The Best of 2011

At the close of each year, I like to look back and count progress.  Sometimes I have to measure it in things like "no one broke a bone this year, no one caught the plague, everyone passed in school, we had enough to eat."  Other times there have been spectacular events like "The Thinker lost his first tooth, Princess Pat said her first word, The Musician was on the honor roll, The Engineer made a touchdown,  and The Comedian learned to ride a bike."  2011 was a mixture of both. 

We started the year like the few before it.  We were in financial hardship, living with my parents in Arizona.  My husband was mostly gone, working in Florida and Washington, trying to pull things together so that we could be on our own again.  The kids were in good schools, had good friends and I had my blog.

In March, the Good Guy was hired by a company in San Fransisco.  And we decided to move to Florida.  Really, don't ask.  We often do things that seem crazy, but things work out for the best.  And they have.  The Good Guy and I found a few homes online to look at, and he picked the best one.  We moved to Florida in July and despite some ridiculous apprehensions on my part, we have settled in nicely.  Yes, the Good Guy is gone at least 2 weeks of the month to the other side of the country.  Yes, I find part-time single parenting 4 teenage boys and a young girl frustrating and overwhelming sometimes.  Yes, we are still struggling with some pretty massive financial issues.  But we are happier than we have been in a long time.

The Musician is the president of the student council of his high school.  The Thinker finally got to play golf with a school team.  The Engineer is enjoying being at a school all by himself and played a great season of football.  The Comedian has found some amazing neighborhood friends who say, "yes Ma'am" without a second thought..and it's rubbing off on him.  Princess Pat has started her school career and loves it.  I have made some wonderful neighborhood friends as well as gotten the chance to meet food bloggers IN REAL LIFE!!  The Good Guy's blood pressure is down, his ulcer isn't acting up and he is pleased to be providing for his family again.  Yes, I'd say that 2011 has been a great year for us.

Actually, this was going to be a post with the top five posts of 2011.  You know, food.  I went looking to see what my stats said were the most popular and was surprised at the foods that got the most traffic.  Some of them were stumbled by the right people and went a little crazy, but all of it is just plain food...nothing fancy.  I guess that's okay.  Because there is nothing fancy about me, either.

#5 Peanut Butter Banana Bread
#4 Oatmeal Raisin Muffins
#3 Brown Sugar Pound Cake
#2 Asiago Garlic Rolls
#1 Mexican Stroganof

Have a wonderful, safe New Year's.  See you next year!

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My New Favorite Dinner Roll Recipe

 I have a lot of roll recipes that I have used over the years.  When I am in a hurry and want a lighter, easy roll, I make Spoon Rolls which are made in a muffin tin and look like yeast muffins.  They are really good.  Sometimes, though, I want the flavor of a potato bread, so I make these rolls.  However, this year I wanted something even better.  I think I found it in this recipe.

 I also started playing around with the color on my photos.  The one below is pretty true to real life.  The others were just fun.  The rolls themselves were thick and chewy and just what I wanted.

 This recipe called for brown sugar as the sweetener.  It gave the rolls a browner color than usual.  I am thinking that the next time I make them, I will put in some whole wheat flour.  No one will notice a little more brown. 

 Really, Really Great Dinner Rolls: (adapted from the Busy Family Cookbook)
2 Tbsp yeast
1/2 cup warm water plus another 1 1/2 cups water
1 stick butter
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp salt
6-7 cups flour
In a mixing bowl, add the yeast to the 1/2 cup warm water.  In a microwavable container, combine the butter and remaining water.  Heat until butter melts.  Add sugar, salt and eggs to the butter/water mixture, stirring to combine.  Add to yeast mixture.  Mix or stir in 5 cups of flour.  Continue adding flour until a nice soft, non-sticky dough forms.  Cover and let rise one hour.  Punch down and form rolls.   Place them in a greased pans, cover and let rise 40 minutes.  Bake in preheated 375 degree oven 12-20 minutes, depending on how many you put in a pan.  If they have a lot of room around them and aren't crowded it will take less time. Tweet

Easy German Chocolate Frosting

My husband loves German Chocolate Cake.  Actually, he loves the idea of it.  I don't know if I have made him a real, homemade version ever.  I tend to grab a chocolate cake mix of any variety, throw it in a 9 X 13 pan and plop this frosting on top.  What he really wants is the coconut frosting on chocolate cake....sans nuts.  And that is the beauty of making your own frosting.  You can control the amount of nuts or the total lack thereof.

