With A Recipe In One Hand And Baking "Powers" In The Other

I'm stalking my oven.  I'm staked out in my kitchen with my laptop open in front of me and a tall, ice cold glass of milk off to my side.  I'm waiting.  Waiting for the timer on the microwave to count down to zero. Waiting for the banana bread in the oven to finish baking.  The whole house smells wonderful.  Banana bread is one of those foods that has comfort food written all over it.  Served with a tall glass of milk, I'm sure it could aid in the solution of some small world problems ;-)

While we wait for the banana bread I have a cute story for you...

This isn't my recipe.  It's my Grandmother's.  I asked my Mom to email me a copy the other day because I thought it would be faster then trying to go through my different files looking for my copy.  As I'm looking through the recipe, making sure I have what I need, I come across this: "3 tsp. baking "powers".  I called my Mom at work to ask what aisle at the grocery store one might find baking powers on.  She laughed and called me a smart ass. 

This is the only recipe we use for banana bread.  Now it means even more to me because we have this great story to look back on and chuckle over.

Beep beep beep...banana bread is done! (scroll down for the recipe)

It is SO good!

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed or pureed ripe bananas (about 3)
2 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time.  Add bananas to creamed mixture.  Sift dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture gradually.  Pour into a greased and floured loaf pan.  Bake for approx. 60-70 minutes (depending on the size of your loaf pan).

Now go use your baking "powers" for good not evil ;-)

With A Recipe In One Hand And A Box Of Tissues In The Other

There used to be a commercial on TV back in the early '90's for Triaminic.  It featured a little girl who has a cold and as she looks into the camera with her hand to her throat, she says, "I have a porcupine in my "froat".  My sister and I loved that line and used it whenever we had a sore throat.  In fact we still use that line!

Well, I have a porcupine in my "froat" and all I want is soup.  French onion soup.  It's my go to soup whenever I'm sick. 

I thought I'd make some this time instead of ordering take out (because it's just me and the kids (who are also sick) and I don't feel like loading everyone one up just to unload them at the restaurant to pick up my order just to load them back up to go home *deep breath* you get the picture.  I'm just lazy).  I also want (insert hand rubbing and evil laugh) leftovers.  So, off to my trusty repertoire of recipes to find one for soup and then off to the pantry to see if I had what I needed.

While the kids were eating their dinner, I started to assemble my ingredients.  I noticed that I had deviated so much from the original recipe that I think it's safe to say it's my own creation.  So I put the recipe back in the "soup" folder for another day.   I also don't think I can call it french onion soup anymore.  Try it out and let me know what you think it should be called :-)

Ingredients:

1 large Yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 large White onion, thinly sliced
10 large Mushrooms (reserve the stems and chop them up to add extra flavor), sliced
3 Tbs. Butter
1 Tbs. Sugar
1 Tsp. Minced garlic
6 Tbs. Flour
3 cups Water
50 oz Beef stock
2 Tsp. Sea salt
2 Tsp. Beef bouillon granules
1 tsp. Pepper
1 tsp. Herbs De Provence  (I was actually looking for parsley.  I can't believe I'm out!)

Slices of sourdough french bread
Slices of Swiss cheese
Slices of provolone cheese

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat.   Reduce the heat to low and add the onions, mushrooms, garlic and sugar and stir.  Cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes and then turn the heat up to help evaporate some of the liquid from the mushrooms. 

Next, add the flour, and stir to incorporate. One at a time add the next six ingredients stirring after each addition.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low.  Cover and let simmer for another hour.

Preheat your oven to 375F (while you're waiting for the oven to preheat lay you slices of french bread on the oven rack to toast.  Keep an eye on them you don't want them to burn).  Ladle some soup into some ovenproof  bowls or mugs.  Add a slice of french bread and then a slice of Swiss cheese (for flavor) and a slice of provolone cheese (for ooey gooey-ness).  Bake until the cheese has melted. 

I'm going to say that it serves at least 6 hearty servings :-)

Enjoy!

Note:  I used what I had on hand.  Feel free to make changes (i.e. beef broth instead of stock)

If you decide to give this soup a try, leave a comment and let me know what you think :-)

With A Recipe In One Hand And Potting Soil In The Other

The other day over at The Smoke Eater's Wife (Have you been there yet? You should go check it out!)  Jessica was talking about dirt manicures, a.k.a planting a garden.   I decided to take her advice and start one since I am tired of paying SO much money for fresh herbs at the store.  In fact, I thought I'd use the experience to teach Button about how things grow and let him plant his own garden in this nifty little platter by Miracle Grow that has one wall that's clear so he can see how things are progressing.  I also thought that if he got to plant and harvest his own veggies, then maybe he would be more inclined to eat them...wishful thinking?

So, I got my little seed starting kit and I planted my herbs (and some tomatoes and beets) and put the little plastic "greenhouse" lid on it and really just paid no attention to it for a few days.  The seed packets said I wouldn't see anything for at least a week.  This morning (three days after planting) I peeked into the greenhouse to check on the water level and I have stuff growing!  My thyme and my beets have started to sprout already!! Which by the way I don't know what I was thinking by only planting five beet seeds.  I want to try my Aunt's recipe for pickling beets and I think I'm going to need more then just five (if they all sprout).  Now comes the real test.  I've never gotten past the seedling stage.  Keep your fingers crossed :-)

Like I said before, I'm tired of paying so much money for fresh herbs at the store.  They give you so much more then you need and now that I type this I'm thinking to myself, "I should have just chopped them up and placed them in an ice cube tray with a little water, froze them and thawed them out when I needed them"  I've seen this tip a dozen or more times in magazines and on websites or I could have dried them out and stored them.  Oh well, the garden is started. 

