Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category
Ode to Summer…..
Since Summer is almost over….we had to have one of our favorite meals……corn on the cob and fried tomatoes. Sometimes I serve this with some type of rice, but this time I decided to make a 5 bean salad that is served with feta cheese and hard boiled eggs. It was quite delicious…..
In: Cooking, Uncategorized
New Dishes….
I love having dishes that don’t match. But I have a hard time finding places that sell dishes a la carte. Well, I discovered that Pier 1 Imports sells them individually……so I picked up four dishes to replace ones that have broken over the past few months….I love them!
In: Cooking, Uncategorized
Shark Cupcakes…..
I had to bake a dessert for a bake sale for my childrens swim team….I couldn’t make something simple..I had to make something fun…..so I did a search on the internet and found these on the Martha Stewart website:
So, I made my own version. For the cupcakes I used my Simple Cake Recipe, which is one of my favorite recipes! I wanted to make really fluffy icing….so I find a fluffy white frosting recipe. It worked out pretty well. The icing tasted more like a meringue.
I made the shark fins by melting white chocolate and adding a tablespoon of light corn syrup and some food coloring. I let it refrigerate for about 3 hours and then cut out the shapes. All in all, I think they turned out pretty cute and they were a hit….I’d definitely make them again…..though I think I would try to make these from Hello Cupcakes:
FLUFFY WHITE FROSTING (taken from Coleen’s Recipes)
In a large bowl, put two egg whites, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and ¼ teaspoon of almond extract…set aside.
In a saucepan, mix 1 cup of granulated sugar, ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, dash of salt and 1/3 cup of water. Cook and stir until it just comes to a boil and sugar dissolves.
Start beating your egg whites and extracts on HIGH while you slowly drizzle in the hot syrup. Keep beating on high until stiff peaks form.
With a hand held electric mixer, this can take up to 7 minutes, but with my stand mixer it only takes about 4 minutes. Recipe makes enough to frost a 9″ two layer cake or a 10″ tube cake or 24-36 cupcakes.
Peppermint Pattie Chocolate Brownie Bars……
So I wanted to make something new and yummy for dessert. I went through my recipes and couldn’t find anything.
So, first I made my favorite home made brownie recipe.
Then, I went to the store and saw Peppermint Patties…I had to get those….so, I thought I would cut up the brownies and insert a Peppermint Patty into each one…..
Then I found some delicious Belgium chocolate that a friend had given me….so I melted that…..and began to dip all the brownie things into the chocolate..but that didn’t work..so I ended up just spooning the chocolate over the brownies….
And that seemed to work out pretty well. Then I stuck them in the refrigerator to harden the chocolate……They were quite yummy! Have a great weekend!
Deep Fried Oreos…..
Well, I finally did it…my kids have been wanting to make deep fried oreos for a long time…and we finally made them! They are one of those things that you know, before you even eat them, that you are going to have a stomach ache when you are done! I made them with Oreos this time, but next time…I’ll use my favorite Oreo substitute…..Late July Organic Vanilla Bean cookies. These are one of the best cookies out there! I think they are better than Oreos and they don’t have all the artificial flavors and colors or preservatives. Oreos have so much scary stuff in them..but I caved and used them this time….to see if we had the flavor right….but next time……!!
Anyway, I looked up a bunch of recipes on the internet. Most of them said to use Bisquick, which I don’t ever use…so I just used my own buttermilk pancake recipe.
The recipe said to freeze the cookies for three hours ahead of time….so we did that. Then you heated up the oil (I used about a cup of oil in a small sauce pan) and started dipping the battered cookies into the hot oil…..I did this part..since hot oil is always a bit scary!
Nothing like frying up some cookies! Each one had to cook for about a minute on each side. They instantly looked delicious and disgusting all at the same time! My kids were so excited..they wanted to instantly start eating them……but of course, I wouldn’t let them!
After we were done frying them all up, to add even more disgusting-ness..you sprinkled them with powdered sugar! Needless to say, my kids loved them! Though we aren’t sure how they are going to taste the next day…I wasn’t sure how to store them..in an air tight container or leave them out…..I’ll keep you posted on how the left overs are….
I cut this recipe in half. It made about 25 cookies.
Favorite Buttermilk Pancakes
2 ½ cups Flour
4 Tbsp Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 Eggs, beaten
2 2/3 cups Buttermilk
2 Tbsp Oil
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Combine bowls together and stir, but do not over-mix.
In: Cooking, Family Fun, Quinn, Tuesday, Uncategorized, recipe
Pita Bread…..
I’ve always wanted to make homemade pita bread. So, this weekend, I finally gave it a try. It wasn’t too difficult..it just involved time, like most bread recipes. You had to do a bit of stuff and wait….do a bit of stuff….then wait 3 hours…do a bit of stuff and wait…
My plan was to make homemade pita bread and then homemade hummus. I have a delicious hummus recipe that my aunt gave me…but at the last minute I realized I didn’t have enough chick peas…and I really didn’t feel like going out to the store…so I tried to use what I had..but I ended up adding too much tahini paste…oh well.