Most recipes call for 4 egg yolks....such a waste of whites...or more work for me while I make something that calls for them.  This recipe calls for only one whole egg.  Just what a frugal person such as myself loves.    This tme, I got fancy.  I made a two layer cake and put half of the coconut frosting in between the layers.  Then I opened a can of chocolate frosting and covered the edges.  It turned out much prettier than my usual efforts.

Easy German Chocolate Frosting:
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup canned evaporated milk
1 egg
4 Tbsp butter
a pinch of salt
7 ounce bag coconut (double this if not using nuts)
1 1/2 cups toasted chopped pecans (if desired)
In a saucepan, mix together the sugar, milk, egg, salt and butter.  Stir and heat until it thickens, watching out not to cook the egg!  Remove from heat and stir in the coconut and nuts.  Let cool.  Frost cake. Tweet

Holiday Green Salad

 

I found this salad recipe years ago in a Taste of Home magazine.  It was called Merry Berry Salad and is perfectly colored for a Christmas dinner.  However, I was thinking that if you threw a bag of fresh cranberries in the freezer right now, this would make a lovely addition to a Valentine's dinner, too.  After all, it is red.  And it is kind of fancy...sort of...for a tossed salad.  Let me just tell you the dressing is TO DIE FOR.  Because the recipe always makes way more dressing than salad, and because I never remember to write that on the recipe, I am thinking of trying it as a marinade for some chicken.

Holiday Green Salad:  (adapted from Taste of Home)
for the salad:
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 red apple, chopped
1 green apple, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup grated Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
for the dressing:
1 cup fresh cranberries
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup frozen juice concentrate (any kind as long as it's 100% juice)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp onion powder
1 cup vegetable oil
Place all of the dressing ingredients except the oil in a blender and pulse until smooth.  Turn on the blender and open the hole in the lid.  Slowly pour the oil into the blender in a thin stream until all of it is incorporated.  Toss the salad ingredients in a large bowl.  Serve with the dressing on the side. Tweet

Cauliflower Gratin: Your Recipe, My Kitchen

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Mine was lovely.  My mother trained me to have a big huge dinner on Christmas Eve so that there were enough leftovers on Christmas Day that no one had to cook.  Knowing that I'd need a post for today, I added a new dish to our lineup: Cauliflower Gratin.

I am a visual person.  When I look for recipes in blogland, I will search three places.  1. Pinterest 2. Foodgawker or Tastespotting and 3. Google image search.  I find the picture I like best and then I look at the recipe.  If the recipe itself is a stinker, I head back to the photos until I find one whose recipe lives up to the deliciousness of its image.  Sometimes I strike gold, like in this recipe from The Cook's Atelier.  I tweaked a few ingredients according to what I had and my cheese addiction.  It was SO good; definitely not diet food, but great for a feast.

We also had our first Tur-duc-ken.  My brother brought it to me from Houston earlier in the month.  He had planned to ship it to me, but the un-named shipping company wanted $300 to ship it fast from Houston to Jacksonville.  Because he travels for his job, he had accrued enough miles to visit for a whopping $7.50.  He threw the bird(s) in his luggage, checked the bag and had it to me so fast that it hadn't even started to thaw by the time I put it into my freezer.  I have always wanted to try one, so I was tickled pink that he was so generous.

Back to the cauliflower, the recipe called for Gruyere and Parmesan cheese.  I had Swiss and Asiago.  I pretty much doubled what was called for.  I really like to sop up gravies and sauces with rolls, so the extra sauce left on my plate from the cauliflower made its way to my now new favorite rolls. 

Cauliflower Gratin (adapted from this recipe):
1 head of cauliflower cut into small florets
4 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 cups hot milk
1/4+ tsp grated nutmeg
2 cups grated Swiss cheese, divided
1 cup grated Asiago cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
Parboil the cauliflower for about 5 minutes.  Drain and let sit.  Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a saucepan.  Add the flour and stir until thickened, but not browned.  Microwave the milk in a pourable container (like a glass Pyrex measuring bowl) until very warm, but not boiling and add to the flour mixture, stirring constantly.  When thickened, remove from heat and stir in the nutmeg and  all of the cheese but 1/2 cup of the Swiss.  Pour 1/3 of the sauce into a greased baking dish.  Put the cauliflower on top of the sauce.  Pour the rest of the cheese sauce over the cauliflower.  In a small bowl, combine the remaining Swiss cheese with the bread crumbs.  Sprinkle that combination over the cauliflower.  Melt the last 2 Tbsp of butter and pour over the breadcrumbs.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown. 

