around (if I've made spicy chicken I'll put the same spice in the four) and setup a sheet pan with waxed paper. Going one or two pieces at a time I dredge the buttermilk soaked chicken in the flour until it is well coated and then set the pieces on the sheet pan. Once the last piece is done clean yourself up and set up for frying. Leave the pan on the counter, nothing is going to happen to it, the chicken is not going to spoil. Just leave it alone and in about an hour your dry four coating will have turned into a yummy wet batter!

I like to fry in peanut oil or a peanut oil blend. If I'm only doing a bit of chicken I will cook three or four pieces at a time (don't crowd the pan) in my cast iron skillet over medium heat for about 10 minutes per side. If we're lucky enough to be deep frying, heat the oil to 350* and depending on how many pieces you put in it takes about 12 minutes a batch. I put a cooling rack over a sheet pan to drain the chicken a bit before serving. And that's it. No fuss, little muss and really, really good fried chicken!

Graduation Cake Pops

2009-06-28T00:01:00.002-04:00

I first saw these on Bakerella's blog and thought "how cute are these!?!" By the time we were done making and bagging them I was thinking "what a giant PITA!!!" I'm sure I was thinking that only because of all the things that went wrong this being the first time making them and the fact that we ended up with 76 finished pops! What went wrong? We didn't have enough white chocolate coating, I didn't like the cake, it was a humid night and it took about seven hours to make these from start to finish. The process is relatively simple and Bakerella does a great job explaining the steps on her blog. Bake cake, crumble cake, mix with frosting, form, stick, chill, dip/pour and decorate. And while the process itself may be relatively simple getting these to look and taste the way you want them to is not and they are super time consuming if you are going to make more than a dozen.

Here is the exact list of what we used to make the pop and display:

1 9x13 cake -flavor of your choice
1 can of cake frosting in a complimentary flavor
your largest mixing bowl
medium peanut butter cup mold
square thin mint style candy mold
3.25 lbs of white melting chocolate

measuring spoons in 1/2 and 1 teaspoon
lollipop sticks
wax paper
2 standard cookie sheets
2 blocks of Styrofoam
2 cup liquid measuring cup -microwave safe
2 Wilton squeeze bottles
Wilton purple sugar sprinkles

Wilton Heart Drops
grape licorice rope
Airheads bars in White Mystery
pair of scissors
curling ribbon
cello bags
xacto knife
large, painted terracotta pot
shiny, opalized basket filler

Don't bother using anything other than "candy melts", "melting chocolate" or "candy coating" (these are the different names I have seen it go by) for these unless you are schooled in the ways of tempering chocolate. We ran out of "candy melts" and given the hour the only thing we could get our hands on was Lindt white chocolate. I made the mistake of not re-tempering it and not only did it lose its snap and shine but it just did not hold up as well as the "candy melts" the day of the event. Truth be told, I actually preferred the taste of the Merkens than the Lindt for this project but then again I have never been a huge Lindt fan. Also, do yourself a favor and clear out enough space in your freezer to hold the cookie sheet(s) and candy molds. Using the freezer speeds up the set up time and when you're doing this in warmer weather makes it a lot less frustrating.

Let's talk about cake because without the cake, these are just regular old white chocolate lollies. Due to budgetary and time concerns we used a Pillsbury Strawberry cake mix. BIG MISTAKE! First of all, while it may have smelled (to some people, people with stuffy noses) like strawberry it in no way tasted like it. Also, the color was not the bright pink I would associate with strawberry cake. While I did my thing to dress it up (butter instead of oil, hot pink food tint) I just didn't like it. Plus and this is a big plus, the texture was all wrong for this project. You don't want a light, fluffy cake for this you want a dense, moist, heavy cake. I would suggest baking the cake in a loaf pan (or two) ( even if you need as much cake as we did) and baking it at least a day ahead. I think traditional Pound Cake would work awesome for these.

The freezer was so our friend the night we made these! I made the call to deviate from Bakerella's directions and stick these BEFORE we placed them in the peanut butter cup mold and I'm glad we did. Having these little cuties all sticked up made it easier for the person pouring the molds to just plop them right in and move on to the next instead of having to fiddle with getting them just right. Each one used about 1/2 teaspoon of the cake/frosting mixture and even then some of them pushed through the top of the mold (which was okay since it was covered with a square of chocolate.) Here they are all lined up and ready for the freezer where they sat for about two hours in our process (since we ran out of chocolate.) For the plain round ones I would suggest using no more than 2 teaspoons of cake/frosting. The larger ones we made, about a tablespoon of cake, were just too big/heavy to hold up especially once they got warm!