The night before I planted my garden I was making dinner and it required only a quarter teaspoon of fresh minced thyme.  How easy would it have been just to pop outside and snip off what I needed.  Even with the really expensive fresh thyme, this recipe was unbelievable!  It came from Taste of Home and it was a Potato-Topped Chicken Casserole.  It reminded me of a really hearty Fall dish.  Ground chicken, carrots, onions and potatoes were the stars of the show and the great thing...it made enough for a second casserole to freeze for later.  I'm not a leftovers kinda gal but this was THAT good.  Click the Taste of Home link above and give it a try.

With A Recipe In One Hand and And A Pastery Bag In The Other

Butter cream frosting.  I used to hate the stuff as a kid.  I was more of whipped topping kind of kid when it came to what was on my cake.  I still don't like a lot of butter cream on my birthday cake.  But, this month I have fallen in love with the butter cream from the Wilton website.  Now, I have taken every possible Wilton course I can at my local craft stores and in class we always used "class butter cream"  it tasted a bit greasy but I just thought that's what homemade butter cream tasted like.  But this frosting tastes the way butter cream should.  It wasn't too sweet and had the right amount of butter taste.  And I made LOADS of it.

Why all this butter cream you ask?  Well, as stated in my earlier post I'm way better with gum paste and fondant then I am with butter cream.  I was asked to make my husband's Grandmother's 81st birthday cake.  I started out by making over 120 royal icing apple blossoms and then I changed my mind and thought about making some gum paste roses.  As pretty as the decorations are from the fondant and the gum paste I got the impression that the family wanted butter cream.  All that butter cream was for practice.  I made rose after rose after rose.

With every cake that I make, I get better and better.  I look at this picture and I can see where I need to improve.  But it is a HUGE improvement over my first cakes.  And so, I will keep practicing and I will keep making cakes and I will keep getting better and better :-)

P.S.  My husband's Grandmother loved her cake.  The family thought I did a great job as well.  In fact, we brought the cake to the restaurant and the table next to us thought my cake was so nice they asked for a piece.

With a recipe in one hand and a sheet of vinyl in the other

Today was an awesome day!  It started this morning with me lugging my Cricut machine out of the black hole that is the master bedroom and breaking out the vinyl.  I've had this idea for a few weeks, and I know I'm not the only one who's had this same idea because a friend of mine told me the other night, "Hey, guess what I did?"  So my idea was to decorate my Kitchen Aid with vinyl.  Kind of like a tattoo for my mixer ;-)  It looks AMAZING!!!

And it was so easy. The hardest part was picking which design I wanted.

After my husband placed the last heart on my mixer (because, his ability to place things in a straight line is WAY better then mine) and after I did a happy dance around my kitchen I just HAD to bake something.


Today's recipe of choice: Biscoff Blondies from Motherthyme.com.  They are awesome!  For those of you who don't know what Biscoff spread is, it has the consistency of peanut butter and the taste of Biscoff cookies, a caramelized crispy cookie (the little cookies that airline passengers sometimes get).  It is so addicting.  I could eat the stuff straight from a jar with a spoon.

The recipe came together very easily and before I knew it the house smelled delicious.  I couldn't wait to try it.  In fact, I totally burnt the roof of my mouth because I couldn't wait. It was so worth it ;-)

I have a "kick ass Kitchen Aid", according to my husband and a new recipe to add to my filing cabinet.  Life is good.

With A Recipe In One Hand and a Trash Bag In The Other

BAKING FAIL!!!!

Hubby has to work tomorrow (Superbowl Sunday) so I thought it would be nice to send a few things in with him for the rest of the crew.  I started off with a sweet pepper relish and cream cheese dip (adapted from Harry and David's)

2 blocks of softened cream cheese
1 jar of Sweet Pepper and Onion Relish

Beat cream cheese and relish together until cream cheese is smooth.  Serve with tortilla chips.

Came out perfect...but then again it would be kinda difficult to mess that up ;-)

Then, I tried to adapt a mini peanut butter cheesecake recipe into a full sized cheesecake.  I made the graham cracker crust and placed peanut butter cups all over the crust.

Made the filling and put it into the oven and kept checking on it, adding minutes to the timer because the top looked too "jiggly". 

I guess I didn't add enough time.  The top of the cheesecake looked set, but I kept having this nagging feeling that it wasn't done. 

So I thought I'd be cute and cut it into slices and arrange them on a platter and then I'd know for sure if it was done.  Well it wasn't.  It took a one way trip into the trash can :-(  I've made the mini version (in a muffin tin) a million times and never had a fail.  I'm going to tweak the baking time and make this work!  Just not in time for hubby to take it to the station tomorrow.

However, all is not lost!  Last night I decided to try out the "best" chocolate chip cookie recipe.  The recipe comes from The New York Times.  This recipe uses two different types of flour and needs to be refrigerated for at least 24 hours before you can bake them. 

It also uses a sprinkling of sea salt right before you bake them (the best part!!).  I made some small changes (I used white and semi-sweet chocolate chips and I didn't make mine so big).  I've been taking them out of the oven all night and they are so good!

I wasn't sure how much they would spread out, so at first
I only put a few on the cookie sheet.

So, yes, the cheesecake was a fail but I'll keep working on it.  But, I think I redeemed myself with these cookies :-)




With A Recipe In One Hand And A Stack Of Coupons In The Other

I was walking through JoAnn Fabrics the other day and like I do every time I'm in there I HAD to swing by the sewing machine department and look, I mean drool over their embroidery machines. 

I want one.  I want one so bad!

But, it's a little pricey on a one income family to spend that kind of money just like that.  So, I have come up with the solution :-)  If I can shave twenty five dollars from my grocery budget every week then by this time next year I should have what I need to get a nice machine.  That's the plan anyway.  Wish me luck!