Your turn!  What's new in your kitchen?  Did you post all of your Christmas dishes before or after the big day?




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Merry Christmas to You All, My Friends

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I have a huge tur-duc-en to cook as well as pies, rolls, a fantastic holiday salad, cinnamon rolls, veggies and whatever else comes to mind.  So, I am signing off until Monday.  May all of you who celebrate have a safe and Merry Christmas. Tweet

Mexican Stroganof

I had no idea what to call this dish.  It came about because I didn't read a recipe all the way through.  Have you ever done that?  It happened to both me and my son yesterday. When I started to make dinner using a recipe that I had clipped out of a Taste of Home magazine years ago, my momentum stalled when I came to the line that said stir such and such ingredients in a bowl.  Wait, how was this supposed to get hot?  Reading on I realized I had picked a baked dish and  I was in this for a quick skillet meal!  I had already spent my usual dinner prep time at the dentist with one of my children and we all had somewhere to be later in the evening.  With time being of the essence, I decided to punt.  This is the result and it was good enough to enter our regular rotation AND it lends itself to variations (see recipe).

The Musician often makes cookies using my blog while over at friends' homes.  Yesterday, he came running into the house looking for spices to make gingerbread men.  He started taking all of the contents of my spice cupboard out (not a great thing for me, but I digress) looking for ground cloves.  I kept telling him that I didn't think I had any.  When he had the entire cupboard almost empty, he yelled "aha!" and turned to me with a bottle of whole cloves.  I suggested that he not make gingerbread men, but he had already started.    He had left a bowl full of unflavored dough in a mixing bowl just down the street.  So, a bit unwillingly, I let him get out my spice mill (aka electric coffee grinder).  He ground up what he wanted and then left me with a very clove smelling mill.  I threw in a slice of bread and whirled it around to pick up all of the brown specks of cloves, but that did little to get rid of the smell.  I was getting a little desperate that everything I ground in the future would be tainted with cloves when I saw the little plate of kumquats I had picked up a few days ago.  Granted it was a little messy, but that little guy saved my grinder.  I wiped out all of the pulverized bits and was pleased to have no cloves left. 

Mexican Stroganof:
1 pound cubed chicken, pork or ground beef
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup salsa
3 ounces cream cheese
8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
pasta, rice or baked potato
Cook meat in a large skillet.  If cooking chicken or pork, use 2 Tbsp olive oil.  If cooking ground beef, drain when cooked.  Keeping the heat on medium low, add the remaining ingredients and stir until all of the cheeses are melted and incorporated.  Serve over carbs of your choice.  Tweet

French Bread

I have an arch nemisis; an enemy that appears to want to thwart me at every turn.   With insidious precision, it waits for me to be right in the middle of a new project to pounce.  Then, it acts innocent, as if to say "Who me, no, I'd never do that.  See how I cooperate?"

My sworn adversary is... My Oven.

Its weapons: four burners and a temperature gauge.  Both work only when they feel like it (or when the repairman is watching),  but not for long periods of time or as hot as they should.  Oh yeah, this appliance has it in for me.

Case in point: French Bread.  It was my first attempt at a nice chewy loaf.   The recipe instructions from Better Homes and Gardens say: "Cover loosely with foil during the last 15 minutes of baking to prevent overbrowning."  Do you see the pale color of my loaves?  I did not cover them.  I was lucky to get any browning at all.  They almost look un-done.

Because the Oven won't show its true colors to repairmen (plural!), I have to deal with its nefarious ways.  Therefore I give you a delicious, if pale, pair of loaves.  Both are baguette sized.  They made wonderful garlic bread served with spaghetti and meatballs.