I am really grateful I wasn't making these alone! Those freaking tassels (made from licorice rope and air heads cut and twisted together) would have been the death of me! The Styrofoam blocks were well used both while making the pops and then again when it came time to create the displays. We were able to stage the pops (I think) eight at a time and having a place to stick them upright was helpful for packaging them too! As long as you shoved the stick in deep enough it was stable enough to move them around in case they needed to get popped back in the fridge, which they did. In the end I think these are TOTALLY worth all the hard work that went into them and they seemed to big hit at the BBQ!

Cupcakes Are The New Black

2009-06-27T13:31:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that cupcakes are hot right now, in fact they have been elevated from a tasty bakery treat to fashion icon. I can't turn my head these days without seeing them on t-shirts, purses, jewelry and even sneakers (man I gotta get me some of those!) But the things I like best about cupcakes are their simplicity and infinite adaptability from afternoon treat to elegant dessert. These are Tye Dye cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream frosting made or a high school graduation BBQ. I wish I could take the credit for inventing such a clever idea but it was Saucy over at bloggedy blog blog who posted about them and where I got the idea.

While I make a ton of stuff from scratch there are times when I need to cut corners and when it's okay to cut corners and cake is one of those things it's okay to use a mix for AS LONG as you use a good cake mix. I only use Duncan Hines. I've tried other brands available at the grocery store and almost every single time I consider the end product to be nothing short of a disaster. Duncan Hines has perfected the cake mix and while I only use their basic flavors* (Chocolate, Devil's Food, Yellow, Marble and White) they make an excellent jumping off point. No matter what kind of pan I bake the batter in I always mix it the same way (except for the white cake mix) box of mix, regular size box of instant pudding in the corresponding flavor, 4 large eggs, 1 C water and 1/3 C melted butter. I put everything in my Kitchen Aid bowl with the paddle attachment, start on "Stir" until blended and then let it go for 2 full minutes on 5 or 6. The batter will increase in volume, thicken and lighten in color if mixed properly. It's important that you follow the mixing directions as it directly contributes to your finished product.

For these particular cupcakes I mixed the White cake mix exactly as the directions said to. I removed 2 cups of the batter and tinted it using Wilton Icing Color (gel formula) in Violet. As you can see it looks pretty dark but when I pulled the cupcakes from the oven they looked pale. If this happens to you DON'T PANIC, they darken up just fine when they cool! I used an ice cream scoop (the same one I always use for cupcakes it holds a little over 2T of batter) and two tablespoons to layer the batter into the silver cupcake liners. I'm not even gonna try to fib here, it was a giant, messy pain to do this! Next time I will simply plop the colored batter on top and use a knife to swirl the same way I do when making a marble cake.

Aren't they cute? They smelled awesome too! IMHO, a cupcake is only as good as its frosting and canned frosting, while it has its uses (DH Cream Cheese Frosting is what I use on my cinnamon rolls because at that hour of the morning there is no way I'm making homemade frosting), just doesn't cut it for me anymore. I am not a cake decorator by any means and I used to get really frustrated because I couldn't make my cupcakes look as awesome as others seemed to be able to do so easily. I learned that they key to the beautiful swirls was the consistency of the frosting. The softer the frosting, the more luscious looking the swirl! In fact, the frosting should be so soft that you fear it melting right off the cupcake.

Vanilla Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted, room temperature butter (really soft but not melted is the key)
2t vanilla
1 t lemon juice
4 C 10x sugar
1/4 t salt
milk to thin

I throw everything in my Kitchen Aid at one time, start on "Stir" so I don't get covered in powdered sugar and then kick it up to 8 and let it go for 5 minutes. If it's too thick I add about a tablespoon of milk. I used a Wilton 1M tip for the frosting swirls and Wilton Pearlized Sugar Sprinkles and Wilton Heart Drops to finish them up. There are a few tips I can give you that I find help me immensely. Before I start frosting I divide the cupcakes into 2 pans that are sturdy enough to be able to carry over to the fridge. When using the 1M tip I found that in addition to the soft consistency of the frosting, holding the tip directly over the cupcake and NOT at any kind of angle gave me the best look. I frosted 4 at a time, sprinkling the sugar and adding the Heart Drops as I went. When one pan was done it immediately went into the fridge to firm up. Firming up the frosting BEFORE transporting is the key to your cupcakes arriving as beautiful as they were freshly frosted in your kitchen.