But I did think the pita turned out nicely. The first batch..I cooked too long and they are a bit chewy. I think I will freeze some of them and see how they taste after being frozen. We like to use them for little mini pizzas when we need a quick meal.
You had to bake them at 500°, so the entire kitchen got incredibly hot…maybe next time I won’t pick a 94° day to make pita!! Next…I am going to make tortillas……
Pita Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 cup lukewarm water
Preparation:
Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.
Combine flour and salt in large bowl.
Make a small depression in the middle of flour and pour yeast water in depression.
Slowly add 1 cup of warm water, and stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until elastic.
Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes. When the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic, it has been successfully kneaded.
Coat large bowl with vegetable oil and place dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated.
Allow to sit in a warm place for about 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces. Place balls on floured surface. Let sit covered for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to also preheat your baking sheet.
Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.
Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes.
Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking.
Take spatula and gently push down puff. Immediately place in storage bags.
Aunt Loretta’s Hummus Recipe
- 1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 cup lukewarm water
Aunt Loretta’s Hummus Recipe
- 2 cups cooked chick peas
- 4 to 5 garlic cloves, mashed
- 1/2 cup tahini paste
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 lemon
- 2-6 teaspoons water
Add all in food processor and blend til paste. Garnish with paprika and parsley.
For Baba Ganoush - follow same recipe but use eggplant instead of chick peas and no water
Banana bread and pasture raised eggs…..
My daughter loves banana bread, so I am always looking at new recipes. I think I finally found my favorite! And I think it is all about the eggs! I found a recipe on the internet called Mrs. Hockmeyer’s Banana Bread, which, when you do a search on the internet for it..you find a million different sites that have the same recipe..so it must be good!
I have been searching for a store that carried pasture raised eggs..and I am so excited that Whole Foods has them! They come from Vital Farms which raises their chickens outside, on organic pastures. There are no cages and everything is organic! I love that and I think the eggs taste better! Yes, they cost more..but I think it is completely worth it!
The banana bread recipe was so simple….River was able to help me with the entire process. And it tasted wonderful…except my other daughter, Tuesday, told me I forgot the chocolate chips!
Mrs. Hockmeyer’s Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.
Multigrain Bread…
So the other day I went to Whole Foods Market (gotta love that place!) and in the bulk section, I found organic 7 grain cereal. It was only thirty-nine cents a pound! It looked perfect for making multigrain bread.
Of course, I wanted to use my bread machine, so I used the recipe from the bread machine recipe book..I figured I would start with that and see how it turned out….well, I think it turned out really well.
As soon as it came out of the oven, we all wanted a piece, which I think is always a mistake..it seems like those types of bread always have to sit for a bit…at least twenty minutes.
Multigrain Bread (large loaf bread machine recipe)
1 ¼ cups water
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/3 cups white flour
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup 7 grain cereal
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons regular active dry yeast
In: Bread, Cooking, recipe
Homemade Sweet Potato Gnocchi…..
For a wedding gift, almost 15 years ago, we received a past maker. Honestly, I used it ONCE in all these years….but recently I’ve been giving it another try. The one time I tried it, I didn’t have much luck..but hey, it’s been 15 years..why not give it another try!
So, the other night we had some left over sweet potatoes..and they were delicious and I thought..what can I do with one sweet potato? Well, why not make some sweet potato gnocchi? My daughter loves gnocchi…..so I got out the pasta maker and within an hour we had fresh pasta!
It wasn’t hard at all….a bit noisy, but not hard at all! And hey, who doesn’t love fresh pasta?
I’m sure you could make it even without a pasta maker…but I took the easy route. The recipe was five ingredients: 1 egg, 1 tbsp. olive oil, 4 cups of flour, 6 ounces of water, and the sweet potato….that’s it…I put all the ingredients into the pasta maker and it mixed them all up and out came gnocchi! And of course, I had to make a loaf of homemade french bread!
I think I’m a believer in fresh pasta. This might become dangerous!
Mini veggie pot pie……
Keeping with the theory that if you get your child involved with the cooking, they will be more inclined to like the food….I had River make her own mini veggie pot pie. We made the dough and she rolled it out herself with her own rolling pin.
She picked out exactly which veggies she wanted..only potatoes and carrots..no asparagus, peppers, broccoli, or celery…
Then she added the white sauce, which she loved and wanted to taste again and again…..
Then she got to roll out more dough and put the top on her little pie….
She was so proud of it when she was done….she couldn’t wait to cook it…..
And then eat it…. and it was finally done and ready to eat…..
And she wouldn’t even look at it..she refused to eat it….okay, she took one little bite and said…yuck! And asked for a banana instead!