French Bread (from BH&G Old Fashioned Home Baking)
5 1/2 - 6 cups flour
2 packages yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp water beaten with 1 egg white
Combine the yeast, salt and water in a mixing bowl.  When the yeast is bubbly, stir or mix in the flour until you have a smooth, not sticky dough.  Cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour.  Punch down, divide in two and form two long loaves, tapered at each end.  Place them on a large baking sheet, cover and let rise for another 40 minutes.  With a sharp knife or scissors, make 3 or 4 diagonal cuts on the top of each loaf.  Brush with the egg wash and bake in a 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes (and if you have a cooperative oven, think about tenting the loaves with foil during the last 15 minutes or so to prevent over-browning). Tweet

Holiday Potatoes: Your Recipe, My Kitchen

All too often lately, I am leaving things to the last minute.  I never used to be that way.  In college, when professors assigned papers or projects, I would start and finish them as soon as possible so as to be able to relax and have more free time.  That same habit has saved me countless hours of stress over the years.  Work first, play second.  However, as my kids have grown older and other activities have been added to my life, I have found myself putting projects off to steal a little "me time."

The same thing goes for blogging.  I used to try to have at least a week's worth of posts done and ready to go.  Nowadays, I am scrambling to get things written and posted!  Maybe it's the holidays and an end of the year slump.  Either way, this post almost didn't happen!

Luckily, for me and I suppose for you, I was going to another potluck.  I signed up to bring a potato dish.  I usually make a stand by cheesy potato casserole, but I wanted to find something a little more interesting.  What I found is definitely going to be my new go-to potato recipe.  These were fantastic and SO easy.  And they include bacon!  However, I don't want to talk about the quality of the photo, or lack thereof.  It was 5:40pm, I was supposed to leave at 5:30, and I was shouting instructions to everyone.  I was lucky to get what I got.  The photo on Pinterest that caused me to find and make this recipe from Plain Chicken is so much better.

Holiday "Crack" Potatoes (adapted using the comments from Plain Chicken)
28-32 ounce bag frozen hash browns (shredded or cubed)
2 16 ounce containers low fat sour cream (not nonfat)
3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup pre-cooked crumbled bacon
1 Tbsp or package Buttermilk Ranch dip/dressing mix (I used Uncle Dan's, she recommends Hidden Valley~both work)
In a large bowl, stir the last 4 ingredients until well combined.  Add the still frozen potatoes and stir to coat.  Spread into a greased 9X13 pan and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 1 hour. (Maybe a little less for shredded than cubed).  I sprinkled mine with parsley (okay it was chervil, because my parsley is AWOL) before baking for a little more pretty factor.

Your turn!  What is cooking in your kitchens?  Are you still making sweet treats or have you finished your holiday baking?





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The Cookie Exchange

(pumpkin chocolate chip, spritz, shortbread, caramel dipped marshmallows, apple cider caramel, holiday cookies, raisin nut nibbles, lemon cheese cups, )

Just for fun, I thought I would share some pics from the cookie exchange that I attended earlier in the week.  20 people came, each bringing 7 dozen cookies.  We took 4 cookies from each plate and ended up with a great assortment of treats for ourselves.

(chewy choco-cream cheese, snickerdoodles, fudge, lemon drop)

(peanut butter balls, chocolate ginger squares, andes chocolate, mint florentines, peanut butter blossoms)

(devilish marshmallow bites, oatmeal peanut butter, cookies n cream, white chocolate cran oatmeal)

It was a cookie-palooza if ever there was one.  I learned that you MUST bring a big empty container when you go to a cookie exchange.  As it was, I waited until my container was almost gone, transferred the remainder to a plate and then made my way around the tables.  I froze all of the normal cookies and left the marshmallow, frosting laden treats out for an easy, fun dessert for the family.  This was a ton of fun.  Definitely something that I want to do again in the future. Tweet

Eggnog and Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies: Improv Challenge

It's Improv Challenge time!!!  This month, our challenge ingredients were eggnog and cranberries.  I am not an eggnog fan, but my children love it.  Seeings they are my biggest cookie eaters, too, I figured how could I go wrong making eggnog cookies?!  I had found a recipe for eggnog thumbprints in a library book a few months ago.  There wasn't actually any eggnog in the cookies or filling.  I thought that was a little weird, but apparently the nutmeg in the cookies and the rum flavoring in the filling was enough to convince the author that it tasted like eggnog.  I thought in the case of this challenge it might be considered cheating if I didn't use actual eggnog, so I changed things up a bit.  As usual.

We have gotten SO BIG that we need our own Yahoo Group to communicate.  Please, if you are already a member or if you want to join, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/inprov_challenge/ to update your membership!  We post the third Thursday of each month.  Next month's combination is sour cream and lemons.  Does that make you think sweet or savory?