*I do not use and will never use a mix for things like Carrot Cake, Strawberry Cake, etc. If I am going to make a fruit or vegetable cake I want to use fresh fruit and veggies.

Welcome To "Our House"

2009-06-22T00:43:00.000-04:00

Hey there cats and kittens! I'm so happy you've found my brandy spankin' new space on the web where I plan to share all my best recipes and crafty ideas! I hadn't really planned on doing this but over the weekend I helped pull together a rather large BBQ celebration for one of my very favorite people in the entire world and received so much (very kind) interest in the desserts, foods and crafts I made for the event that I thought it was about time to start doing something more public and well, here I am. For the record, no, I am not a professional baker or chef and I presently do not do any kind of commercial party planning. That being said I have rarely, if ever, said no when a friend comes calling for some help or baked goods! Before I roll forward I wanted to cover a few small details.

1.) I am not a photographer and my camera is pretty basic but it's what I have and I do the best I can when it comes to photographing my food and crafts. I am hereby preemptively and in perpetuity apologizing for my less than wonderful photo skills.

2.) Whether you know me IRL or from other places on the interwebs I ask that you please do your best to respect the boundaries of privacy I have set up here at Eat, Craft, Enjoy and not disclose or discuss any of my personal information unless I have already disclosed the same previously.

3.) Please keep your comments family friendly. Don't make me get all delete happy on your behinds!

4.) If I mention a brand by name it's because I either have or am currently using it and NOT a paid plug or advertisement. That being said if I have mentioned your product or website by name I am not adverse to receiving a little love for it. Ahem. ::cough:: King Arthur your flour rocks and I can't buy your European-Style Artisan Bread flour at any of my local grocery stores! ::cough:: Ahem. In the event I am ever preemptively compensated for a product review of any kind the keyword "subsidized review" will appear in the keyword section at the bottom of the post.

I think it's time to call it a day and go find my favorite jammies and a cup of lemon tea. Over the next few weeks I will be republishing recipes and ideas I have shared other places on the Net for the sake of having them all in one place that is my very own and adding tons of new ones. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you stick around. After all it's June and that means my infamous Captain's Blueberry Pie can't be very far away.

Peace, Love and Butter,

Creative Commons Attribution

2009-01-01T23:29:00.001-05:00

Most people do not realize that you can't copyright a recipe the same way that you can claim copyright on a poem, song lyrics or photograph. I've seen numerous heated battles, by otherwise very nice, people get completely out of control on this issue, an issue which the U.S. Courts still haven't settled on a position. Typically the Courts have held that an individual recipe lacks sufficient creativity to qualify for copyright. This particular interpretation of Copyright Law holds that a recipe is really a process for creating some edible product, and not a creative expression of the sort copyright law is designed to protect. So what does that mean to you, the person who would like to reprint something from this blog? Here's the deal...

This blog represents a physical collection of my personal photographs, stories, craft projects and recipes that I have amassed in my years on the planet, as well as my thoughts/ponderings/musings on whatever happens to be on my mind on any particular day. Unless otherwise specifically noted you can use my recipes and craft instructions in any non-commercial way you would like as long as you credit it back to me/this blog. Photographs and graphics that belong to me may be used in the same way.

FAQ

2009-01-01T20:41:00.000-05:00

Whether it's friends, extended family or someone I have just met once someone has tasted my cooking or baking I am invariably asked the same questions over and over. Even though this blog is brand new (opening day 6/21/09) I thought I would start with the IRL questions I am asked all the time. As this blog (hopefully) grows I am sure there will be more questions and I will add them from time to time.

1.) Why do very few of your recipes contain "convenience food" items?

Simply put I did not grow up eating convenience foods. It was a rare day in Gram's kitchen when you would find things like Cool Whip or Campbell's Soup and you would never find artificial foods like Velveeta. That's not to say we didn't get the occasional treat of Spaghettios or McDonald's but those were more of a Saturday visit with my Dad thing than anything else. Prepackaged foods simply were not part of my culinary experience as a child. In fact, curious as it seems to some, the first time I ever heard about, let alone tried Kraft Mac & Cheese I was almost twenty years old! As I got older I tried and tinkered with many "convenience foods" and food items and they just aren't my cup of tea.