Eggnog and Cranberry Thumbprints ( inspired by Jennifer Darling's Cookies for Christmas)
cookie:
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
filling:
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
3 Tbsp eggnog
For the cookies: Cream the butter and sugar together.  Scrape down the sides and then add the egg and vanilla, mixing well.  Scrape the sides again.  Add the nutmeg, flour and cranberries and mix until blended.  Scoop small amounts (scant teaspoons) onto baking sheet and make an indentation with your finger.  It will close up a bit when the cookies bake, so make it fairly well defined.  Bake 375 degrees for 8 minutes or until just slightly golden.  Remove to a wire rack to cool.  For the filling: Mix softened butter, nutmeg and powdered sugar.  Slowly add eggnog until you reach a desired consistency.  It may only take 2 Tbsp.  Put the filling into a sandwich sized zip-close plastic bag.  Snip one corner and pipe the filling into the depressions on the cookies.  Store in the fridge in a sealed container (because of the eggnog).

Look and see what everyone else has made this month!  What a great bunch of creative minds we have in this group!!


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Oatmeal Scotchies

I went to my first cookie exchange last night.  The rule for the party was to bring 7 dozen of one kind of cookie and leave with 7 dozen of a huge assortment of cookies.  The hostess also compiled all of the recipes and gave them out in cute red and green folders.  I am mighty tempted to plate those cookies and post them ALL for you.   Have you ever been tempted like that?  To take the easy way?

Luckily, I had these photos all ready to go of cookies that I made.  I haven't made Oatmeal Scotchies in ages.   I was in a menu rut and was asking input from a couple of my sons.  This is what they requested.  I use the recipe that was printed in Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars.  I don't have the book anymore, but I made sure to copy this one down before I got rid of it.  (Don't ask me about my on-going cookbook regret....I hate getting rid of any, but space often dictates that I do). This particular recipe calls for orange extract which I do not have in the house right now.  I did, however, have lemon.  Interesting change.  The amount of extract was so small that there was only a hint of lemon in the cookies.  No one complained, so I guess it was an acceptable substitution.

Oatmeal Scotchies: (adapted from Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes...)
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla or orange extract
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
2   tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 package butterscotch chips
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs, water and extract and mix well.  Combine dry ingredients and add.  Stir in chips.  Bake on an ungreased baking sheet in a preheated 375 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Tweet

Cheddar Bay Biscuits: Secret Recipe Challenge

I love reveals.  From  HGTV to What Not To Wear, I love the "ta-da" factor.  Today is Group B reveal day for the Secret Recipe Club and I think it is even more fun to be part of the reveal than to watch it.  This month, I was given Patricia's blog Butter Yum.  I have enjoyed reading her blog for a long time, so it was especially nice to be given her blog from which to choose a recipe.  I still need to make pizza using her 10 Secrets for making Pizzeria quality Pizza.  I have had that page bookmarked since she posted it in May 2010.  This time, however, I was short on time.  We have been passing a nasty virus through our house since Thanksgiving week.  Princess Pat is just finishing a course of antibiotics for an ear infection and the Thinker is home from school with "walking" pneumonia and another set of meds.  What we needed was biscuits to go with some chicken soup!

The original recipe was baked by ButterYum Jr., Patricia's daughter.  I made just a few changes according to our tastes and what I had in the cupboard.  Instead of parsley, I used chervil.  Honestly, I am not sure where my parsley is.  It's bothering me a little that the bottle seems to have walked off.  Anyhoo, I also added a bit more garlic and cheese.  I ask you: Is there such thing as too much garlic and cheese?  Not when it comes to biscuits.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits (adapted from ButterYum's delightful version)
2 cups biscuit mix
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2/3-3/4 cups milk (start with the smaller amount)
3 Tbsp melted butter
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp chervil (or parsley)
In a bowl, mix together butter, cheese and  1/4 tsp garlic powder with a pastry blender.  Add milk and stir with a fork until a soft dough is formed.  Using a small ice cream scoop, place in a greased 10 inch cake pan or on a greased baking sheet or a greased 9X9 pan. (If you want them to bake separately, use the baking sheet and leave space between them, if you like them all clumped together, use the smaller pans).  Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until golden brown.  (it takes longer if the biscuits are touching).  While the biscuits are baking, combine the melted butter, second 1/4 tsp garlic powder, kosher salt and chervil (parsley).  When the biscuits are done, remove from the oven, brush them with the butter mixture. 



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Your Recipe, My Kitchen

How fast time flies.  It's Secret Recipe Club time again, so stay tuned for Monday morning's reveal.  Don't forget that Thursday is the Improv Challenge reveal, too.  This is a big week for fun food!!





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Taco Bean Soup (cheap!)

This time of year, there is nothing like a bowl of soup to warm you up.  That is, unless you live in Florida.  This has been the weirdest Autumn ever for me.  Night temperatures have dropped occasionally to the low 40s.  Occasionally means seldom.  It was enough for leaves to turn color and drop off trees.  However, daytime temperatures have not ventured much lower than 60.  In fact, they have yo-yo'd from the low 80s to the high 60s every five or six days.

 The warm weather has not stopped me from making soups.  Dag-nab-it, they are a delicious and cheap way to feed a family.  I do try to look at the weather forecast and plan the soups around "cool" days...you know, the ones in the 70s.  We open the sliding door and let a breeze blow through the house.  It almost makes it seem like winter is coming.  Or not.

This was an extremely frugal soup.  It has no meat, but has plenty to fill you up.  Pair it with bread of some sort and you shouldn't have any complaints.

Taco Bean Soup
1 15 ounce can beans, rinsed (can use pinto, navy or kidney)
4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 large sweet potato the size of a football (or equivalent amount of smaller), peeled and cubed
2 cups frozen corn
6 cups broth (I used chicken)
1 envelope taco seasoning (or 1 Tbsp if you buy it in bulk)
1 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Saute the onion in heated olive oil in a Dutch oven.  When the onion is soft, add all the ingredients except the taco seasoning.  Heat to boiling, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 15 minutes.  Stir in taco seasoning, cover and continue to cook 5 more minutes.  If desired, garnish with cheese or sour cream.

Note: use a mild taco mix if you have anyone who doesn't like spicy foods.

Fusion Fridays

Foodie Friday

Potato Blog Hop

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Gooey Cake: Controversy at It's Worst

This very well may be the post that loses me half my followers.

I am about to open a can of worms that, once opened, may never be closed again.

I mean, this is REAL controversy, folks!



I am going to tell you that this in fact, is not Gooey Butter Cake, even though Paula Deen said it was.

How can I dare to blaspheme like this?  Well, you see, Gooey Butter Cake is native only to St. Louis, MO.  If you happen to ever visit, you must make a point to find a bakery and buy some.  It won't look like this.  It won't taste like this either.  It's more of a yeast based cake with a purely butter gooey-ness on top.
I will concede that what I made is indeed gooey.  And it is a cake, of sorts.  But it is more the cheater version than the real McCoy.

This is cake mix based with a cream cheese concoction on top.  And even though, I am saying that this isn't the real thing, the recipe that I used did come from a St. Louis cookbook.  In fact, the cookbook had about six different variations of this cake.  And it is really, really tasty.

So, I am calling this Gooey Cake.  I am leaving out the "Butter" part.  It salves my conscience.  I hope you all will take it as a compromise. 

Gooey Cake: (one of many variations on a theme)
1 yellow cake mix
1 stick butter or margarine, melted
3 eggs, divided
1 8 ounce brick cream cheese
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Stir together the cake mix, melted butter and 1 egg.  Pat into the bottom of a greased 9 X 13 pan.  With a mixer, blend the remaining eggs with the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.  Pour on top of the cake mixture.  Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.  (you want the topping to still be gooey, not completely set so the time depends on how hot your oven is).  Let cool and then store in the fridge.  Dust with powdered sugar if you want to cover any unsightly cracks (see my straight on photo for such blemishes).

I have seen this recipe with more and less eggs, more powdered sugar and with a homemade base. It's all good.


PS I hope you know that this is all in fun.  After doing a 7 links post earlier this summer and not being able to come up with a good food based controversy, I decided to invent one. Tweet

Biscuits!!

 I have been wanting to make really good homemade biscuits for years.  But I am weak and Bisquick (or the equivalent) is so convenient.  So all of this time, I have made cheater biscuits.  Milk and a mix.  And I have eaten them with gusto.  I have a pretty big weakness for biscuits of any sort.  In Arizona, when someone would propose that we to go out and get burgers for the family, I would often ask them to swing by KFC and pick me up a biscuit instead.  Then I moved to Florida and discovered Popeyes' biscuits.  Oh the calories!