2.) Butter or margarine?

Butter butter butter butter butter! Why? It just tastes better.

3.) Do you craft or bake professionally?

Not at this time. In my late teens/early twenties (before the advent of the Internet) I had a roaming wearable art business. It was fun, it was rewarding but it was also a ton of work. Moving from venue to venue every weekend after spending the week creating handmade jewelry, clothing and other accessories (hats, shoes, etc.) was not an easy lifestyle. While I have toyed with the idea of opening a cafe/bakery since I was in my mid-twenties, I've never been at a place in my life where I could seriously consider doing it. That being said, if the opportunity were to arise I would absolutely jump for the brass ring!

Last updated 06/21/09

About Me

2009-01-01T18:39:00.001-05:00

In my hear of hearts I am a simple girl. I am my Gram's girl. Everything good about me, everything that makes me a decent human is because of her, the woman who never drove a car. My Grandma had a kind word for everyone she met and everyone loved her but no one more than me. I was the apple of her eye and there wasn't a day that went by, from my first memory of knowing her until the end of her days, that she failed to not just tell me, but show me how very much I was loved. She took me to my very first MLB game. We watched The Muppet Show together. At night she would tuck me into bed with the blanket she crocheted me and sing to me. She instilled in me a love of reading, growing things, cooking and baking.

As a child I would sit at the kitchen table and watch her create the most fabulous food my little nose had ever smelled. Toll House cookies, Beef Rouladen, birthday cakes, cheese fondue, Chicken Kiev, blueberry muffins... There was nothing she couldn't make and everything always tasted amazing. And the best part? She always let me lick the spoon! My favorite birthday treat was her chocolate petit fours, each one in a lovely pastel shade of pink, blue or green. At Christmas there were more cookies than any family of four could ever eat. And her cheesecake? In all my life I have yet to find another that looks or tastes like hers! It was tall and melted on your tongue like cotton candy.

When I close my eyes I can still see her standing in the vegetable garden, seersucker shorts and polyester, v-neck sleeveless shirt, gathering tomatoes for canning and sauce. She swore you got the best fruit by planting New Jersey tomatoes in Connecticut soil. There was lettuce, green beans, bell peppers, zucchini, pumpkins and more I have forgotten I am sure. Late afternoon we would sit on the porch under the wisteria and snap beans for supper. During Summer visits to her sisters we would always go crabbing with her gentleman friend, hit the farmer's market and no trip to Jersey was complete without at least one visit to Eat Gud Bakery for what I still affectionately call Chocolate & Vanilla Bread (which is really Marble Bread) and real cream doughnuts!

Now as an adult (and I use the term loosely) I like to think I am just like her. I cook, I bake, I garden and crochet. I always try to have something nice to say about everyone I meet. I know she would love my soul mate, she would keep his plate full and he would gladly clean it each and every time. No matter whose kitchen it is, if I'm in there cooking it becomes the heart of the home filled with love, laughter and lots of good food. Gram would be proud!

Welcome to No One Goes Hungry At Our House, I hope you stick around! Feel free to email with any questions about crafts or recipes or even just to say hi. There's always room for one more at our table!

Peace, Love and Butter,

6/21/2009

Recipes

2009-01-01T13:22:00.015-05:00

If a link isn't live yet, it means the recipe has not been published yet (but will be soon).

BEEF
Pot Roast

CAKES
Tye Dye Cupcakes (instructions only)
Crocodile/Alligator cupcake cake (tips only)
Boo-ter-fly Mini Cakes
Carrot Cake

Pink Zebra Cake (instructions only)

CANDIES
Graduation Cake Pops
Cupcake Truffels
Candied Popcorn
Princess Lollies

COOKIES
Toll House Cookie Tweaks
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

FOOD CHEATS
Tomato Sauce

FROSTINGS & FILLINGS
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Cream Cheese Frosting

PASTA
Sausage Broccoli Pasta
Tortellini With Spinach & Mushrooms

PORK
Pulled Pork
Pork Scallopini

POULTRY
Fried Chicken
Chicken Spaghetti
Saffron Chicken

YEASTED BREADS
No Knead Bread