 It seemed pretty important that as a new resident of a Southern state, I learn to make my own biscuits.  Thick and flaky ones that soak up butter like a sponge; that's what I was aiming for.  I failed numerous times with recipes that had 5 stars.  I was thinking that it was me~that I was biscuit challenged.  Then I discovered self-rising flour.  My mother never used self-rising flour, so I naturally never have bought it. How deprived I have been and I have not even known it!!

 

For whatever reason, using self rising flour allowed me to achieve the biscuits I have been craving.  Luckily for my hips, this recipe cooks the biscuits hot and fast (500 degrees F!) and my oven tends to really, really heat up the house.  The correlation?  In Florida, on a 75 degree December day, we don't want a hot house, so I cannot have biscuits.  These will have to wait for the refreshing, but few 60 degree days.  I look forward to January!

Biscuits: (adapted slightly from My Southern Food )

2 cups self rising flour

1/4 cup butter

3/4 cup milk

Turn on oven to 500 degrees (F). Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add the milk slowly, mixing it into a soft dough.  Roll it out to 1/2 inch thick and cut with an upside down glass or a fancy biscuit cutter.  Try to get as many of them out of the first rolling as you can.  The more you work with the dough, the tougher the biscuits will be.  Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.  Serve warm.

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Sausage Potato Soup: Your Recipe, My Kitchen

 

I had to take some soup to a dinner and I had to make a new recipe for this feature, all on a Saturday night.  Sometimes putting things off to the last minute just doesn't work.  I was not happy with the soup.  However, it is very frugal and tasted a lot better the second day (after I added a ton of salt).  

I found this recipe on Cafe Johnsonia.  It's a blog that has been around for many years (at least back to 2006), but it was still a new-to-me discovery. Her soup has a rather unexpected ingredient: vanilla extract.  It adds a completely new dimension to this savory soup.  The original recipe called for 1/2 a stick of butter, but I  thought the sausage and cup of half and half added enough fat....though that butter would have been really tasty.

I think using a spicy sausage like chorizo would have made the soup stellar.  As it was, I used a nondescript pork sausage that didn't do anything for me.  I will make this again, though, because it was very filling and fed the family with leftovers. 

Sausage Potato Soup: (adapted from this recipe)

1 pound sausage (I suggest chorizo or Italian or another flavorful choice)

1 onion, chopped

6 cups chicken stock

7 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 cup half and half

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

2-3 tsp kosher salt (to taste)

ground pepper to taste

Brown the sausage in the bottom of a Dutch oven.  When cooked, remove the meat from the pot, drain most of the fat and cook the onion until it starts to turn brown around the edges.  Add the chicken stock, sausage and potatoes back to the pot.  Cover and boil until the potatoes are tender.  Turn off the heat and add the last ingredients. Stir through and serve. 

Okay, folks, what was cooking in your kitchen this week?

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Blueberry Graham Pancakes

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This recipe came straight out of my head.  I was in the mood for some thick blueberry pancakes.  I wanted something really filling and delicious and slightly different.  That would be because these were for dinner, not breakfast and I just cannot stand it when my teenage sons tell me that they are hungry 15 minutes after dinner is over and the leftovers are in the fridge.  That has to be one of my biggest pet peeves.  I think I could write an entire post on teenage boys and their stomachs.

Anyhoo, these were meant to be FILLING.  I started by looking at my pantry and my fridge.  I put all sorts of ingredients on the counter....graham crackers, sour cream, blueberries, oatmeal.   Did I say I wanted these to be filling?

Sometimes, when I put my little girl to bed, she calls out to me after five minutes and says in a whisper, "Mommy, there's a hole inside my tummy that needs to be filled with a little sip of water."  I am happy to say that there were no holes in any tummies after these pancakes were eaten.  I could tell because it was a whopping 45 minutes before the teens were back in the kitchen looking for more food.  They were definitely stuffed.

Blueberry Graham Pancakes
1 1/2 cups coarse graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal (or quick)
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
2 eggs
2 Tbsp oil
1 cup frozen blueberries
In a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.  Dump in the wet ingredients and stir.  Fold in the blueberries.  Let batter sit on the counter for 15 minutes.  Ladle out and cook on greased hot griddle or pan. Tweet